Scripture analysis
All Living Beings Desire Life
Translation used: Hermann Jacobi public-domain translation; ideas summarised because wording varies
Moral issue: How far should moral concern extend beyond human beings?
Passage
Living beings value life, experience suffering and should not be injured, dominated or destroyed without necessity.
Plain meaning
The teaching asks practitioners to recognise that other living beings seek continued existence and are vulnerable to injury, just as humans are.
Historical context
The Acaranga Sutra preserves early Jain teachings concerning the discipline of ascetics and the avoidance of harm to living beings.
Traditional interpretation
Jain ethics interprets this concern broadly, extending nonviolence to humans, animals, plants and extremely small forms of life.
Ethical problem
Human survival inevitably causes some harm through food production, movement, medicine, sanitation and environmental use. Equal treatment of every form of life is not practically possible.
Reasoned analysis
The capacity to suffer provides a strong reason to include animals within moral consideration. The strongest practical conclusion is not that all harm can be eliminated, but that unnecessary and avoidable harm should be reduced.
Possible conclusions
Humans should minimise avoidable harm to sentient beings, improve food and land-use systems and avoid treating animal suffering as morally irrelevant.