摘要：The theme of the relationship between ethics and science was at the centre of the debate on vivisection t hat took place in Britain in XIX Century. Many prominent feminists, some of them active social reformers, played a major role, both in terms of activism and of theoretical elaboration. They questioned the Victorian faith in science and progress, revealed t he inherent moral weakness of the doctrine of the survival of the fittest and envisioned a world in which the development of human moral capacities was the most important value. Only compassion and revulsion from pain, violence and domination could inform human b e- haviour. Therefore animal advocacy was a natural extension of their feminist principles. Based on an extensive analysis of the writings of Anna King s ford, Mona Caird, Vernon Lee, Loiuse de la Ramée and, above all, Frances Power Cobbe, the paper bri efly reconstructs the terms of the antivivisectionist debate, gives an account of women ' s activism in antivivise c- tionist campaigns and dwells on the themes of feminist theoretical reflection on the relatio n- ship between gender and science, violence against women and violence to animals, on the meaning of h u man progress and on the ways to achieve it
