|
|
|
Entries 
|
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. Animal rights takes Kant's view a step further and applies it to animals. As an ethical concept animal rights is close to duty ethics (deontology) which Kant advocated.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 consequence ethics (consequentialism) that is conceptually underpinned by utilitarianism. The animal welfare - animal rights antagonism has given rise to an amalgam called 'new welfarism'. New welfarism is allied to animal rights but in appearance is in the animal welfare camp. See Welfarism, New. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
