The controversy over the killing of animals in the Chinese markets of San
Francisco’s Chinatown illustrates how most Americans’ views toward animals
have changed in the last two centuries. Until the early 1800s, animals were
viewed mostly as unfeeling property whose sole purpose in life was to benefit
humans by providing needed food, labor, and clothing. At the end of the twentieth
century, many Americans have come to believe that animals are capable of
experiencing pain and suffering and that humans should do all they can to protect
them, whether that means not eating or hunting them, wearing their fur, using
them in experiments, or exploiting them for their labor or companionship