Sometimes the issue is framed as Animal Rights versus Animal Welfare. Reality is better approximated by a continuum connecting Animal Rights and Animal Welfare, but when juxtaposed, the two "extremes" are that Animal Welfare concerns protecting the well-being of animals as they are bred and confined and worked and slaughtered to satisfy human consumption preferences, while Animal Rights concerns granting non-human animals legal protections that are comparable to those that humans enjoy, and thus much or all of animal farming (and other animal uses) would not be permitted, irrespective of the well-being of the animals involved. (The internet is full of rather tendentious descriptions of the differences between animal welfare and animal rights.) The work of Professor Temple Grandin, mentioned in the immediately prior post, is in the Animal Welfare tradition, while the work of the Nonhuman Rights Project, unsurprisingly, is exemplary of the Animal Rights approach.
The tension between animal rights and animal welfare orientations is felt in many other areas of public policy. Often the conflicting approaches can be characterized as "harm reduction" versus "zero tolerance." Should prostitution or cocaine use be made more safe, or should the focus be on eliminating these behaviors entirely? Matters aren't always so stark. Many people who see abolition as an ultimate goal might support ameliorative measures in the meantime -- and perhaps even if those ameliorative measures, in the short-term, increase the frequency of the targeted behavior.
For people who object to the notion of animal agriculture, more humane slaughterhouses incorporating non-slip floors in livestock unloading areas, for instance, can be rather repugnant. Nonetheless, efforts to improve "welfare" in this sense need not surely come at the expense of promoting abolition -- though I hope I am not being too optimistic on this score. Broader discussion of animal welfare improvements and animal agricultural practices might assuage enough consciences that the industry is prolonged and strengthened -- but these discussions might also open doors to deeper reforms and more extensive mental conversions, while actually improving the welfare of farmed animals in the here and now. On a personal level, "reductarianism" or vegetarianism might be helpful way stations -- even if a vegan lifestyle is the more appropriate long-term goal.
The other potential trade-off that sometimes is invoked in non-human animal policy discussions is that devotion of effort to animal welfare detracts from attention to or concern with human welfare. But again, this trade-off is not a logical necessity -- and in practice, rather the opposite seems to be the case.
The tension between animal rights and animal welfare orientations is felt in many other areas of public policy. Often the conflicting approaches can be characterized as "harm reduction" versus "zero tolerance." Should prostitution or cocaine use be made more safe, or should the focus be on eliminating these behaviors entirely? Matters aren't always so stark. Many people who see abolition as an ultimate goal might support ameliorative measures in the meantime -- and perhaps even if those ameliorative measures, in the short-term, increase the frequency of the targeted behavior.
For people who object to the notion of animal agriculture, more humane slaughterhouses incorporating non-slip floors in livestock unloading areas, for instance, can be rather repugnant. Nonetheless, efforts to improve "welfare" in this sense need not surely come at the expense of promoting abolition -- though I hope I am not being too optimistic on this score. Broader discussion of animal welfare improvements and animal agricultural practices might assuage enough consciences that the industry is prolonged and strengthened -- but these discussions might also open doors to deeper reforms and more extensive mental conversions, while actually improving the welfare of farmed animals in the here and now. On a personal level, "reductarianism" or vegetarianism might be helpful way stations -- even if a vegan lifestyle is the more appropriate long-term goal.
The other potential trade-off that sometimes is invoked in non-human animal policy discussions is that devotion of effort to animal welfare detracts from attention to or concern with human welfare. But again, this trade-off is not a logical necessity -- and in practice, rather the opposite seems to be the case.
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