Anthropomorphism and animal welfare revisited: Slater's challenge

Extract

Professor Peter Slater's recent review of the late John S Kennedy's The New Anthropomorphism (Animal Welfare 1993, 2: 187-188) only weakly conveys the nature of Professor Kennedy's strong and sometimes one-sided message concerning the presumed ills of anthropomorphism. Nonetheless, Slater presents a challenge that is more important than his review of Kennedy's book. While Slater is right in believing that Kennedy's ideas will be irritating to some, it should be noted that Kennedy's book will offend not only those who are fans of the careful use of anthropomorphic descriptions and explanations, but also will irritate those who want to see the issues discussed in a more fair, well-argued manner. See also M Ridley's review of this book, Nature 1992, 359: 280. In my view, readers of Animal Welfare should be exposed to some direct quotations from The New Anthropomorphism so that they can make up their own minds concerning some of Kennedy's claims.