J. Howard Moore vs. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Side-by-side comparison of two thinkers
J. Howard Moore
1862 – 1916
John Howard Moore was an American zoologist, philosopher, educator, and social reformer. He is best known for his advocacy of ethical vegetarianism and his pioneering role in the animal rights movement, both informed by his ethical interpretation of Darwin's theory of evolution. Moore's most influential work, The Universal Kinship (1906), outlined a sentientist philosophy he termed the doctrine of Universal Kinship, arguing that ethical regard for animals—rooted in the Golden Rule—is essential to human moral progress. He urged the extension of moral concern to all sentient beings, based on their shared evolutionary and psychological continuity with humans.
"The twofold function of individual culture is so to develop beings that they shall be able to perceive their proper relations to the rest of the uiniverse, to t…"
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1803 – 1882
Ralph Waldo Emerson, who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, minister, abolitionist, and poet who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and critical thinking, as well as a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society and conformity. Friedrich Nietzsche thought he was "the most gifted of the Americans," and Walt Whitman called Emerson his "master".
"He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues …"
Connections
Both wrote about: