Commenting on the frequency with which I post pictures of my rats on social media, someone recently asked me, “I have never quite understood: are the rats just pets, or do they serve an additional purpose?” While my rats are not “just pets,” how would I characterize my relationship with these intelligent, lively individuals? How do I think about the meaning of the emotional labour they provide, the control I exercise over their daily opportunities, and the joy I find in interacting with them? The collection Pets and People, edited by Christine Overall, encourages me to examine my assumed values and practices as a “pet owner” philosophically.

Pets and People provides a broad overview of ethical issues with companion animals, though it focuses primarily on cats and dogs (horses, birds, and rodents get fleeting mention). Many essays exhibit cutting-edge research in animal ethics, such as questions around working animals. These essays also serve as introductions to various topics in animal ethics. Given the relative brevity of each contribution, Pets and People offers interested scholars an entry point into particular debates. Given its scope, this collection provides an excellent resource for instructors who may want to incorporate animal philosophy into their teaching.

Part 1 (Chapters 1 through 7) examines the nature of and ethical foundations for human-non-human animal companion relationships, and Part 2 (Chapters 8 through 18) confronts ethical challenges that arise from these relationships.

There are three interrelated patterns that appear across Pets and People. First, despite the subtitle, Pets and People is representative of the “political turn” in animal ethics.^{Footnote 1} Second, as indicated by the title, is a relational approach to ethics. Third, these essays implicitly suggest that animal philosophy cannot develop in isolation from other areas of philosophy. The prominence of these patterns suggests the influence of Jean Harvey’s “Companion and Assistance Animals: Benefits, Welfare Safeguards, and Relationships,” published in 2008 in the International Journal of Applied Philosophy. As the only previously-published essay in the collection, it serves as the volume’s opening chapter, and as either a launching or reference point for many contributions.

With respect to the first theme, human social and political communities are extended to include companion animals. Some contributions, such as Zipporah Weisberg’s chapter on canine therapy workers, take an interspecies political community as an explicit beginning point. Other contributions illuminate how private relationships between humans and animals have social or political implications. Kathryn Norlock’s essay on dependency relations is a good example. Drawing from Harvey and from Eva Kittay’s political theory of care, Norlock argues that even people who choose not to live with pets are in relation to them via our shared space/communities. For example, animal overpopulation impacts human groups. Further, people without pets are socially connected to people who provide care to animals. Thus, the moral-political community, including people without pets, has obligations to support people and institutions that provide care to animals.

With respect to the second theme, most chapters incorporate a relational approach. For some, relational theory provides an avenue to supplement welfarist or rights-based approaches, which have generally been taken to dominate animal ethics. For example, Gary Varner examines relationships through a “two-level” utilitarian perspective, and Katherine Wayne employs a relational animal rights framework in delineating when interfering with a pet’s reproductive ability is permissible. Other chapters work outside of welfarism or rights theories. For example, both Maurice Hamington’s and Antonio Calcagno’s chapters look at embodiment in relation to care and empathy, respectively.

Third, Pets and People offers an implicit argument that animal ethics should not be siloed from other areas of philosophical inquiry. Consider Chloë Taylor’s analysis of the patriarchal underpinnings of zoophilia. If Taylor is correct that defences of human-canine sexual relations implicitly appeal to a hegemonic white masculinity, then a full analysis of rape culture requires attention to animality. In other words, our conceptual analysis is impoverished when animals are excluded from ethical and political analysis.

Pets and People challenges commonly held assumptions about our treatment of animals (or, at least, cats and dogs). The essays are accessible philosophical conversations for non-specialists and of a length that makes them good candidates for teaching. However, this benefit involves a trade off, as these essays often skim the surface of complex issues. For example, John Rossi’s critique of pedigree breeding does not address breeding for working dogs. Although working dogs are bred for specific traits, the health of the breed (an issue prominent in Rossi’s critique) is usually better maintained by breeders.^{Footnote 2} How would Rossi’s arguments fare when considering working dogs? It may be that Pets and People succeeds best at offering philosophical conversation starters rather than comprehensive analyses of ethical issues. Once assumptions have been challenged, the reader is pushed to develop or challenge these arguments further.

Some topics discussed would benefit from more interdisciplinary engagement, especially with behaviour science. Bernard Rollin’s chapter on how animal companions exhibit moral behaviour proceeds largely through a personal narrative. Although Rollin cites prominent animal behaviour scientists, the discussion would be strengthened if the chapter were paired with an article that engaged animal science more deeply. For another example, Tony Milligan’s contribution on dog training reviews popular science literature on training techniques. I found myself asking empirical questions the essay did not address; it would be interesting to bring dog cognition science and the sociological literature on working animals into this discussion.

Even with these small quibbles, for the questions raised in Pets and People, as well as the questions I am left asking, this book is worth a read.