Animal welfare science, varieties of value and philosophical methodology

Bruckner, Donald W.

doi:10.7120/09627286.29.4.387

Cited by 6 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Health is introduced specifically to account for the bad animal desire satisfactions in Section 4.1 and goodness without desire in Section 4.2, but health now seems to be theoretically unnecessary. See Bruckner (2019Bruckner ( , 2020 for entries into the animal welfare science literature and ties to philosophical accounts of animal well-being. 8 One might think that, although Lin is incorrect about what is good and bad and right and wrong for Fido and the oak trees, he is correct about Anhedonic Annie that pleasure is good for her.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Human and Animal Well‐Being

Bruckner

2021

Pacific Philosophical Qtr

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There is almost no theoretical discussion of non-human animal well-being in the philosophical literature on well-being. To begin to rectify this, I develop a desire satisfaction theory of well-being for animals. I contrast this theory with my desire theory of well-being for humans, according to which a human benefits from satisfying desires for which she can offer reasons. I consider objections. The most important are (1) Eden Lin's claim that the correct theory of well-being cannot vary across different welfare subjects and (2) his objection against theories of human well-being that require exercising a sophisticated capacity such as reason giving.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Human and Animal Well‐Being

Bruckner

2021

Pacific Philosophical Qtr

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“…As the definition of welfare ranges suggests, talk of "large" and "small" welfare range is a simplification, glossing over potential dissociations between the various dimensions and multiple theories of animal welfare (see review by Bruckner, [2020]). According to a pluralistic theory of welfare, there are multiple determinants of welfare.…”

Section: A Case For How Best To Make Empirically-informed Interspecie...mentioning

confidence: 99%

A Method for Improving Interspecies Welfare Comparisons

Gaffney¹,

Lavery²,

Schiestl³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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The number of animals bred, raised, and slaughtered each year is on the rise, resulting in increasing impacts to welfare. Farmed animals are also becoming more diverse, ranging from pigs to bees. The diversity and number of species farmed invites questions about how best to allocate currently limited resources towards safeguarding and improving welfare. This is of the utmost concern to animal welfare funders and effective altruism advocates, who are responsible for targeting the areas most likely to cause harm. For example, is tail docking worse for pigs than beak trimming is for chickens in terms of their pain, suffering, and general experience? Or are the welfare impacts equal? Answering these questions requires making an interspecies welfare comparison; a judgment about how good or bad different species fare relative to one another. Here, we outline and discuss an empirically-based methodology that aims to improve our ability to make interspecies welfare comparisons by investigating welfare range, which refers to how good or bad animals can fare. We begin our proposal with a theory of welfare. We operationalize that theory of welfare by identifying metrics that are defensible proxies for measuring welfare, including cognitive, affective, behavioral, and neuro-biological measures. We assign differential weights to those proxies that reflect their evidential value for the determinants of welfare, such as the “Delphi'' structured deliberation method with a panel of experts. Then we review the evidence and score its quality to ascertain whether a particular taxa may possess the proxies in question to construct a taxa-level welfare range profile. Finally, we use a Monte Carlo simulation to generate an overall estimate of comparative welfare range relative to our hypothetical index species - humans. Interspecies welfare comparisons will help facilitate empirically informed decision-making to streamline the allocation of resources and to ultimately better prioritize and improve animal welfare.

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“…In this and the following section, I outline key points in Bruckner's essay (Bruckner, 2020). His Animal Welfare Science, Varieties of Value and Philosophical Methodology argues strongly against a common tendency to conflate the normativity of animal welfare with moral norms.…”

Section: Distinguishing Prudential Value and Ethicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…I address the question of how to determine what animal welfare is by responding to an essay by philosopher Donald Bruckner (Bruckner, 2020), which discusses conceptual misunderstandings about welfare, the appropriate methodology for defining it, and the often neglected but essential role of philosophical thinking in analysis of welfare (see also Bruckner 2019). Bruckner argues that enquiries into the nature of animal welfare and the ethics of animal treatment are conceptually distinct enquiries.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of ethical reflection and dialogue in conceptualising animal welfare

Coghlan

2022

J Agric Environ Ethics

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This paper argues that ethical reflection and dialogue can assist in understanding what animal welfare is. Questions about animal welfare’s nature are thorny and contested. Responding to an essay by Donald Bruckner, the paper acknowledges that animal welfare is a type of normative value (namely prudential value) distinct from ethical value and that the methodology for determining prudential value is not simply reducible to ethical thought. However, it contends that connections between ethics and understanding wellbeing are closer than we might expect. The paper argues that: the broad conception of welfare we seek must answer to ethics; ethical responses can sometimes expose existing hidden or denied beliefs about prudential value/wellbeing; some judgements about wellbeing’s nature are internal to and thereby newly revealed in ethical judgements; understanding prudential value often requires sensitivity and responsiveness somewhat like that required in good ethical thinking. In these ways, and perhaps contrary to our assumptions, ethics (and philosophy) can help us conceptualise animal welfare.

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Animal welfare science, varieties of value and philosophical methodology

Cited by 6 publications

References 32 publications

Human and Animal Well‐Being

Human and Animal Well‐Being

A Method for Improving Interspecies Welfare Comparisons

The role of ethical reflection and dialogue in conceptualising animal welfare

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