Transcript Animal Welfare

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
Utility
Contractarianism
Welfare
(Regan)
(Singer)
(Rowlands)
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