Law and Animals | 353 of Laboratory Animals, a combination of ethical standards and expert guidance on ways to minimize pain and distress Ultimately, no law and no committee can see everything everywhere at all times, and so the personal, ethical responsibility of the scientists, veterinarians, and students working with animals is the main determinant of animal welfare Further Reading Carbone, L (2004) What animals want: Expertise and advocacy in laboratory animal welfare policy New York: Oxford University Press Institute of Laboratory Animal Resources (1996) Guide for the care and use of laboratory animals Washington, DC: National Academy Press Orlans, F B (1993) In the Name of science: Issues in responsible animal experimentation New York: Oxford University Press Rowan, A N (1984) Of mice, models, and men: A critical evaluation of animal research Albany: State University of New York Press Russell, W.M.S., & R L Burch (1959) The principles of humane experimental technique London: Methuen & Co., Ltd Stevens, C (1990) “Laboratory animal welfare.” In Animals and their legal rights, 66–105 Washington, DC: Animal Welfare Institute Larry Carbone LAW AND ANIMALS Until the 19th century, at least as far as the Western tradition is concerned, nonhumans were excluded completely from the moral and legal community Humans could use animals for whatever purpose we wanted and inflict pain and suffering on them pursuant to those uses without violating any obligations we owed to them That is, nonhumans were regarded as things that were indistinguish- able from inanimate objects, and toward which we thus could have no moral or legal obligations To the extent that the cruel treatment of animals was thought to raise a moral issue, it was only because of a concern that humans who abused animals were more likely to ill-treat other humans The moral obligation concerned animals, but was really owed to other humans Similarly, to the extent that the law provided any protection for animals, that protection was almost exclusively incidental to the animal being the property of another Judicial condemnation of animal cruelty, with rare exception, reflected the moral concern that gratuitous cruelty to animals would translate into cruelty to other humans, or that acts of cruelty to animals might offend public decency and cause a breach of the peace This exclusion of animals from the moral community and denial of direct legal protection was justified on the ground that nonhumans were the spiritual inferiors of humans, were not made in God’s image, and lacked a soul, or on the ground that animals were natural inferiors and lacked certain cognitive characteristics thought to be uniquely human, such as the ability to use symbolic communication or abstract concepts, or engage in reasoning or reciprocal moral relationships, or some combination of spiritual or natural inferiority The paradigm ostensibly shifted in the 19th century as social progressives, many of whom also opposed human slavery and supported greater equality for women, maintained that any differences between humans and nonhumans did not serve to justify the treatment of animals as things For example, moral philosopher and legal reformer Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) maintained that animals had been degraded into the