1 The politicization of animal love * Tony Milligan University of Hertfordshire t.milligan@herts.ac.uk The case for animal rights has always been political, typified by a call not just for the recognition of moral rights but for the enactment of legal protection through the political process. However, the explicitness of the theme of the political in recent years constitutes a turn, away from a conception of animal rights as an ethical issue in a restrictive sense. 1 Understandably, opinions differ about just how novel this political turn has been, about just how it can best be understood and about how fruitful it will be as a guide to action. What follows will use the idea of the turn, and an inclusive way of making sense of it, in order to say something about why we should be interested not just in concepts such as justice, civility and citizenship but also in the concept of love. And although my appeal here is only to love, the direction in which the appeal points is towards the need for a more an inclusive attitude towards the emotions. Appeals to the latter, to shame and joy, guilt and love, should be an integral part of the political narratives which we deploy in order support a change in human- * Forthcoming chapter in Elisa Aaltola and John Hadley, Animal Ethics and Philosophy: Questioning the Orthodoxy (London: Rowman and Littlefield, 2015). Earlier versions of the paper were presented at the Cosmopolitan Animals event in London in 2012 and at the MANCEPT workshop on ‘The Political Turn in Animal Rights’ at the University of Manchester in 2013. Thanks for improving comments go to participants in the discussion at both events, and particularly to Steve Cooke, Les Mitchell, Alasdair Cochrane and Rob Garner for helping to clarity my ideas about the ‘turn’ as well as to John Hadley and Elisa Aaltola for more detailed suggestions.