How Should Death Be Taken into Account in Welfare Assessments?

AbstractThat death is not a welfare issue appears to be a widespread view among animal welfare researchers. This paper demonstrates that this view is based on a mistaken assumption about harm, which is coupled to ‘welfare’ being conceived as ‘welfare at a time’. Assessments of welfare at a time ignore issues of longevity. In order to assess the welfare issue of death, it is necessary to structure welfare assessment as comparisons of possible lives of the animals. The paper also demonstrates that excl uding the welfare issues of being deprived of life from the ethical assessment of killing distorts the ethical considerations.
Source: Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics - Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research