How should death be taken into account in welfare assessments?

TY - JOUR

T1 - How should death be taken into account in welfare assessments?

AU - Jensen, Karsten Klint

PY - 2017

Y1 - 2017

N2 - That death is not a welfare issue appears to be a widespread view among animal welfare researchers. This paper demonstrates that this view is based on a mistaken assumption about harm, which is coupled to ‘welfare’ being conceived as ‘welfare at a time’. Assessments of welfare at a time ignore issues of longevity. In order to assess the welfare issue of death, it is necessary to structure welfare assessment as comparisons of possible lives of the animals. The paper also demonstrates that excluding the welfare issues of being deprived of life from the ethical assessment of killing distorts the ethical considerations.

AB - That death is not a welfare issue appears to be a widespread view among animal welfare researchers. This paper demonstrates that this view is based on a mistaken assumption about harm, which is coupled to ‘welfare’ being conceived as ‘welfare at a time’. Assessments of welfare at a time ignore issues of longevity. In order to assess the welfare issue of death, it is necessary to structure welfare assessment as comparisons of possible lives of the animals. The paper also demonstrates that excluding the welfare issues of being deprived of life from the ethical assessment of killing distorts the ethical considerations.

KW - Aggregation across times

KW - Life-time welfare

KW - Welfare at a time

U2 - 10.1007/s10806-017-9688-1

DO - 10.1007/s10806-017-9688-1

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85029182607

SN - 1187-7863

VL - 30

SP - 615

EP - 623

JO - Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics

JF - Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics

IS - 5

ER -