Citation
Ng, Yew-Kwang (2016) How welfare biology and commonsense may help to reduce animal suffering. Animal Sentience 7(1)
Abstract
Welfare biology is the study of the welfare of living things. Welfare is net happiness (enjoyment minus suffering). Since this necessarily involves feelings, Dawkins (2014) has suggested that animal welfare science may face a paradox, because feelings are very difficult to study. The following paper provides an explanation for how welfare biology could help to reduce this paradox by answering some difficult questions regarding animal welfare. Simple means based on commonsense could reduce animal suffering enormously at low or even negative costs to humans. Ways to increase the influence of animal welfare advocates are also discussed, focusing initially on farmed animals and restrictions that are not likely to impede scientific advances on which the future large improvements in animal welfare greatly depend.
DOI
10.51291/2377-7478.1012
Included in
Cognition and Perception Commons, Cognitive Neuroscience Commons, Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons, Evolution Commons, Philosophy of Mind Commons, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology Commons, Zoology Commons
Article Thread
Ng, Yew-Kwang (2016) How welfare biology and commonsense may help to reduce animal suffering. Animal Sentience 7(1)
Baker, Liv (2016) What’s the common sense of just some improvement of some welfare for some animals?. Animal Sentience 7(3)
Leadbeater, Simon R. B. (2016) Animal suffering calls for more than a bigger cage. Animal Sentience 7(4)
Marino, Lori (2016) Why animal welfarism continues to fail. Animal Sentience 7(5)
Marks, Joel (2016) End-state welfarism. Animal Sentience 7(6)
Rollin, Bernard E. (2016) Science and sensibility. Animal Sentience 7(7)
Li, Peter J. (2016) Animal suffering in China. Animal Sentience 7(8)
Bruers, Stijn (2016) Animal suffering and human bias. Animal Sentience 7(9)
Johannsen, Kyle (2016) Animal welfare at home and in the wild. Animal Sentience 7(10)
Paez, Eze (2016) Wild animal suffering and vegan outreach. Animal Sentience 7(11)
Smith, Allison M. and Reese, Jacy (2016) An empirical perspective on animal advocacy. Animal Sentience 7(12)
Clark, Stephen R. (2016) Slavery, welfare and the sixth extinction. Animal Sentience 7(13)
Faria, Catia (2016) Why we should not postpone awareness of wild animal suffering. Animal Sentience 7(14)
Horta, Oscar (2016) Changing attitudes towards animals in the wild and speciesism. Animal Sentience 7(15)
Sözmen, Beril (2016) Inalienable rights and pluralism in animal advocacy. Animal Sentience 7(16)
Dorado, Daniel (2016) Sentience as moral consideration and disvalue in nature. Animal Sentience 7(17)
Harnad, Stevan (2016) My orgasms cannot be traded off against others’ agony. Animal Sentience 7(18)
Ng, Yew-Kwang (2016) Utilitarianism generalized to include animals. Animal Sentience 7(19)
Veit, Walter and Browning, Heather (2021) Extending animal welfare science to include wild animals. Animal Sentience 7(20)
Bekoff, Marc and Pierce, Jessica (2016) Animal welfare cannot adequately protect nonhuman animals: The need for a science of animal well-being. Animal Sentience 7(2)