ANIMAL WELFARE:PROSPECTS AND POSSIBILITIES

ROBERT GARNER

• THE ORIGINS AND MEANING OF ANIMAL WELFARE

• A PHILOSOPHICAL CRITIQUE OF ANIMAL WELFARE

• ANIMAL WELFARE POLITICS

THE ORIGINS AND MEANING OF ANIMAL WELFARE

INDIRECT DUTY VIEWS

RENE DESCARTES

WHY JUSTICE?

• Carries greater moral weight than kindness or charity

• The impact of moral pluralism:

THE ORIGINS AND MEANING OF ANIMAL WELFARE

THE INFLUENCE OF BENTHAM AND THE UTILITARIANS

THE QUESTION IS NOT CAN THEY REASON, NOR, CAN THEY TALK. BUT, CAN THEY SUFFER?

THE ORIGINS AND MEANING OF ANIMAL WELFARE

• THE CONCEPT OF UNNECESSARY SUFFERING

• ROBERT NOZICK ‘UTILITARIANISM FOR ANIMALS, KANTIANISM FOR PEOPLE’.

A PHILOSOPHICAL CRITIQUE OF ANIMAL WELFARE

CAN ANIMALS BE RECIPIENTS OF JUSTICE?

1.Care more effective than justice

2.Animals do not have sufficient moral status to be worthy recipients of justice

CAN ANIMALS BE RECIPIENTS OF JUSTICE?

• Not worthy because:

1.No moral standing at all

2.Moral standing but not enough moral status (Rawls).

CAN ANIMALS BE RECIPIENTS OF JUSTICE?

• Animals can benefit from the distribution of benefits and rewards. They can’t reciprocate but then neither can marginal humans or young children.

CAN ANIMALS BE RECIPIENTS OF JUSTICE?

• Implications of accepting Rawls’s exclusion of animals:

1.Impact of moral pluralism.

2.The impact of excluding animals from the original position.

WHAT FORM SHOULD A THEORY OF JUSTICE FOR ANIMALS

TAKE?• Ideological tradition

• Liberal problems

(a) moral pluralism

(b) liberal political economy

(c) history of animal exploitation

WHAT FORM SHOULD A THEORY OF JUSTICE FOR ANIMALS

TAKE?Alternative liberal approaches

* Rights (Regan)

* Utility (Singer)

* Contractarianism (Rowlands)

* Welfare

WHAT FORM SHOULD A THEORY OF JUSTICE FOR ANIMALS

TAKE?• A Defence of Animal Welfare

Animal welfare philosophically flawed

Pragmatic grounds for accepting welfare

(A version of New Welfarism – Francione)

A CRITIQUE OF NEW WELFARISM

WHAT FORM SHOULD A THEORY OF JUSTICE FOR ANIMALS

TAKE?• A Moral Justification for Animal Welfare?

• Oakeshott ‘A Philosophy of Politics’

WHAT FORM SHOULD A THEORY OF JUSTICE FOR ANIMALS TAKE?

• Applying James Gustafson’s model of Moral Discourse to the Animal Ethics Debate

• ethical, narrative, policy and prophetic.

• Menno Kamminga – Moral discourse and climate change