Is Humane Slaughter Possible?

One of the biggest ethical issues in animal agriculture is that of the welfare of animals at the end of their lives, during the process of slaughter. Much work in animal welfare science is focussed on finding humane ways to transport and slaughter animals, to minimise the harm done during this process. In this paper, we take a philosophical look at what it means to perform slaughter humanely, beyond simply reducing pain and suffering during the slaughter process. In particular, we will examine the issue of the harms of deprivation inflicted in ending life prematurely, as well as shape of life concerns and the ethical implications of inflicting these harms at the end of life, without the potential for future offsetting through positive experiences. We will argue that though these considerations may mean that no slaughter is in a deep sense truly ‘humane’, this should not undermine the importance of further research and development to ensure that while the practice continues, animal welfare harms are minimised as far as possible

Extending animal welfare science to include wild animals

Ng’s (2016) target article built on his earlier work advocating a science of welfare biology (Ng 1995). Although there were problems with the models proposed in Ng’s original paper regarding the balance of pleasure and suffering for wild animals, his call for a science of wild animal welfare was a sound one. This does not require a new discipline but just an extension of the existing frameworks and methods of animal welfare science to include wild animals

Social Work as an Important Collaborator in Transdisciplinary Public Health Law: Why Does It Matter and Where Does It Fit?

Public health law has been a growing field over the last few decades. From the early days of its initial recognition as an academic and professional field to its more recent texts and treatises, public health law is continuing to define itself. To that end, Burris et al. recently published two works describing a transdisciplinary model of public health law and five essential services of public health law. This article examines how the inclusion of social work in the model can be instrumental in forming better public health laws. The intentional inclusion of social work collaborators would supplement legal and public health expertise with expertise to meaningfully engage the community in law and policy development, implementation, and enforcement. Three areas specifically can be impacted by this engagement: (1) giving the community a voice in designing public health interventions in a way that increases buy-in; (2) using community organizing expertise to assist in getting evidence-based legal interventions with realistic enforcement mechanisms enacted into law at the local, state, or federal level; and (3) assisting in data collection for policy surveillance components by bringing in on-the-ground experts

Coronavirus Health Inequities in the United States Highlight Need for Continued Community Development Efforts

The coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic of 2020 has shown a spotlight on inequity in the USA. Although these inequities have long existed, the coronavirus and its disparate impact on health in different communities have raised the visibility of these deeply ingrained inequities to a level that has created a new awareness across the US population and an opportunity to use this heightened awareness of the existing conditions for change. ‘Community and social development’ efforts in the post-pandemic USA can be informed by a health justice framework, across economic, societal and cultural, environmental and social dimensions. Dimensions which have all been implicated in the coronavirus response and complement other social and community development models. Although health disparities and inequities did not begin with coronavirus and will not end in the post-pandemic USA, social and community development efforts which value health justice and concentrate on social determinants of health can provide needed policies and programmes for a more equitable US health system

Improving invertebrate welfare

Mikhalevich & Powell (2020) argue that it is wrong, both scientifically and morally, to dismiss the evidence for sentience in invertebrates. They do not offer any examples, however, of how their welfare should be considered or improved. We draw on animal welfare science to suggest some ways that would not be excessively demanding

Two Kinds of Conceptual Engineering

The last decade has seen an explosion of meta-philosophical work on ’conceptual engineering’. Beyond simple analysis of concepts, conceptual engineering allows for evaluation and improvement of concepts according to the purposes to which they will be used. This paper sketches a pluralist account of conceptual engineering and provides a distinction between two different and often conflicting kinds of conceptual engineering: naturalist conceptual engineering (NCE) and moral conceptual engineering (MCE), distinguished not by their methods, but by their roles, functions, and purposes. Using the example of animal welfare, we demonstrate the application of both MCE and NCE and show how the different contexts in which a concept is used can create conflicting demands but also how concordance between these demands can strengthen a concept

The importance of end-of-life welfare

One of the major challenges to the welfare of animals in agriculture is the conditions of transport and slaughter. Worldwide, over 70 billion animals are slaughtered for agriculture each year, which places this as a particularly significant ethical issue. In this paper we argue that these harms should be paid special attention over other equivalent types of suffering an animal may experience throughout its lifetime, because of their position at the end of life

Positive wild animal welfare

With increasing attention given to wild animal welfare and ethics, it has become common to depict animals in the wild as existing in a state dominated by suffering. This assumption is now taken on board by many and frames much of the current discussion; but needs a more critical assessment, both theoretically and empirically. In this paper, we challenge the primary lines of evidence employed in support of wild animal suffering, to provide an alternative picture in which wild animals may often have lives that are far more positive than is commonly assumed. Nevertheless, while it is useful to have an alternative model to challenge unexamined assumptions, our real emphasis in this paper is the need for the development of effective methods for applying animal welfare science in the wild, including new means of data collection, the ability to determine the extent and scope of welfare challenges and opportunities, and their effects on welfare. Until such methods are developed, discussions of wild animal welfare cannot go beyond trading of intuitions, which as we show here can just as easily go in either direction

Ethics of mixed martial arts

Mixed martial arts (MMA) is frequently criticized as barbaric and inhumane. This stands in stark contrast with the booming popularity of the sport. Before now, what little philosophical work has been written on MMA depicts it as something inherently wrong (as with Dixon) or as something merely permissible (as with articles by Weimer and Kershnar and Kelly, respectively). Contrary to these foregoing analyses this chapter argues that MMA is not only permissible, but a morally praiseworthy and virtuous endeavor in virtue of developing moral character and recognizing the intimate connection between body and mind

Phenomenology Applied to Animal Health and Suffering

What is it like to be a bat? What is it like to be sick? These two questions are much closer to one another than has hitherto been acknowledged. Indeed, both raise a number of related, albeit very complex, philosophical problems. In recent years, the phenomenology of health and disease has become a major topic in bioethics and the philosophy of medicine, owing much to the work of Havi Carel (2007, 2011, 2018). Surprisingly little attention, however, has been given to the phenomenology of animal health and suffering. This omission shall be remedied here, laying the groundwork for the phenomenological evaluation of animal health and suffering