Cruelty to Animals and Human Violence | 153 of right Nonetheless, Rawls argued, we may well conclude that we have moral obligations to feel compassion toward animals Thus we might consider ourselves morally obligated to treat animals humanely, but considerations of fairness would not form part of the basis for such humane treatment Strong proponents of cosmic justice reject Plutarch’s and Rawls’s reasoning, and argue that considerations of fairness demand that we extend equal consideration to the interests of humans and animals alike, and perhaps to nonsentient living beings as well Further Reading Bekoff, Marc 2002 Minding animals: Awareness, emotions, and heart Oxford: Oxford University Press Carruthers, Peter 1992 The animals issue: Moral theory in practice Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Kohak, Erazim 1984 The embers and the stars: A philosophical inquiry into the moral sense of nature Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press Hargrove, Eugene C (ed.) 1992 The animal rights/environmental ethics debate Albany: State University of New York Press Rolston III, Holmes 1994 Conserving natural value New York: Columbia University Press Rowlands, Mark 2002 Animals like us London/New York: Verso Steiner, Gary 2005 Anthropocentrism and its discontents: The moral status of animals in the history of Western philosophy Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press Steiner, Gary 2008 Animals and the moral community: Mental life, moral status, and kinship New York: Columbia University Press Taylor, Paul W 1986 Respect for nature: A theory of environmental ethics Princeton: Princeton University Press Wenz, Peter S 1988 Environmental justice: Albany: State University of New York Press Gary Steiner CRUELTY TO ANIMALS AND HUMAN VIOLENCE The belief that one’s treatment of animals is closely associated with the treatment of fellow humans has a long history, but despite the popular acceptance of this concept, until recently there have been few attempts to systematically study the relationship between the treatment of animals and humans In the early 1900s, case studies by Krafft-Ebbing and Ferenczi began to explore sadistic behavior toward animals associated with other forms of cruelty However, single case histories not provide much insight into the origins of animal abuse and its connections to other violent behavior In 1966, Hellman and Blackman published one of the first formal studies of animal cruelty and violence Their analysis of the life histories of 84 prison inmates showed that 75 percent of those charged with violent crimes had an early history of cruelty to animals, fire setting, and persistent bed wetting Several subsequent studies looked for this triad of symptoms in other violent criminals, with mixed results Later research found that these three behaviors by themselves not necessarily predict future violence, unless the animal abuse is particularly aggressive and includes some or all of the following features: •The child is directly involved in the perpetration of the animal abuse, not just a witness •The child is impulsive and shows no remorse following the abuse •The child engages in a variety of acts and victimizes different species •The child is cruel to valued animals, such as dogs