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Chapter 2 Comparing Philosophies: Animal Rights, Animal Ethics, Animal Welfare & Nature Conservation
Snappy Page Essence This page compares animal rights with animal ethics, animal welfare, new welfarism, and nature conservation.  How do related animal philosophical outlooks compare with each other? Compare animal rights with three fundamentally different approaches: animal ethics, animal welfare (and new welfarism), and nature conservation. Animal Rights vs Animal EthicsA primary difference between animal rights and animal ethics is that animal ethics is a theoretical academic pursuit that seeks to understand how humans should relate to animals. It does not advocate any particular ideology or doctrine. It analyses animal rights as one of many viewpoints but does not advocate it. Animal rights, on the other hand, can be studied academically, and it is also a practical doctrine about relating in a certain way to animals. A musical analogy is appropriate: animal ethics is a bit like exploring musical theory whereas animal rights is like playing a specific musical instrument. Table 1 explains more by summarising important points. This table explains more by summarising important points.
Animal Rights vs Animal Welfare  Animal rights overlaps with animal welfare. But although both outlooks share similarities they have important differences that set them apart and make them conflicting philosophies, as this table shows.
Animal rightists often disparage of animal welfare because the two philosophies are worlds apart in important respects. As the radical animal rights academic and activist Stephen Best says:
"Animal 'welfare' laws do little but regulate the details of exploitation."
An important difference in the practice of animal rights and animal welfare is that one is subjective and the other is objective. We cannot measure animal rights impartially or scientifically. It is a concept and a personal moral choice. It resembles the conviction of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804) that we should not harm humans even in the interests of the majority (a deontology philosophy). Animal rights takes Kant's view a step further and applies it to animals. As an ethical concept animal rights is close to deontology, which Kant advocated (see Chapter 2: Deontology).The Epiphanies of Dr Steven Best, Claudette Vaughn. Vegan Voice. 2004. (Accessed online February 2007.)Animal welfare, on the other hand, has the advantage that we can measure it objectively and manipulate it scientifically. To find which kind of bedding chickens prefer, we can count the number of chickens who seek to live on a straw floor or a wire mesh floor. Then we might provide the chickens with their choice, economic and other constraints permitting the animals' welfare. In terms of ethics, we can see animal welfare as part of consequentialism that is conceptually underpinned by utilitarianism. Animal welfare has a variation called new welfarism, in outlook a cross between animal rights and animal welfare. New welfarism is the view that the best way to prevent animal suffering is to abolish the causes of animal suffering, but that abolition is an ideal long-term goal and meanwhile we must be pragmatic and improve the conditions of animals by advancing their welfare. Thus, for instance, new welfarists want to phase out fur farms and animal experiments but in the short-term they try to improve conditions for the animals in these systems, so they lobby to make cages less constrictive to reduce the numbers of animals used in laboratories. New welfarism stands somewhere between animal welfare and animal rights.
Animal Rights vs Conservation  Animal rights and nature conservation are similar and different. Both became popular with the public in the late 1970's. Both oppose human-centredness (see Anthropocentrism), although not all conservationists do. Both believe that wild animals have intrinsic value (worth or importance independent of human values), though not an attitude shared by all conservationists. And both support conserving the environment, but for different reasons - conservationists for the sake of greater conservation, animal rightists for the animals who live in it.Now the differences:
Conclusion Can you be an exclusive animal rightist, welfarist or conservationist - or for that matter, an exclusive deep ecologist (see next section: Deep Ecology)? Actually, being exclusively one or another may be the most difficult course. A better approach is to see these philosophies not as necessarily mutually exclusive but as reinforcing one another. We can surely be benignly flexible and adopt the best ideas and activities from each of them depending on the particular circumstances we encounter. Certainly, knowledge about each of them and their antitheses helps us understand the outlook of other people.
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