ABSTRACT
Peter Singer prefaces his groundbreaking treatise Animal Liberation (1975) with an anecdote about a visit he and his wife made to the home of a woman who claimed to love animals, had heard he was writing a book on the subject, and so invited him to tea. Singer’s attitude toward the woman is contemptuous: she had invited a friend who also loved animals and was “keen to meet us. When we arrived our hostess’s friend was already there, and … certainly was keen to talk about animals. ‘I do love animals,’ she began … and she was off. She paused while refreshments were served, took a ham sandwich, and then asked us what pets we had.” 1 Singer’s point is not only to condemn the woman’s hypocrisy in claiming to love animals while she was eating meat but also to dissociate himself from a sentimentalist approach to animal welfare. 192Speaking for his wife as well, he explains: “We were not especially ‘interested in’ animals. Neither of us had ever been inordinately fond of dogs, cats, or horses.… We didn’t ‘love’ animals.… The portrayal of those who protest against cruelty to animals as sentimental, emotional ‘animal lovers’ [has meant] excluding the entire issue … from serious political and moral discussion.” In other words, he fears that to associate the animal rights cause with “womanish” sentiment is to trivialize it. 2
