Specifying animal welfare standards: ethical issues

P.B. Thompson

Specifying animal welfare standards: ethical issues

In: Global food security: ethical and legal challenges

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P.B. Thompson

P.B. Thompson Michigan State University, USA

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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 329–336

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.3920/9789086867103_053

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Ethical debates over animal welfare in agricultural production systems have thus far focused either on the general rationale for intervention on behalf of animals, or on tensions and potential contradictions that arise between alternative ways of conceptualizing what matters about animal welfare. Appleby and Sandøe, for example, offered a compelling analysis of these tensions in a 2002 paper. This paper examines how these philosophical tensions emerge at the practical level of specifying standards for animal production systems. A theoretical framework developed by Lawrence Busch in a 2000 paper is used to characterize alternative approaches to the specification of food and agricultural standards. In the case of animal welfare, Busch’s framework shows how three distinct domains of specification become embroiled in the moral tensions identified by Appleby and Sandøe. First, there is a tension between engineering and performance approaches to developing standards. Second, the possibility of writing standards as what Busch calls divisions, Olympic, ranks and filters allows for multiple ways of accommodating the factors identified by Appleby and Sandøe. Finally, given this multiplicity, there are ethical political questions that arise in connection to the procedure for establishing standards, exemplified especially in the tension between optimizing strategies (as envisioned by the European Welfare Quality Project) and more chaotic, market based approaches that rely heavily on consumer demand and the power of retailers. The paper argues that in either case the turn to procedural ethics does not necessarily serve animal interests well.

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Global food security: ethical and legal challenges

E-Book ISBN:: 9789086867103

Publisher:: Wageningen Academic

Print Publication Date:: 30 Oct 2010

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- Life Sciences

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Global food security: ethical and legal challenges

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