Why and how do people campaign on behalf of a species that is not their own? Responses to this question provide important insights into the much misunderstood animal rights movement and the people in it who challenge the moral orthodoxy that underpins our attitudes towards nonhuman animals. The norm of moderate concern for animals - that animals matter albeit less than humans - permits the (ab)use of animals in vivisection, factory farming ,bloodsports and other contexts where animals suffer.Social movement theory is used to show how animal rights activists are engaged in the social construction of cruelty as a social problem which they seek to prevent by their intellectual, practical and emotion work in seminal campaigns against cruelty in the United States, England and Australia.