Thomas More makes an argument against the enjoyment of cruelty inflicted upon animals on the ground that it creates a cruel disposition in humans:
***** What pleasure can there be in listening to the barking and yelping of dogs -- isn't that rather a disgusting noise? Is there any more real pleasure when a dog chases a rabbit than when a dog chases a dog? If what you like is fast running, there's plenty of that in both cases; they're just about the same. But if what you really want is slaughter, if you want to see a living creature torn apart under your eyes, then the whole thing is wrong. You ought to feel nothing but pity when you see the hare fleeing from the hound, the weak creature tormented by the stronger, the fearful and timid beast brutalized by the savage one, the harmless hare killed by the cruel hound. The Utopians, who regard this whole activity of hunting as unworthy of free men, have accordingly assigned it to their butchers, who, as I said before, are all slaves. In their eyes, hunting is the lowest thing even butchers can do. In the slaughterhouse, their work is more useful and honest, since there they kill animals only out of necessity; whereas the hunter seeks nothing but his own pleasure from killing and mutilating some poor little creature. Taking such relish in the sight of death, even if only of beasts, reveals, in the opinion of the Utopians, a cruel disposition. Or if he isn't cruel to start with, the hunter eventually becomes so through the constant practice of such brutal pleasures. (Thomas More, _Utopia_, Book II) *****
On one hand, it seems plausible that inflicting pain on animals unnecessarily & taking pleasure in it may create a cruel disposition. More employs the same argument to criticize the standing army in _Utopia_. On the other hand, it is only in a highly urbanized & industrialized society where hardly anyone engages in agriculture nor battles the forces of nature every day that some people come up with the idea of animals endowed with "rights." The very idea of "animal rights" conveys how far we are estranged from intimacy with & struggles against animals. My maternal grandparents were farmers, and they had lots of animals around them. They had a horse, a cow, lots of chickens, & some rabbits on their farm. My grandma could dress and clean a chicken in no time! While she took good care of her animals, the idea of "animal rights" would have been totally alien to her.
Whenever I show _Roger & Me_ to students, most of them get shocked by the sight of Rhonda Britton butchering a rabbit on camera. Some of them think that she is out of her mind, since on screen she looks cheerfully matter-of-fact while skinning & gutting the rabbit. And they aren't even vegetarians! The same students who get disgusted by the graphic demonstration of how to dress a rabbit, however, don't necessarily show the same degree of sympathy toward, much less solidarity with, laid-off workers. There's something wrong here. In America, sympathy toward animals is more highly developed than sympathy toward human beings.
Yoshie