Michael P. T. Leahy

Michael Paul Tutton Leahy (30 December 1934 – 7 May 2007) was an English conservative philosopher and opponent of animal rights and vegetarianism.

Biography

Leahy was born in Westminster. He was educated Salesian College in Battersea and Trinity College, Dublin. After he graduated he studied at Cornell University and Penn State University. He was as assistant lecturer in philosophy at Durham University during 1965–1968 and a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Kent where he became a senior lecturer in 1976.

Criticism of animal rights

Leahy held the view that animals do not have moral rights and that humans tend to anthropomorphise animals by giving them cognitive and emotional capacities which they do not possess. He firmly rejected the idea that non-human animals deserve equal moral consideration.

Leahy's book Against Liberation, first published in 1991 and republished in 1993 was one of the first lengthy books to attack animal rights. The book was subjected to a fierce hate campaign from animal rights activists. Leahy has been described as "one of a group of right-wing philosophers who challenged the left-liberal consensus, and his opposition to animal rights inevitably excited the anger of campaigners." The Liberation Debate (with Dan Cohn-Sherbok, 1996)