Children think that pigs are as deserving of kindness as dogs and cats, and as readily condemn cruelty to hamsters as cruelty to other children, a recent study has shown. The moral hierarchy of animals – with humans at the top, followed by pets, farm animals and pests – that governs much of adult thinking is not, it seems, an innate one. Despite being born in 1919, this result would not have surprised the late philosopher Mary Midgley.
When raising her own children, Midgley noticed that infants are brought up in a mixed community. They may grow up among cats, dogs, hamsters, horses and budgerigars, as well as young of their own kind. At the start of their lives – at first on all fours, then standing – their view of the living room is, quite literally, closer to Tabby’s (table legs and the flanks of chairs) than to their parents’.
