Love and Animals

Abstract

Abstract This chapter presents a defense of the depth and appropriateness of love for and by nonhuman animals in the face of attempts to marginalize both. Objections to the very idea of animal love generally appeal to the dangers of anthropomorphism when the dangers of anthropocentrism are at least as great. Or they appeal to the dangers of sentimentality but, in doing so, require love for or by animals to meet standards that our love for one another often fails to meet. The capacity of animals for grief is offered as a decisive, and well-evidenced, consideration that entails the capacity for love. Creatures who grieve must also be capable of love for that which has been lost.

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