Animal wellbeing

The concept of animal wellbeing is generally proposed in bond with the point of view according to which any useless animal suffering must be avoided. The pets are particularly considered, which they are exploited like source of food, labor force, are used like supports of biological research or like pets. Contrary to the right partisans of of the animals , the defenders of the animal wellbeing prefer to lay the stress on the morality of the action (or inaction) of human with respect to the animal and not on the statute, philosophical or legal, of this last. For this reason, the defense organizations of the animal wellbeing use sometimes the human word in their name or the assertion from their point of view.

History of the taking into account of the animal wellbeing

The taking into systematic account of the wellbeing of the not-human animals appeared probably for the first time in the form of an ideological system in the Civilization of the valley of Indus through the belief in a reincarnation of the ancestors in animal form, belief of which it rises that the animals must be treated with the respect due to the human ones. This belief is nowadays illustrated by the Jaïnisme and other dharmic religions . The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer notes this frame of mind and critical that of the Bible which does not consider the animal, according to him, which like a simple object. Other religions, in particular the abrahamic religions, regard the animal as object of property, because stripped of heart, but define nevertheless rules framing their maintenance and their demolition, based primarily on concerns of a medical nature for the human ones.

Just as concerning the concept of Droits of the animals, it is with the the United Kingdom that emergent the first questionings, policies and actions not-monk in favor of the animal wellbeing. The industrial revolution, early in this country, indeed has there for the first time isolated the breeding of the popular experiment of the animals, thus opening a breach for a popular empathy towards the animals.

Animal wellbeing for gastronomical reasons

The idea is spread more and more among the big bosses that the Viande of high in free course and well treated animals is preferable for the kitchen. It is not a question as well of a taking into ethical account of the animal as of the report than the meat of a well treated animal has better taste.

Among the principal cooks preaching a meat of high-quality, resulting from a long breeding, one can quote Fergus Henderson, Raymond Blanc, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. This last is known to raise and kill itself its animals.

The contemporary Western consumer can from now on choose between meat produced in mass or free course (inter alia possible methods), the latter generally costing several times the price of the first.

The detractors of this movement make this report and reproach the defenders of a meat of high-quality for holding their speech top of their richness, by forgetting less privileged people who do not have the means of buying such a meat.

He is however certain^{necessary ref.}, more generally, than the food expenditure of a current average household is less, in proportion, than that of our ancestors. Another argument of the promoters of the meat of high-quality is that one can always choose the least expensive pieces of a well treated meat, which can be goûteux, though not very tender.

Others (of the defenders of a meat of high-quality consumed with parsimony, but also of the defenders of the Végétarisme) propose the fact that the current profusion of Protéines cheap is unhealthy and that our current food mode is too rich in meat.

Animal wellbeing in practice

Taking into account according to the countries

In the United Kingdom

As of the beginning in 1822, when the deputy Richard Martin made pass to the British Parliament a law protecting bovine, ovine and horses of cruelty (thus sticking the nickname of Humanity Dick ), the defense of the animal wellbeing took for central point of attack human morality and the behavior. Martin was one of the founders of the Company of prevention of cruelty towards the animals or SPCA, in 1824. In 1840, the Reine Victoria gave her blessing to this company, renaming it RSPCA (the Royal Society for the Prevention off Cruelty to Animals), initials under which it is currently known British. Using gifts of its members the company employed a network growing inspectors having for mission of identifying the maltraiteurs, of gathering evidence and of transmitting them to the authorities. So far, the defenders of the animal wellbeing often integrate into their arguments the fact that the Cruauté towards the animals is a reliable index of other weaknesses morals of the cruel agent and thus a risk factor justifying an intervention.

In the Nazi Germany

According to Elisabeth Hardoin-Fugier, the protection of the animal is there primarily a tool of propaganda for the mode.

Principle of wellbeing

The government of the United Kingdom missionné in 1965 the professor Roger Brambell to inquire into the wellbeing of the animals of the intensive breeding, partly to answer the problems raised in the book published in 1964 by Ruth Harrison, Animal machines . On the basis of report/ratio of professor Roger Brambell, the British government then created in 1967 the Farm Animal Welfare Advisory Committee (Advisory committee on the wellbeing of the animals of farm), which became the Farm Animal Welfare Council in 1979. The first guiding lines of the committee recommended that the animals have the possibility of of being turned over, to be cleaned, to rise, to lie down, and to extend their members . It is from those that were elaborate since the five fundamental needs for the animal:

Five fundamental needs

Absence of pain, lesion or disease.
Absence of climatic or physical stress.
Absence of hunger, thirst or malnutrition.
Absence of fear.
Possibility of expressing normal, specific behaviors to each species.

“Animal Wellbeing” or “right of the animals”

Many defenders, either “animal wellbeing”, or “rights of the animals”, distinguish these two philosophies clearly. To claim “rights for the animals”, it is necessary to start from a general ethical design based on the concept of right. To claim a greater “animal wellbeing”, a point of view of consequentialist is enough.

The majority of the defenders of the animal wellbeing judge that the point of view “rights of the animals” goes too far. They generally do not claim the complete elimination of any use of the animals, in particular like pets. They often defend the idea that the human ones have the moral responsibility not to be the cause of cruelty (definite like useless suffering) with regard to the animals.

Cleavage between consequentialists and defenders of “rights” interferes with another cleavage: that between the abolitionists (who want to abolish any form of exploitation of the animals, to see Véganisme) and the reformists (who fight to improve the animal condition without calling into question the exploitation itself of the animals). The defense of the animal wellbeing often merges with the position reformist. Also certain defenders of “rights of the animals” such as Gary L. Francione considers that the point of view “wellbeing animal” is logically incoherent and morally inadmissible.

Certain defense groups of rights of the animals, such as PETA, choose to support the measurements taken in favor it animal wellbeing to reduce the animal suffering in the immediate future, while waiting for the day when it will be put an end to any form of animal exploitation.

Principles aiming at the animal wellbeing are set up in laws in many countries. No, on the other hand, recognizes of animal right.

Other points of view

The Canadian moralist David Sztybel distinguishes six types of different points of view, about the “animal wellbeing”:

“animal wellbeing” according to the owners of animals: the checking, by those which use animals, that they treat them already well.
“animal wellbeing” from the popular point of view: the concern of the person lambda of avoiding cruelty and of being nice with the animals.
a “animal wellbeing” responsabilisant: an opposition to the cruelty more structured as regards codes of conduct, but which do not reject the majority of the practices of the animal exploitation (except perhaps the exploitation of animals for the fur or the sport (drives out, fishing)).
the point of view defending a “animal release”: a point of view which seeks to minimize the suffering but can accept an animal exploitation if it seems to serve the total happiness, like, for example, the use of animals for certain medical research.
the “new welfarism”, expression introduced by Gary L. Francione to indicate the opinion according to which the intended measures to improve the condition of the animals used by the human ones will lead finally to the abolition of the animal exploitation.
from the points of view which do not make distinction between “animal wellbeing” and “right animals”.

Criticisms of the concept of “animal wellbeing” or its defense

Formerly, much of people thought that the animals could nothing feel and that they thus did not have interest. Many a Cartesian seems to have been of this opinion, although according to Cottingham, Descartes itself did not defend such a point of view. This type of point of view could be also held by some behaviorist, although there is a logical fault in the passage of “it is not no scientific proof that these rats in my laboratory, suffer” with “these rats in my laboratory, do not suffer”. Moreover the behaviorist point of view on what constitutes a scientific proof impossible the examination of problems concerning the suffering makes.

Others judge that one gives a too large importance to the animal wellbeing, while at the same time the human wellbeing or the fundamental human rights are still not satisfied for many human. They quote Africa and of many other parts of the world where poverty and other problems are in progression. These criticisms require sometimes defenders of the animals that before claiming rights for the animals, they start by improving the living conditions of their congeneric human of which much lives under conditions comparable with, even worse than, those of certain animals. This criticism is based on the premise which the human suffering has an importance larger than the animal suffering, but of many defenders of the animal wellbeing reject this point of view.

More recent criticisms used arguments inspired of Wittgenstein to defend the idea than certain types of suffering or of joy are accessible only to the beings able to use a language. They affirm that only the human ones, the bonobos and the chimpanzees have this linguistic capacity. But logically the fact that the human ones can feel certain particular sufferings does not mean that the other types of suffering do not owe beings removed.

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