Anthropomorphism or Anthropocentrism

In response to Andrew - full post here

While I think it is true that humans and non-human animals do not have the same rights, I am not sure how much I agree with the describing the comparison of humans and non-human animals as anthropomorphism. It's true that it seems, on its face, that we are taking animals and comparing them to humans; in a way that is precisely what we are doing.

Still, and put more clearly, what we are actually doing is recognizing the characteristics that humans and non-human animals share. Evolution is a process, and as such, we find elements of certain traits in less evolved animals. I suppose we could say that humans have (slightly more evolved) non-human animal traits.

It's not fair to say pigs are like humans because they are curious, but it is fair to say pigs and humans share, in some way, the trait that is curiosity. The truth is that animals are similar, and it would be some sort of intellectually neglectful and dishonest to not recognize those similarities and the importance that those similarities have.

It seems that the Animal Agricultural Alliance, through calling this comparison anthropomorphism, is actually demonstrating anthropocentrism of a sort.