Abstract

The paper is a critical reconstruction of the Michael P. T. Leahy’s argumentation as presented in his Against Liberation. Putting Animals in Perspective. According to Leahy, animals – in contrast to linguistically self-conscious people – are ontologically lower forms of being which may, for this reason, be freely used by man within currently existing social practices. Leahy supports his position by exploring psychological concepts formulated by Ludwig Wittgenstein who was criticized by philosophical advocates of “animal liberation” for making linguistic competence an essential condition of sentience. I agree with Leahy that at least some of these accusations against Wittgenstein are unfounded. Simultaneously, however, I argue that Leahy’s employment of Wittgenstein in defence of his own position is not fully consistent. In this context I claim that Leahy is both unreliable and excessively sanguine in his description of contemporary forms of animal exploitation and animal suffering related to it. Key words ETHICS, ANIMAL, LEAHY, WITTGENSTEIN