Domestic dogs, cats, hamsters or whatever animal you have it’s suggested that we humans should rebrand them as “companion animals” while owners should be known as “human carers”.
Even terms such as wildlife are dismissed as insulting to the animals concerned. Aparently they are wanting to be known as “free-living” acording to an Oxford professor.
The call of the wild comes from the editors of then Journal of Animal Ethics, a new academic publication devoted to the issue. In its first editorial, the journal which condemns the use of terms such as ”critters” and “beasts”. It argues that “derogatory” language about animals can affect the way that they are treated.
Again the word ‘owners’, while technically correct in law basicly takes us back to a previous age when animals were regarded as just that: property, machines or things to use without moral constraint.”
It goes on: “We invite authors to use the words ‘free-living’, ‘free-ranging’ or ‘free-roaming’ rather than ‘wild animals’
Phrases such as “sly as a fox, “eat like a pig” or “drunk as a skunk” are all unfair to animals, they claim.
“We shall not be able to think clearly unless we discipline ourselves to use less than partial adjectives in our exploration of animals and our moral relations with them,” they say.
