Is there more to life than welfare? how the concept of animal integrity can contribute to discussions of animal ethics

TY - GEN

T1 - Is there more to life than welfare?

T2 - Global food security: ethical and legal challenges

AU - Gjerris, Mickey

AU - Gamborg, Christian

PY - 2010

Y1 - 2010

N2 - Using animals for agricultural or medical purposes evidently raises a range of ethical questions. Often these are divided into three categories: (1) risks to human health or the environment, (2) risks to animal welfare and (3) other moral concerns. Concerns discussed under (3) are typically concerns about the social and economic consequences of the case in hand, whether or not the proposed use of the animals can be said to be unnatural in any way and if the case in hand in some way violates the integrity of the animals. However, whereas the other concepts seem more well-defined and closer to distinct meanings, integrity still remains a somewhat nebulous notion. In the paper, we propose that the concept of integrity can be viewed from a mainly biological as well as a predominantly philosophical perspective (sometimes mixed up and obscured) and within each perspective on an individual and a species level. The paper clarifies these four understandings, and discusses how they may be utilized in discussions of the use of animals (in a broad sense) to make clear why some still express hesitation of the use of animals although risk managers, human health experts and animal welfare scientists have said that there from their point of view are no or only few ethical concerns. We propose that especially from a philosophical perspective on an individual level the notion of animal integrity and the ethical concerns that follows, may be used to explain why some think that there is more to life than welfare and that this is an important aspect of any discussion of the ethics of using animals.

AB - Using animals for agricultural or medical purposes evidently raises a range of ethical questions. Often these are divided into three categories: (1) risks to human health or the environment, (2) risks to animal welfare and (3) other moral concerns. Concerns discussed under (3) are typically concerns about the social and economic consequences of the case in hand, whether or not the proposed use of the animals can be said to be unnatural in any way and if the case in hand in some way violates the integrity of the animals. However, whereas the other concepts seem more well-defined and closer to distinct meanings, integrity still remains a somewhat nebulous notion. In the paper, we propose that the concept of integrity can be viewed from a mainly biological as well as a predominantly philosophical perspective (sometimes mixed up and obscured) and within each perspective on an individual and a species level. The paper clarifies these four understandings, and discusses how they may be utilized in discussions of the use of animals (in a broad sense) to make clear why some still express hesitation of the use of animals although risk managers, human health experts and animal welfare scientists have said that there from their point of view are no or only few ethical concerns. We propose that especially from a philosophical perspective on an individual level the notion of animal integrity and the ethical concerns that follows, may be used to explain why some think that there is more to life than welfare and that this is an important aspect of any discussion of the ethics of using animals.

M3 - Article in proceedings

SN - 978-90-8686-154-5

SP - 372

EP - 377

BT -  Global food security

A2 - Romeo Casabona, Carlos M.

A2 - Escajedo San Epifanio, Leire

A2 - Emaldi Cirión, Aitziber

PB - Wageningen Academic Publishers

Y2 - 16 September 2010 through 18 September 2010

ER -