Animal Rights and Human Progress:

Aspects of the History of Animal Rights Concepts,

with Special Regard to Their Links with the Ideas ofNon-violence and the

Peace Movement.

AHIMSA

Buddha(~ 560 – 480 B.C.):“All creatures shall be happy.”

Mahavira (died in 477 or 467 B.C., founder of Jainism)“No violence against man, animal, plant.”

ReincarnationPythagoras (~ 560 – 480 B.C.) and scholars

Empedokles (~ 483 – 420 B.C.)

Killing animals for sacrifice is disgusting,probably cannibalism (reincarnation).

Respect and compassionfor animals is fundamental.

Relationship

Theophrast (~ 372 – 287 B.C.),

scholar and friend of Aristotle:

“Animals are mens’ relatives (oikeiotes)

similar in sensations, affects, feelings

and even reasonings (logismoi),

they can be treated justly or unjustly by man,

killing them is unjustly.”

Natural RightUlpian (170 – 228)

„Jus naturale est, quod natura omniaanimalia docuit; nam ius istud non solumhumani generis proprium, sed omniumanimalium, quae in terra, quae in marinascuntur, avium quoque commune est.“

(„The Natural Right is that which nature has taughtall living beings that exist in the air, on the land orin the water.“)

Positive Law

Augustinus Leyser (1683 – 1752)

First demand for animals to be consideredin the positive law.

Animal cruelty is forbidden in the Godly law, but not in the positive law.

Demands for Penal Reforms/ Against Death

Punishment/ Sensibility for Men and Animals

1764 Cesare Beccaria, On crimes and punishments.

Karl Ferdinand Hommel (1722-1781)

(“The German Beccaria”)

Animal cruelty was penally sanctioned 1765/66

Against “Compassionate Sensibility”

Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804):

Confirming Death Punishment

Animals have no Rights

Against a “Compassionate Empfindelei”

Opponents: David Hume, Jeremy Bentham, Lauritz Smith, J. G. Herder

VegetarianismEduard Balzer, Free Church Minister, Revolutionary of 1848, Founder of the first Vegetarian Society in Germany 1867

Gustav von Struve, Lawyer, Revolutionary of 1848liberal politician, fighter in the Badenian liberty war together with his wife author of the article “Rights of Man” in the Rotteck-Welcker DictionaryAuthor of the vegetarian novel “Mandaras Wanderung” (Mandaras journey),founder of the Vegetarian Society Stuttgart 1868

Peace and non violence“As long as there are

slaughterhouses there will be battlefields”

Magnus Schwantje Johannes Ude

Bertha von Suttner Walter Hammer

Hans Paasche Leonard Nelson

Ludwig Quidde Clara Wichmann

Magnus Schwantje (1877 – 1959)

1907 “Society for the Empowerment of Animal Protection and Related Issues”

1912 – 1915 Monthly Review “Ethische Rundschau”

1919 - 1934 “Federation for Radical Ethics”

Sept. 1933 Columbia House, Flight to Switzerland

Reverence for lifeSchwantje 1902

Animal Protection/ Antivivisection/ VegetarianismPeace/ War Resistance/ Non-Violence/ English-German Understanding/ Against AntisemitismPunishment Law Reform/ Against Death PunishmentChild Protection and Youth Protection Sexual Morals/ Women’s Issues/ Women’s VoteAntialcoholism/ Housing and Living/ School Reform/ Freedom of Arts/ Against Debasing Handicapped PersonsProtection of Nature

Authors of the “Ethische Rundschau

Friedrich Bloh

Richard Feldhaus

Friedrich Wilhelm Förster

Pfr. H. Franke

Alfred Hermann Fried

Ludwig Gurlitt

Walter von Gizycki

Lida Gustava Heymann

Leopold Katscher

Hans Paasche

Adolf Richter

Fritz Röttcher

Sister Adele Schreiber

Walter Schücking

Rosina Schwimmer

Hans Wehberg

Alix Westerkamp

Otto Umfried

Some Donators and Supporters of “Ethische Rundschau”

Emil Julius Gumbel

Ludwig and Margarethe Quidde

Theodor Lessing

Paul Geheeb

Hans Paasche

Peace Societies of several towns

Magnus SchwantjePeace Activities:

Peace editions of the “Ethical Review”

“God bless all peoples”

1919 Cofounder of Federation of Opponents to Military Service (Bund der Kriegsdienstgegner - BdK)

Member of the DFK (Deutsches Friedenskartell)

Publications (“The Right to Apply Violence”)

Ludwig Quidde(1858 – 1941)

1893 DVP/ Essay on militarism

1894 Caligula

1896 Founder of a Society for Animal Protection and Against Vivisection

1898 Essay concerning vivisection

1909 (or earlier) World Federation for the Protection of Animals and Against Vivisection

1912 (Zürich) – 1925 (Paris) Leading functions in Congresses of the Federation

1927 Nobel Prize for Peace

Hans Paasche (1881-1920)

1908 Paasche left the German Army

1912-1917 Writings in “Vortrupp” against Animal Cruelty, especially films about hunting and bird-protection

1917 Imprisoned because of “High Treason”

1919 Cofounder of the “Bund Neues Vaterland”, friend of Magnus Schwantje

1920 Murdered by Free-Corps

Leonard Nelson (1882-1927)

Animal do have rights! (Kant confounds subject/ object of rights)Unity of Oppression of men and animalsSocialism has to include animals1917 Founder of the “International Youth Federation”, later “Federation for Internationalist Socialist Struggle”, and “Landerziehungsheim Walkemühle” with vegetarian lifestyle.

Clara Wichmann (1885-1922)

1913 Lawyer1914 Central Office of Statistics Den HaagUntil 1917 Chair of the Society for Women’s Right to Vote1917 -1917 “Bond van Christen-Socialisten”1919 “Bond van Revolutionnair Socialistische Intellectueelen”1920 “Bond van Religieuze Anarcho-Communisten”

Clara Wichmann

1919 Oprichtingsmanifest van het comite van actie tegen de bestaande opvattingen omtrent misdaad en straf (C.M.S.)

1919 Anti-militarisme en geweld

1920 Over de beteekenis van het middel voor het doel

1920 De rechtspositie der huisdieren.

Clara Wichmann

“…het gaat om een grondige en innerlijke omzetting van der menschen verhouding tot de dieren. Om een om-wenteling van die oude gewoonte, de dieren te beschouwen als een zaak, aan Adam gegeven opdat hij er profijt en gemak van hebben zou.”