Moore, J. Howard (1862-1916)

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

J. Howard Moore was born on 4 December 1862 near Rockville, Indiana. Moore is a cantankerous writer who takes issue with nearly everyone: fellow humans (he claims never to have met a “civilised” human being); Christians, Jews, and Muslims for spreading anthropocentrism; meat-eaters (obviously); wearers of fur, leather, feathers, wool; the less “civilised” races (generally speaking, Indigenous peoples) whom he considers barbarian (though, for Moore, “savage” does not mean “uncivilised,” but prehistoric humans); and Spaniards. That said, his argument in Universal Kinship is precisely that: a relationalist based, anti-speciesist argument in favor of treating all living beings equally, because they can suffer and they want to live, just as humans do. He argues that everything in the universe is connected and is in a process of evolution. He does claim that mankind is the most highly evolved of all animals but that status does not, he argues, give humans the right to abuse other beings for pleasure, sport, food, industry, agriculture, or any other purpose. He frequently references socialism and links the exploitation of workers and the “lackeys” of the aristocracy to the exploitation of nonhuman beings for agriculture and food. In this way, Moore also links war and blood sports to anthropocentrism, arguing that if humans are eating, they are fighting, or watching other beings fight. A veg*n diet is, he claims, a thinkers’ diet (in New Ethics), citingTolstoy, Plutarch, and Pythagorus. He promoted Temperance and was well known for his lectures in support of Prohibition. He died on 17 June 1916 at Wooded Island, Jackson Park, Chicago.

IMAGE: Gibson, Sykes & Fowler, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

 

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