If I were making a world and could arrange it as I wanted to, only humanitarians would be allowed to practice vivisection. Only those would be allowe… - J. Howard Moore

At times Moore strikes contemporary ethicists as rather ridiculous, arguing, for instance, against meat-eating even by wild animals. It is likely that Moore's ardent vegetarianism contributed to this attitude.

Oh, universe! Pitiful spectacle! Aggregation of tragedy, somnambulism, inhumanity, terrorism, and death! It makes one long to seal up his sensibilities and leap out into the gulfs and be swallowed up. The handiwork of an all-wise biophilist? Rhapsody of an idiot! Gods? No! The monstrous kindergarten of an idle-pated knave! A Satanic prank! The surreptitious handiwork of an ass! A universe is, indeed, to be pitied whose dominating inhabitants are so unconscious and so ethically embryonic that they make life a commodity, mercy a disease, and systematic massacre a pastime and a profession.

Wherever Buddhism prevails, there will be found in greater or less purity, as one of the cardinal principles of its founder, the doctrine of the sacredness of all Sentient Life.