Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
such relationships is that companion animals gain substantially from such lives, that
they do not lose much, and that such living is not some deep perversion of what
they are (I am thinking of actions like caging a bird). Remaining within this con-
sensus, it appears that paternalistic relations with regard to nonhuman animals can be
vindicated if predicated on the animal's projected welfare.
If keeping companion animals is justified, our best defense for this practice (and it
does require a defense once we abandon the belief that we are simply entitled to do
so by virtue of what we and they are) underscores the promotion of the welfare of
those animals: they get to live and to lead comfortable and safe lives. Such reason-
ing, when applied to an animal-related practice, constitutes “a welfare-based defense.”
The question for liberationists is how broad this permission for paternalism actually
is. The question of scope relates both to species types and to specific actions done to
particular animals. Can paternalism to pets be legitimately extended to farm and zoo
animals? To all? To some? And which particular actions does such paternalism justi-
fy? (Spaying? Vaccinating? Isolating? Training? Debeaking?)
In my analysis of the moral viability of extending petlike paternalistic conceptualiz-
ations to farm animals, I claimed that given reform, the relations between humans
and farm animals can be maintained to the mutual benefit of both. Humans will be
using such animals. But such use need not constitute exploitation so long as the an-
imal's welfare is being substantially boosted. If the lives of such animals are qualitat-
ively satisfying (in a way that will have to be well defined), such relationships are
morally vindicated. Aside from various qualifications of this general claim, I argued
that the most important gain for farm animals is that billions of qualitatively good
lives can be lived through this forced exchange, whereas the alternative is a world in
which these creatures would hardly exist at all. Feral populations of cows, hens, and
pigs can be imagined and perhaps actualized in some parts of the world. Yet if many
more such creatures can live qualitatively good lives among humans to the benefit of
both humans and animals, legitimating such human-nonhuman relations is an overall
good for these beings. Given reform, paternalism with regard to farm animals can be
justified. Can zoos be likewise vindicated?
The most elaborate and substantial presentation of a welfare-based defense of zoos
triguingly attempts to forge a link between an animal-right perspective and a welfare-
based argument for the existence of (good) zoos. In sum: good zoos prop up the
overall welfare of most of the animals they keep. While, in Bostock's view, animals
have a right to freedom, this need not mean that violating this right is immoral. For
Bostock, as long as the welfare needs of a particular zoo animal are accommodated,
we are justified in holding that life in captivity is in that animal's interest (46).
