Animal Welfare

Michael Appleby, Anna Olsson, Francisco Galindo, Michael Appleby, Anna Olsson, Francisco Galindo

• Editore: CAB International
• Anno: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781786390226
• Edizione: 3
• Argomento: Medicina
• Categoria: Medicina veterinaria

Updated and revised, this bestselling textbook continues to provide a broad introduction to the key topics in the welfare of animals both large and small, farm and companion, wild and zoo. It retains all the popular features of the previous editions with coverage of key issues such as ethics, animal pain and injury, health and disease, social conditions, and welfare dilemmas and problems. Importantly, it also offers practical advice for welfare assessment, with a full section dedicated to the implementation of solutions. The third edition: - Contains many more examples of welfare issues in different countries, particularly the implications for smallholders as well as larger scale agriculture- Covers fish welfare as well as welfare of amphibians, reptiles and invertebrates- Includes concepts of positive emotion and other positive aspects of welfare- Focuses on animal welfare and sustainability - Includes an integrated ebook with additional material and videosWith contributions from renowned international experts and a new editorial team, Animal Welfare, 3rd Edition is an essential resource for students and researchers in animal and veterinary sciences and other disciplines considering the science and practice of animal welfare, and for practitioners and decision-makers worldwide.

Part
I

Issues

1 Animal Ethics

Clare Palmer and Peter Sandøe

Abstract

This chapter describes and discusses different views of our moral responsibilities towards animals. First, we explain the importance of reasoning about animal ethics, rather than relying on feelings and intuitions alone. Second, we present and discuss different ethical views regarding animals. We consider: contractarianism; utilitarianism; animal rights approaches; different forms of contextual ethical views; and views that focus on the value of species and naturalness. Finally, we briefly consider whether it is possible to combine elements from these differing views, and how to decide which approach to adopt.

1.1 Introduction: The Need to Give Reasons for One’s Ethical Views

This chapter describes and discusses different views about what is right and what is wrong in our interactions with animals. Questions of right or wrong are not factual, even though they may, to some extent, hinge on factual issues. Therefore, they cannot be settled by the same methods as those used in biology and other natural sciences. Some readers of this chapter may even wonder whether ethical issues can be settled at all; rather, they may think that such issues are matters purely of feeling or taste.

This book discusses animal welfare with a clear focus on factual issues about animals’ responses to their use and treatment by humans. Until recently, ethics was seen as something that should be kept at arm’s length from the fact-oriented, science-based study of animal welfare. Only once the facts were established would it be thought appropriate to discuss, from an ethical perspective, where to draw the line between what is acceptable and what is not.

But the link between factual knowledge and sound ethical judgement is not that simple – often, study of the facts relies on tacit ethical judgements. For example, examining the welfare consequences of farm animal housing proceeds on the assumption that it is acceptable to use animals for food production, as long as the animals do not suffer from bad welfare. And assessments of animal welfare rely on assumptions regarding what matters, ethically speaking, about animals and our dealings with them. Is the goal to avoid pain and other forms of suffering? Is it to allow or create pleasure and other positive emotions? Or is it to permit animals to live natural lives? And where should we draw the line between the acceptable and unacceptable use of animals? To be able to deal with such questions and to justify the tacit judgements underlying studies of animal welfare, we need not only to know the facts but also to address ethical concerns.

This chapter focuses on important existing responses to the last of these questions; that is, regarding the acceptable and unacceptable use of animals (other questions concerning the definition of animal welfare will be addressed in Chapter 2, this volume). We will consider a number of sub-questions, including: Do animals have moral standing in their own right? If so, on what would this judgement be based? And what moral responsibilities do we have towards animals? Do we have different moral responsibilities towards animals in different contexts? Do we have responsibilities to individual animals only, or also to species of animals?

We do not attempt here to defend particular answers to these questions. Rather, we take a pluralist approach, presenting divergent ethical views, each with variant forms, and arguing for different responses. Although we (the authors of this chapter) have our own views, we have tried to present the arguments in a balanced way (though we may not always have succeeded in concealing our sympathies). We encourage the reader to consider the strengths and drawbacks of each view, and to come to his or her own conclusions.

However, we do maintain the importance of adopting a reasoned approach to animal ethics, rather than one based on feelings and intuitions alone. Reliance on feelings alone makes it difficult to enter ethical debate, and to explain why particular attitudes or practices might be either ethically problematic or ethically desirable. For animal professionals to be taken seriously, they need to be able to show that they comprehend the nature of disagreements about animal ethics, and to give coherent explanations for their own moral judgements.

So, what are moral judgements? They do not seem to be just statements of personal taste. The philosopher James Rachels suggests:

If someone says ‘I like coffee,’ he does not need to have a reason – he is merely making a statement about himself, and nothing more. There is no such thing as ‘rationally defending’ one’s like or dislike of coffee, and so there is no arguing about it. So long as he is accurately reporting his tastes, what he says must be true. Moreover, there is no implication that anyone should feel the same way; if everyone else in the world hates coffee, it doesn’t matter. On the other hand, if someone says that something is morally wrong, he does need reasons, and if his reasons are sound, other people must acknowledge their force.

(Rachels, 1993, p. 10, emphasis in original)

Here, Rachels highlights the importance of giving reasons to justify our ethical views. And we normally think that providing reasons also creates a requirement of consistency: if something provides a moral reason in one case, it should also count as a reason in other, similar cases. We can see this process of reasoning by appeal to consistency in the following famous passage, first published in 1789, where Jeremy Bentham argues that animals ought to be protected by the law:

The day may come, when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny. The French have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor. It may come one day to be recognized that the number of the legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum, are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or, perhaps, the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversible animal, than an infant of a day, or a week, or even a month, old. But suppose the case were otherwise what would it avail? The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?

(Bentham, 1789, pp. 25–26)

Bentham asks the reader to consider on what grounds legal rights (for instance, legal protection against torture) are assigned to people. We now accept that factors such as skin colour are irrelevant to the possession of basic legal rights. But what, then, is the relevant factor? One possible answer, Bentham suggests, is the ability to reason and to use language. So, it might be suggested that reason and language provide a basis for separating humans and animals, and for assigning legal rights to humans, and not to animals. But Bentham raises questions about this kind of response. First: why think that reason and language are relevant to the generation of legal rights (any more than, say, skin colour)? Second: some animals do appear to have reasoning abilities. And third: some animals are at least as reasonable as some people – as human infants, or those who have severe mental disabilities – so reason and language do not provide the suggested firm dividing line between all people and all animals.

Bentham makes us consider whether it is possible to argue consistently that all humans should be treated in one way, and all animals in another. The first of the views presented below maintains that we can, indeed, consistently distinguish morally between animals and humans.

1.2 Differing Views about Humanity’s Duties to Animals

Moral philosophers distinguish different types of ethical views (often termed ‘ethical theories’), and, in principle, any of these might underlie a person’s views about the acceptable use of animals. Here, we will present a number of contrasting but prominent positions: contractarianism; utilitarianism; animal rights approaches; different forms of contextual ethical views; and views that focus on the value of species and naturalness. Which view is adopted has direct implications for the ongoing debate over whether, when and how we should use animals.

1.2.1 Contractarianism

Why be moral? This is a central question in moral philosophy, and one to which the contractarian gives a straightforward answer: you should be moral because, ultimately, it is in your self-interest. Showing consideration to others is really for your own sake. Moral rules are conventions that best serve the self-interest of all members of a society.

Contractarian morality, as defined here, applies only to individuals who can ‘contract in’ to the moral community, so it is important to define who these members are. The philosopher Narveson puts this as follows:

On the contract view of morality, morality is a sort of agreement among rational, independent, self-interested persons, persons who have something to gain from entering into such an agreement … A major feature of this view of morality is that it explains why we have it and who is party to it. We have it for reasons of long-term self-interest, and parties to it include all and only those who have both of the following characteristics: 1) they stand to gain by subscribing to it, at least in the long run, compared with not doing so, and 2) they are capable of entering into (and keeping) an agreement … Given these requirements, it will be clear why animals do not have rights. For there are evident shortcomings on both scores. On the one hand, humans have nothing generally to gain by voluntarily refraining from (for instance) killing animals or ‘treating them as mere means’. And on the other, animals cannot generally make agreements with us anyway, even if we wanted to have them do so.

(Narveson, 1983, p. 56)

On this view, since humans do not stand to gain from contracting with animals, and animals cannot themselves make contracts or show reciprocal respect to people, they cannot join the moral community, and people only need to treat them as well as is needed to use them effectively. And any kind of animal use that brings human benefits is acceptable, including income, food and new medical treatments.

That animals are not members of the moral community does not necessarily mean that their treatment is irrelevant from the contractarian perspective. If people are attached to particular animals, for example, how the animals are treated is important, since it matters to the people concerned. But, from this perspective, any protection animals have will always depend on, and be secondary to, human concerns. A further implication of this view is that protection would vary according to how much people feel positively about particular species. Since most people like dogs more than rats, for example, harming dogs is likely to be more problematic than harming rats.

This contractarian view accords with attitudes to animal treatment that are common in many societies. But it also raises problems. Is causing animals to suffer for a trivial reason really morally unproblematic, if no human being cares? After all, some humans – small children, for instance – also cannot behave in reciprocal ways, or make contracts with other people. Would it be morally acceptable to eat or experiment on them, if other human contractors did not object?

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