Abstract
The concept of animal welfare in confinement agriculture—and an ethical theory based upon this concept—necessitates an idea of what kind of being it is that fares well and what “well” is for this being. This double-question is at the heart of understanding and adequately defining welfare as qualitatively embedded in the experiencing subject. The notion of telos derives (philosophically) from Aristotle and is a way of accounting for the good life of an animal from the unique speciesness of the animal in question. The first part of the article will address the contemporary philosophical and ethical analysis of animals based upon this Aristotelian idea (Rollin in Animal rights and human morality (1st ed. 1981). Prometheus Books, New York, 2006b). Telos is here employed to illustrate the dimensions of what matters in welfare assessment and ethical evaluation. The second half of the article addresses some of the welfare problems in modern animal agriculture and how they relate to the telos concept. Two main examples are dealt with: Boredom (Wemelsfelder in Mental health and well-being in animals. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, 2005) is argued as being the suffering of choicelessness in animals that are inherently beings that choose—and loneliness is the suffering of social isolation in animals for whom standing in active relations to others is part of what they are.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
These numbers originate from the database Infomedia which includes all the major Danish newspapers.
http://www.zoo.dk/BesogZoo/OmZoo/~/media/Files/dyrebestanden%202008.ashx (accessed March 15th 2010).
http://www.dst.dk/pukora/epub/Nyt/2000/NR499.pdf (accessed March 15th 2010).
Broiler chicken production is by far the most significant but this number also includes ducks, geese and turkeys.
http://www.landbrug.dk/smcms/Landbrug/Baggrund/Tal_om_landbruget___1/Statistik/Index.htm?ID=6491 (accessed March 15th 2010).
It could be argued that veterinary research with the aim of being able to help pets, zoo animals and animals in the wild to some extent avoids inclusion in this category.
Indeed, Aristotle’s view of generational biology was a static one. He believed that humans gave birth to species identical and unaltered humans and pigs gave birth to species identical and unaltered pigs and that no significant change happened through the generations. Species nature was, in his eyes, fixed and eternal.
Originally a Heideggerian term which was solely attributed to humans, Hub Zwart (1997) employs it to cover the aspects of animal existence.
Rollin asserts Aristotle’s concept of telos as a unification of common sense, science and philosophy. See Rollin (1998a, p. 156).
This is a lower level unique interest that is not shared by all dogs. As such Rollin names it a “sub-tele.” See Rollin (1998a, p. 162).
The matter of what these “biological processes” include is in itself a matter of much discussion. One prominent and interesting position is the autopoiesis argument from Maturana and Varela (1980) who see life as living systems that are self-producing and self-sustaining.
In this case brain death is considered a legal term and the process of, e.g., harvesting organs from a brain dead human being rests on the fact that there is still some life left to sustain certain bodily functions.
Singer argues that the (some) animals lack “forward-looking desires” and the interests associated with those desires are not thwarted by death (Singer 1993, pp. 126–127).
Broilers (chicken raised intensively for meat) e.g., are slaughtered at around the age of 8 weeks—which would not even be adolescence in a bird that can have a life span of several years.
The fictional character Granny Weatherwax expressing an Aristotelian point (Pratchett 1992, p. 250).
The first clinical articles were written in the mid-thirties and there was less than one article written per year until the 1980’s (Gabriel 1988, p. 157).
There appears to be a certain four-step progression of human to animal experiential terminology in the animal science literature. At the very first stage is the outright rejection of the experience’s existence in animals. This is followed later by a stage throughout which the experience is explained without using the word for a similar experience in humans at all. The third stage sees the first use of the terminology for humans as well as animals, but when addressing animals the defining word is put in quotation marks to indicate that it is not really the right definition. Finally, at the fourth stage, the word comes into general acceptance and is used more or less freely and without quotation marks.
An excellent example of this kind of problem is the finding that many contemporary senior biologists seriously disagree on the definition of such a basic ethological concept as “behavior” (Levitis et al. 2009).
Several studies indicate that these behaviors are not necessarily a result of increased aggression but, as in the case of feather pecking, related to obsessive compulsive disorders (Buitenhuis et al. 2006) or, in the case of group housed calves sucking on each other’s ears and prepuces, reflect an unfulfilled sucking motivation (Jensen and Budde 2006).
For an interesting analysis on choice and will see Harry Frankfurt’s “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person” (1982).
Indeed this could also be considered a problem due to overloading the individual.
There is, nonetheless, a considerable amount of literature dealing with the combination of animals and loneliness, but it almost exclusively addresses conditions in which (companion) animals can help to relieve loneliness in humans.
In addition to the problem of accurately defining stress, the question also arises whether all stress is necessarily a bad thing. To some degree I align myself with Professor Berry M. Spruijt on this, who, at the 43rd Congress of the International Society for Applied Ethics in 2009, declared that “there is no welfare without stress” and that we should “focus on long lasting chronic stress.” Thus, a distinction should be drawn between short experiences of “eustress” that are beneficial to the animal and “distress” produced by repetitive and/or longer lasting experiences. Finally, it is important to employ a situational or context related assessment when measuring stress physiologically. Higher pulse and extra release of cortisol, for example, also occur during both play and sex—and these are rarely negative experiences.
The tendency in animal research has been for scientists to extrapolate from animal models to human subjects without necessarily acknowledging the extrapolated experiences in the animals. In early pain research it was not uncommon that a scientist would use animal models to test pain reducing medicine for humans without recognizing the existence of animal pain (Rollin 2006a, p. 119 and 241). Similarly animal researchers now extrapolate findings about ‘stress from social isolation’ in animals to human subjects’ loneliness (Hermes et al. 2009).
Thus I choose to differentiate it from the acute “loneliness emotions” of short termed social isolation which, when not repetitive and cumulative, have few lasting effects on the animal.
If an animal, which belongs to a social species, has never had any social contacts it is still a social animal. It is the difference between Aristotle’s first and second potentialities (Haynes 2008, p. 123). At the first potentiality level, the animal is born with a capability for socialness. It is, as Rollin puts it, “genetically imprinted” (Rollin 2006b, p. 100) and is there from the beginning of the individual’s life. The second potentiality level is the actual active socialization of the animal and this requires development through practice and use. The innate social animal that is without the possibility of expressing its secondary social potentialities will have its telos thwarted and will not be able to flourish as the being that it is, even though it does not have preferences towards (or misses) something that it has never known. See also the argument against preferences in the conclusion.
Calves that are regrouped too often give up trying to form relationships—and in effect become lonely while having potential social relations around them.
Tinbergen’s four questions were introduced in his paper from 1963 “On the Aims and Methods of Ethology” and they were, in a matter of relevancy to this article, based on the four causes of Aristotle—in which the final, and most important, cause is the end-goal of a thing or a being. In another word: its telos.
Nature reserves, parks, and other areas that, though they are off limits to human settlement (and sometimes use), are under supervision and some regulations by humans.
Sumner’s theory is directed at human lives and life satisfaction and he questions in this case the face value self-assessments of hopeless beggars, dominated housewives, and similar characters (Sumner 1996).
Law #386 of June 6th 1991.
References
Alstrup, A. K. O., & Hansen, A. K. (2009). Status over forbruget af forsøgsdyr siden år 2000. Ugeskrift for Laeger, 171(43), 3088.
Aristotle, (2004). On the parts of animals (originally around 350 BC). Whitefish, Montana: Kessinger Publication Co.
Arnold, G. W. (1985). Associations and social behaviour. In A. F. Fraser (Ed.), Ethology of farm animals (pp. 233–248). New York: Elsevier.
Bekoff, M. (2000). Animal emotions: Exploring passionate natures. BioScience, 50, 861–870.
Broom, D. M., & Johnson, K. G. (1993). Stress and animal welfare. London: Chapman & Hale.
Buitenhuis, A. J., Kjaer, J. B., Labouriau, R., & Juul-Madsen, H. R. (2006). Altered circulating levels of serotonin and immunological changes in laying hens divergently selected for feather pecking behavior. Poultry Science, 85, 1722–1728.
Ewbank, R. (1969). Behavioural implications of intensive animal husbandry. Outlook on Agriculture, 6(1), 41–46.
Færevik, G., Jensen, M. B., & Bøe, K. E. (2006). Dairy calves social preferences and the significance of a companion animal during separation from the group. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 99, 205–211.
Frankfurt, H. G. (1982). Freedom of the will and the concept of a person. In G. Watson (Ed.), Free will (pp. 81–95). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gabriel, M. A. (1988). Boredom: Exploration of a developmental perspective. Clinical Social Work Journal, 16(2), 156–164.
Harfeld, J. (2011). Philosophical ethology: On the extents of what it is to be a pig. Society and Animals, 19, 83–101.
Haynes, R. P. (2008). Animal welfare—Competing conceptions and their ethical implications. Dordrecht: Springer Science.
Hermes, G. L., Delgado, B., Tretiakova, M., Cavigelli, S. A., Krausz, T., Conzen, S. D., et al. (2009). Social isolation dysregulates endocrine and behavioral stress while increasing malignant burden of spontaneous mammary tumors. In Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/12/10/0910753106.full.pdf+html. Accessed April 1, 2010.
Jensen, M. B., & Budde, M. (2006). The effects of milk feeding method and group size on feeding behavior and cross-sucking in group-housed dairy calves. Journal of Dairy Science, 89, 4778–4783.
Kay, R., & Hall, C. (2009). The use of a mirror reduces isolation stress in horses being transported by trailer. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 116, 237–243.
Krebs, J. R. (1979). Optimal foraging: Decision rules for predators. In J. R. Krebs (Ed.), Behavioural ecology (pp. 23–63). Guildford, Great Britain: Blackwell Scientific Publications.
Levitis, D. A., Lidicker, W. Z., Jr., & Freunda, G. (2009). Behavioural biologists do not agree on what constitutes behaviour. Animal Behaviour, 78, 103–110.
MacIntyre, A. (1999). Dependent rational animals: Why human beings need the virtues. London: Duckworth.
Manning, A., & Dawkins, M. S. (1998). An introduction to animal behaviour. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Martin, M., Sadlo, G., & Stew, G. (2006). The phenomenon of boredom. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3, 193–211.
Maturana, H. R., & Varela, F. J. (1980). Autopoiesis and cognition: The realization of the living. Dordrecht: D. Reidel.
McEwen, B. S. (2000). The neurobiology of stress: From serendipity to clinical relevance. Brain Research, 886, 172–189.
McFarland, D. (1981). The Oxford companion to animal behaviour. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mill, J. S. (1998). Three essays on religion (originally published between 1850 and 1870). New York: Prometheus Books.
Munksgaard, L., & Simonsen, H. B. (1996). Behavioral and pituitary adrenal axis responses of dairy cows to social isolation and deprivation of lying down. Journal of Animal Science, 74, 769–779.
Nussbaum, M. C. (2007). Frontiers of justice—disability, nationality, species membership. Cambridge: Belknap Press.
Pratchett, T. (1992). Witches abroad. Reading, Great Britain: Corgi Books.
Regan, T. (1983). The case for animal rights. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Rollin, B. E. (1998a). On telos and genetic engineering. In A. Holland & A. Johnson (Eds.), Animal biotechnology and ethics (pp. 156–172). London: Chapman & Hall.
Rollin, B. E. (1998b). The unheeded cry—Animal consciousness, animal pain, and science (1st ed. 1989). Ames: Iowa State University Press.
Rollin, B. E. (2006a). Science and ethics. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Rollin, B. E. (2006b). Animal rights and human morality (1st ed. 1981). New York: Prometheus Books.
Rooijen, Jv. (1991). Predictability and boredom. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 31, 283–287.
Ruis, M. A. W., te Brake, J. H. A., Engel, B., Buist, W. G., Blokhuis, H. J., & Koolhaas, J. M. (2001). Adaptation to social isolation: Acute and long-term stress responses of growing gilts with different coping characteristics. Physiology and Behavior, 73, 541–551.
Singer, P. (1993). Practical ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Stolba, A., & Wood-Gush, D. G. M. (1981). Behavior of pigs and the design of a new housing system. Applied Animal Ethology, 8, 583–585.
Sumner, L. W. (1996). Welfare, happiness, and ethics. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Taylor, C. (1985). Human agency and language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tuchscherer, M., Kanitz, E., Puppe, B., & Tuchscherer, A. (2006). Early social isolation alters behavioral and physiological responses to an endotoxin challenge in piglets. Hormones and Behavior, 50, 753–761.
Veissier, I., Boissy, A., Desire, L., & Greiveldinger, L. (2009). Animals’ emotions: Studies in sheep using appraisal theories. Animal Welfare, 18, 347–354.
Wemelsfelder, F. (2005). Animal boredom: Understanding the tedium of confined lives. In F. McMillan (Ed.), Mental health and well-being in animals (pp. 79–92). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Zwart, H. (1997). What is an animal? A philosophical reflection on the possibility of a moral relationship with animals. Environmental Values, 6, 377–392.
Acknowledgments
I wish to thank Dr. Ulrik Becker Nissen at the Centre for Bioethics, and Nanoethics, Aarhus University and senior scientist Birte Lindstrøm Nielsen from Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA) for comments and constructive criticism on the drafts for this article. Furthermore, I wish to thank Distinguished Professor Bernard E. Rollin from Colorado State University for his sharp and helpful reviews of the earliest versions of the article.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Harfeld, J.L. Telos and the Ethics of Animal Farming. J Agric Environ Ethics 26, 691–709 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-012-9422-y
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-012-9422-y