beingwhohasbeenhoping,planning,andworkingforsome
futuregoalistodeprivethatbeingofthefulfillment ofall
thoseefforts;totakethelifeofabeingwithamentalcapacity
belowthelevel neededtograspthatone isabeingwitha
future—muchlessmakeplansforthefuture—cannotinvolve
this particular kind of loss.^16
Normallythiswillmeanthatifwehavetochoosebetween
thelifeofahumanbeingandthelifeofanotheranimalwe
shouldchoosetosavethelifeofthehuman;buttheremaybe
special cases in which thereverse holds true,because the
humanbeingin questiondoes nothavethecapacities ofa
normalhumanbeing.Sothisviewisnotspeciesist,although
itmayappeartobeatfirstglance.Thepreference,innormal
cases,forsavingahumanlifeoverthelifeofananimalwhen
a choice has to be made is a preference based on the
characteristicsthatnormalhumanshave,andnotonthemere
factthattheyaremembersofourownspecies.Thisiswhy
whenweconsidermembersofourownspecieswholackthe
characteristicsofnormalhumanswecannolongersaythat
their lives are always to be preferred to those of other
animals. This issue comes up in a practical way in the
followingchapter.Ingeneral,though,thequestionofwhenit
iswrongto kill(painlessly)an animalisoneto which we
needgivenopreciseanswer.Aslongaswerememberthatwe
shouldgivethesamerespectto thelivesofanimalsas we
givetothelivesofthosehumansatasimilarmentallevel,we
shall not go far wrong.^17
Inanycase,theconclusionsthatarearguedforinthisbook
flowfromtheprincipleofminimizingsuffering alone.The
ideathatitisalsowrongtokillanimalspainlesslygivessome
oftheseconclusionsadditionalsupportthatiswelcomebut