Evidence for empathy-like responses in diverse animal species strengthens the case for their welfare consideration and challenges assumptions about the uniqueness of human moral concern.
Animal empathy research has revealed that the capacity to respond to others' suffering is not uniquely human. Across species from mice to elephants, animals show behavioral responses to others' distress that parallel human empathy in function if not necessarily in subjective experience. These findings have profound welfare implications — an animal capable of empathy may experience both its own suffering and distress at witnessing others' suffering, multiplying the welfare implications of group housing conditions where some animals suffer visibly. Understanding animal empathy also provides strong counter-evidence to dismissals of animal inner lives as mere reflex responses.