ABSTRACT
Descriptions and explanations of animal behavior that include affective, emotional and motivational elements could be put to good use by students, farmers, veterinarians, animal caretakers and others. This means that ethological studies need to be framed in a broader dimension that encompasses the feeling-states of animals in identifiable human terms of emotional experience and reaction. The denial of emotionality in animals is as much a reflection of our own emotional condition as it is a product of many cultural influences that will be shortly explored. The scientific method is not the only reason why nonhuman animals are too often objectified and "mechanomorphized" by scientists and others. Linguistic, cognitive and perceptual sets, like habit-fixations and obsessive compulsions, are difficult to break when the individual is set in an objectifying mode and cannot see the world from a different perspective. Sympathetic concern for animals is often judged, sometimes correctly, as being a sentimental, anthropomorphic projection.
