Loving Beyond the Human: Anthropocentric and Anthropomorphic Values in the Loving and Hating of Nonhuman Animals

I offer an account of the centrality of values to moral experience and the ways in which value disorder characterizes our relationships with nonhuman animals. To do this, I first provide an account of Max Scheler’s phenomenology of values, including the hierarchy of values, and loving and hating as value orientations. Drawing on this account, I map out two value orientations specific to our relationships with animals—anthropocentrism and anthropomorphism. Within these two value orientations, I detail three specific forms of valuation—gustatory, cosmetic, and anthropomorphic substitution—which demonstrate the ways in which people’s naïve love for the nonhuman animal is often, phenomenologically, a hating of the nonhuman as the necessarily other than human. I argue that valuing nonhuman animals as nonhuman, vital individuals is central to correcting these persistent and pervasive value disorders that prevent us from genuine love and moral consideration of the nonhuman.