I offer a quite different way of looking at animals and our attitudes and responsibilities towards them, by recognizing that just as self-awareness is an awareness of oneself as one among other selves, so is an understanding of human beings an awareness of homo sapiens as one species among others and that the ways in which we differ may be less important than the ways in which we are similar. Many animals, especially the other social mammals, share many of our emotions, attitudes and feelings and we are able not only to relate to them but - in some cases - to have personal relationships with them. I have examined the special relationships of humans with those that I call "partner" animals and I suggest that the different skills and capacities of different species are not an obstacle to the partnership but crucial to it, so that those most like us may not be those closest to us. The ability of these animals to form close social relationships with human beings entails their being concerned not only with our actions but also with our attitudes. This makes it reasonable to ask not only the question "does this creature, like me, have feelings, emotions and intentions?" but also "does this creature recognize me as having feelings, emotions, and intentions?"
In pointing out that partner animals do indeed regard humans in this way, I suggest that this "other-awareness" and the resultant ability to form close relationships with us, constitutes a capacity which is as valid a justification for special moral status as are the more widely accepted criteria of sentience, self-consciousness or language use. There is nothing arbitrary about the choice of dog or horse as a partner; it is just that these species, and a few others - none of them among our "closest relatives" - are able to be our friends. This is something that I have learned from a lifetime spent living and working with animals of many different species. Personal relationships are not something which can be studied in a laboratory. What is true of a dog studied in a laboratory will not be true of a dog who lives with people since partners in a relationship change each other. For this reason, I challenge the validity of the detached approach of those philosophers on both sides of the animals issue whose views are based on a false impression of animal capacities and a limited conception of what is relevant.
