IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolec/v145y2018icp90-103.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Animal Welfare and Social Decisions: Is It Time to Take Bentham Seriously?

Author

Listed:
  • Johansson-Stenman, Olof

Abstract

This paper analyzes and questions the standard welfare economics assumption of anthropocentric welfarism, i.e., that only human well-being counts intrinsically. Alternatives where also animal welfare matters intrinsically are analyzed both theoretically and empirically. The general public's ethical preferences are measured through a survey of a representative sample in Sweden, and the responses from a clear majority suggest that animal welfare should indeed carry intrinsic weight in public decision making. Current legislation in many countries is consistent with this. A brief review of moral philosophy on animal welfare indicates that a large majority of philosophers believe that animal welfare should count intrinsically. It is moreover demonstrated that it is theoretically and practically possible to generalize welfare economics in order to give intrinsic value also to animal welfare. The paper concludes that there are strong reasons to (sometimes) generalize welfare economics in order to take animal welfare into account directly, i.e., in addition to effects through individual utilities. The practical implications of doing so are likely to be more important over time as the scientific methods of measuring animal welfare are gradually improving.

Suggested Citation

  • Johansson-Stenman, Olof, 2018. "Animal Welfare and Social Decisions: Is It Time to Take Bentham Seriously?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 90-103.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:145:y:2018:i:c:p:90-103
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2017.08.019
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800917304639
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2017.08.019?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hoarau-Heemstra, Hindertje & Kline, Carol, 2022. "Making kin and making sense of human-animal relations in tourism," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    2. Nicolas Treich, 2022. "The Dasgupta Review and the Problem of Anthropocentrism," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 83(4), pages 973-997, December.
    3. Romain Espinosa & Nicolas Treich, 2021. "Animal welfare: antispeciesism, veganism and a “life worth living”," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 56(3), pages 531-548, April.
    4. repec:cup:judgdm:v:17:y:2022:i:2:p:315-330 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Franziska Funke & Linus Mattauch & Inge van den Bijgaart & H. Charles J. Godfray & Cameron Hepburn & David Klenert & Marco Springmann & Nicolas Treich, 2022. "Toward Optimal Meat Pricing: Is It Time to Tax Meat Consumption?," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 16(2), pages 219-240.
    6. Hestermann, Nina & Le Yaouanq, Yves & Treich, Nicolas, 2020. "An economic model of the meat paradox," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    7. Carlier, Alexis & Treich, Nicolas, 2020. "Directly Valuing Animal Welfare in (Environmental) Economics," International Review of Environmental and Resource Economics, now publishers, vol. 14(1), pages 113-152, April.
    8. Marc Fleurbaey & Christy Leppanen, 2021. "Toward a theory of ecosystem well-being," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 257-295, October.
    9. Kitano, Shinichi & Mitsunari, Yuka & Yoshino, Akira, 2022. "The impact of information asymmetry on animal welfare-friendly consumption: Evidence from milk market in Japan," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    10. Läpple, Doris & Osawe, Osayanmon Wellington, 2022. "Animal Welfare, Altruism and Policy Support," 96th Annual Conference, April 4-6, 2022, K U Leuven, Belgium 321212, Agricultural Economics Society - AES.
    11. Becker, Christian U., 2023. "Ethical underpinnings for the economy of the Anthropocene: Sustainability ethics as key to a sustainable economy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 211(C).
    12. Treich, Nicolas & Espinosa, Romain, 2024. "The Animal-Welfare Levy," TSE Working Papers 24-1503, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    13. Glen William Spiteri, 2022. "Does the evaluability bias hold when giving to animal charities?," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 17(2), pages 315-330, March.
    14. Funke, Franziska & Mattauch, Linus & van den Bijgaart, Inge & Godfray, Charles & Hepburn, Cameron & Klenert, David & Springmann, Marco & Treich, Nicholas, 2021. "Is Meat Too Cheap? Towards Optimal Meat Taxation," INET Oxford Working Papers 2021-08, Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford.
    15. Awokuse, Titus & Chan, Nathan W. & González-Ramírez, Jimena & Gulati, Sumeet & Interis, Matthew G. & Jacobson, Sarah & Manning, Dale T. & Stolper, Samuel & Ando, Amy, 2023. "Environmental and Natural Resource Economics and Systemic Racism," RFF Working Paper Series 23-06, Resources for the Future.
    16. Perino, Grischa & Schwirplies, Claudia, 2022. "Meaty arguments and fishy effects: Field experimental evidence on the impact of reasons to reduce meat consumption," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    17. Noel Semple, 2021. "Good Enough for Government Work? Life-Evaluation and Public Policy," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 1119-1140, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Animal welfare; Anthropocentrism; Welfarism; Ethical preferences; Cost-benefit analysis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D6 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics
    • D7 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making
    • Q5 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:145:y:2018:i:c:p:90-103. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.