Introduction Consider the following example.
Simon's only reason for torturing the dog is that he derives pleasure from this sort of activity. My guess is that if any of us went to the busiest street corner where we lived and asked the first 250 people who passed by how they would respond to this question, at least 249 of them would think it a very stupid question and would have absolutely no hesitation in maintaining blowtorching a dog simply for fun is not a morally justifiable act and that Simon should be arrested, punished criminally, and perhaps sent to a penal institution for a while. We might very well rest our moral objection to Simon's action in part on our concern for the effect of his action on other humans, but that would not be our primary reason for objecting. After all, we would still condemn the action even if Simon tortured the animal in secret so that no one else knew that he was doing it. Likewise, we would object to Simon's action even if apart from his appetite for torturing dogs, Simon were an otherwise charming and kind human being who went out of his way to be nice to all other humans.