Abstract
Love does not necessarily benefit its object, and cost-free love may damage both object and subject. Our love of animals mobilises several distinct human concerns and should not be considered always as a virtue or always as a benefit to the animals themselves. We need to place this love in its full psychological, cultural, and moral context in order to assess what form it ought to take if animals are to benefit from it.
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Notes
Adapting the celebrated remarks on anger in Nicomachean Ethics, Book IV, Chapter 5.
Among the many affecting accounts of this relationship in the literature, I single out George Pitcher, The Dogs Who Came to Stay (1995), since I knew the dogs and the author.
References
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Scruton, R. Our Love for Animals. Bioethical Inquiry 10, 479–484 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11673-013-9477-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11673-013-9477-0