Abstract - To study animal welfare empirically we need an objective basis for deciding when an animal is suffering. Suffering includes a wide range of unpleasant emotional states such as fear, boredom, pain, and hunger. Suffering has evolved as a mechanism for avoiding sources of danger and threats to fitness.
- Captive animals often suffer in situations in which they are prevented from doing something that they are highly motivated to do. The "price" an animal is prepared to pay to attain or to escape a situation is an index of how the animal "feels" about that situation.
- Withholding conditions or commodities for which an animal shows "inelastic demand" (i.e., for which it continues to work despite increasing costs) is very likely to cause suffering.
- In designing environments for animals in zoos, farms, and laboratories, priority should be given to features for which animals show inelastic demand. The care of animals can thereby be based on an objective, animal-centered assessment of their needs.
Sections - Introduction
- “Suffering” and Natural Selection
- Perceived Costs and Motivation
- Motivation and Subjective Experience
- Indicators of High Motivation
- The Economics of Choice
- Demand Curves and Suffering
- Aversion
- Problems with the Aversion Learning Approach
- Conclusions
Articles - PreCommentary
- Peter Singer – The Significance of Animal Suffering
- Peer Review
- John Archer – Ethological Motivational Theory as a Basis for Assessing Animal Suffering
- Arnold Arluke – The Significance of Seeking the Animal’s Perspective
- D.M. Broom – The Importance of Measures of Poor Welfare
- Gordon Burghardt – Animal Suffering, Critical Anthropomorphism, and Reproductive Rights
- Richard Byrne – Having the Imagination to Suffer, and to Prevent Suffering
- C. Richard Chapman – On the Neurobiological Basis of Suffering
- Robert Dantzer – Animal Suffering: The Practical Way Forward
- David DeGrazia – On Singer: More Argument, Less Prescriptivism
- Strachan Donnelley - Epistemology, Ethics, and Evolution
- John Dupré – The Philosophical Foundations of Animal Welfare
- Michael Allen Fox – Taking the Animal’s Viewpoint Seriously
- Andrew Fraser – Concepts of Suffering in Veterinary Science
- R.G. Frey - Animals, Science, and Morality
- J.A. Gray – In Defence of Speciesism
- B.O. Hughes & J.C. Petherick – Experimental Investigation of Animal Suffering
- Frank Jackson – Singer’s Intermediate Conclusion
- Dale Jamieson – Science and Subjective Feelings
- David Magnus & Peter Thiel – Hidden Adaptationism
- Anne Magurran – Obtaining and Applying Objective Criteria in Animal Welfare
- David McFarland – Suffering by Analogy
- Joy Mench & W. Ray Stricklin – Consumer Demand Theory and Social Behavior: All Chickens are Not Equal
- Michael Mendl – Developmental Experience and the Potential for Suffering: Does “Out of Experience” Mean “Out of Mind”?
- P. Monaghan – Consumer Demand: Can We Deal with Differing Priorities?
- Yew-Kwang Ng – The Case for and the Difficulties in Using “Demand Areas” to Measure Changes in Well-Being
- Melinda Novak & Jerrold Meyer – Seeking the Sources of Simian Suffering
- Howard Rachlin – Suffering as a Behaviorist Views it
- Bernard Rollin – Science and Value
- Andrew Rowan – To Suffer, or not to Suffer? That is the Question
- Eric Salzen – Emotion, Empathy, and Suffering
- Steve Sapontzis – The Meaning of Speciesism and the Forms of Animal Suffering
- Evalyn Segal – Animal Well-Being: There are Many Paths to Enlightenment
- S.J. Shettleworth & N. Mrosovsky – From One Subjectivity to Another
- William Timberlake – The Attribution of Suffering
- Frederick Toates – Broadening the Welfare Index
- Aubrey Townsend – Pain, Suffering, and Distress
- Jaylan Turkkan – Paradoxical Experimental Outcomes and Animal Suffering
- Stephen Walker – Natural and Unnatural Justice in Animal Care
- P.D. Wall – Who Suffers?
- Franciose Wemelsfelder – “Perceived Cost” May Reveal Frustration, but Not Boredom
- Tina Widowski – Consumer Demand Theory and Animal Welfare: Value and Limitations
- PostCommentary
- Peter Singer – Ethics and Animals
Author’s Response (Marian Stamp Dawkins – Other Minds and Other Species) - Relative Weights Given to Measures of Welfare other than Demand Curves
- Attributing the Capacity to Suffer to Non-Human Species
- The Value of Demand Curves as Indicators of Suffering
- Measuring Demand Curves in Practice
- The Value of Food as a Cross-Species Yardstick
- Demand Curve Analysis as a Possible Cause of Suffering
Text Colour Conventions (see disclaimer)
- Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2021
- Mauve: Text by correspondent(s) or other author(s); © the author(s)