animal welfarism strength and

Animal Welfarism: The Strength and Resilience of the Orthodox.

In a discussion about forms of social knowledge, sociologists David

Lee and Howard Newby claim that both common sense knowledge and

ideological beliefs suffer from certain limitations (which, they say,

sociological knowledge can go some way to overcome). Lee and Newby

elaborate on the point, suggesting that these forms of knowledge are

self-centred, incomplete and likely intolerant. This latter suggestion

is interesting, especially since they add that ideological belief can,

`foster a dogmatic style of thought that insists on being right

regardless'. Of course, all ideologies may have these characteristics,

including those based on ideas and beliefs we all favour and hold, as

much as those based on beliefs we oppose or are generally `neutral'

about. Constant vigilance and a commitment to critical thinking are

required to ameliorate these tendencies to dogmatism.

Traditional animal welfare ideology displays these dogmatic

characteristics, built on societywide opinion that animal welfarism is

undoubtedly, self-evidently, almost `naturally', the right and proper

way to assess the morality of what humanity does every day to other

animals. Animal welfarism remains largely accepted, generally without

question, as the reasonable and realistic paradigm for evaluating

human-nonhuman relations. Throughout the Western world, the ideology

of animal welfarism is firmly institutionalised and its central

ideological tenets are widely adopted and culturally internalised.

Claims are made on a regular basis, often by British farming interests

and politicians of all stripes, that the `United Kingdom' has the

strictest animal welfare standards in the world. Thus, it is

suggested, `welfare costs' are substantial to the commercial

industries which use nonhuman animals and animal welfare legislation

should not readily be further strengthened without very good reason.

However, there appears to be a general acceptance - or at least the

articulation of a formal recognition - of the welfarist stance that

says the `price' paid for maintaining `high welfare standards' is

harsh and yet justifiable because, the ideology suggests, the users of

nonhuman animals are concerned more than most about animal welfare.

That said, the notion of going beyond what is evidently necessary to

achieve `humane treatment' is clearly regarded as largely uncalled

for, especially since it may dramatically endanger commercial

competitiveness. In this sense, and rather like formal supportive

claims towards health and safety provisions, animal welfare practices

and legislation are presented as `essential', `adequate', and `strong

but fair', notwithstanding that its provisions come at a cost. This is

essentially the presentation of a pluralist political model allegedly

based on seeking some satisfactory balance of various and often

contradictory interests, even including some of the interests of the

`lower animals' that humans routinely use as resources. This explains

why animal rights claims are met by animal welfare statements from

animal users.

In practice, organisationally and politically, animal welfarism is a

constituent part of the various battle grounds and compromises between

and among mobilisations such as the National Farmers Union (NFU),

Friends of the Earth (FOE), the Royal Society for the Prevention of

Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), Compassion in World Farming (CIWF), the

British government's Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC) and the

Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA -

formally the Ministry of Agriculture). This means that the

`reasonable, reasoned and proper debate' over the human use of other

animals is seen as rightly the province of legitimate mainstream

organisations committed - on some level or other - to conventional

animal welfare tenets. This means that they are committed to the

`non-cruel' exploitation of other animals for human ends. Thus, 'on

the animals' side' (although all participants would loudly claim this

particular image-friendly status), groups such as CIWF stand for a

move toward ~or a return to~ extensive systems of `animal husbandry',

while the more politically powerful NFU would more likely support the

status quo of substantial intensive production. The most dogmatic

elements of traditional animal welfarism are readily evident when they

are challenged by animal rights claims, on the one hand, and (now

rare) Cartesian-inspired claims that there are no ethical issues

involved in the human utilisation of other animals.

Clearly, animal welfarism's institutionalised status as the

firmly-fixed orthodoxy is its greatest strength: from this assured

position other perspectives can be authoritatively characterised as

`extreme' and `unnecessary'. The widespread social orientation to

animal welfarism means that any thinking about human-nonhuman

relations is almost mechanically assessed within this long-established

and entrenched paradigm. Animal welfarism, unsurprisingly, is

all-pervasive, even in campaigns `for' nonhuman animals. Most animal

advocacy organisations, even those describing themselves as `animal

rights' mobilisations, base their claims on central welfarist concepts

such as cruelty rather than on rights violations.

By its own standards animal welfarism can claim to `work', or

function, in the sense of reducing `unnecessary suffering' caused by

the human use of nonhuman animals. This apparent functionality leads

to suggestions that alternative views represent unnecessarily radical

or `utopian' views. Just as common sense knowledge is regarded as

enough to understand social phenomena, animal welfarism is considered

as sufficient to understand the needs and requirements of nonhuman

animals. In the early 1990s, political scientist Robert Garner

reviewed several philosophical positions on human-nonhuman relations

and situated traditional animal welfarism in a broad centre ground

position by characterising it as the `moral orthodoxy' in terms of

ethical views about other animals. Garner also identified two

comparative extremes to the welfarist `centre': the presently rare `no

moral status' position, and the growing `challenge to the moral

orthodoxy', which Garner (often mistakenly) claims is represented by

philosophers such as Andrew Linzey, Mary Midgley, Stephen Clark, James

Rachels, Bernard Rollins, Steven Sapontzis, Rosemary Rodd and

especially Singer and Regan.

In her `dismissals model' (absolute and relative), philosopher Mary

Midgley underscores the centrality of animal welfarist understandings,

while noting that a certain degree of `mental vertigo' results from

confusion about these positions, and this was in the mid-1980s, before

Gary Francione came up with the added complication of the notion of

`new welfarism'. While this may be true of professional philosophers,

who tend to identify and appreciate the differences between welfarist

and rights-based positions, it is probably more correct to state that,

in general talk, animal welfarism holds centre stage to the exclusion

of other views. It is also important to note in this respect that,

despite regularly being labelled as concerning `animal rights', the

vast majority of mass media coverage of issues concerning the

treatment of nonhumans is unconditionally welfarist in content.

Writing in the Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Aubrey Townsend

attempts to further define the conventional welfarist view of other

animals. He argues that the ethical orthodoxy allows a distinction

between two sorts of moral considerations. The first applies to human

and nonhuman animals and is based on a welfarist commitment to do what

promotes the `living of a pain-free happy life'. The second

consideration is reserved for humans only and is based on a respect

for personal autonomy - `for what an individual wants or values'.

Therefore, since animals are regarded as `only sentient', they can

only be accorded an inferior moral status compared to human beings:

Thus, we are entitled to sacrifice the interests of animals to

further human interests, whereas we are not entitled to treat

humans in the same way - as part of a cost-benefit analysis.

Robert Garner ultimately offers animal rights supporters little

comfort, declaring that the position outlined here by Townsend,

`amounts to what is the conventional view about animals at least in

Britain'. He also agrees that this position corresponds to the

perspective of many traditional animal welfare organisations. In

effect, then, welfarism accords to nonhuman animals `intermediate

status' - while animals may be more than inanimate `things', they are

nevertheless very much less than `persons'.

Understanding the status of nonhuman animals in speceisist societies

means appreciating the challenge that advocates of nonhuman rights

face. That animal welfarism is the dominant paradigm in assessments of

human-nonhuman relations is certain. This is the view a genuine animal

rights movement must fundamentally oppose.

Roger Yates,

University of Wales, Bangor.