Abstract for Societas Ethica 2008 – Philosophical Ethology and Eudaimonia in Agriculture
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Philosophical Ethology and Eudaimonia in Agriculture
In an Aristotelian approach to ethics one of the main concerns is to characterize the essence of what
it means to be a human being, so as to better develop an understanding of what is good for human
beings (Aristotle 1976). Similarly it is the aim of this article to establish outlines for a more
complete framework of animal ethics by a thorough descriptive exercise into the fundamental
nature of farm animals. Such an exercise will draw on theories and knowledge from several
scientific backgrounds and in the article this knowledge will be gathered and analyzed under the
term ‘philosophical ethology’1 (Massey 1999). The analysis will draw on a wide range of
interdisciplinary natural, social and humanistic sciences. This will include reflections on the basic
and applied studies of both classic and cognitive ethology, as well as behavioural ecology (Allen &
Bekoff 2007). But since the article endeavours to show that a natural description of the various
physical aspects of the individual farm animal, including cognitive abilities and an exhaustive
account of the behavioural aspects of the animal’s life, cannot truly encompass a philosophically
valid characterization of farm animals and farm animal life, a further dimension must be added.
Thus it will be argued that a proper and comprehensive description must inevitably – also in the
tradition of Aristotle – understand farm animals as living beings already and always situated in a
social/relational context; i.e. understanding the animal as zoon koinonias.2 The examination of this
context is rooted in sociobiology (Wilson, E.O. 1975, Wilson, E.O. & Wilson, D.S. 2007) and
sociophysiology and these theories’ investigations of animals situated within a social framework
that is both species relative and interspeciesly connected (Alcock 2001, Dawkins 1989). Finally a
thorough understanding of animals in the agricultural realm must inherently include the field of
anthrozoological research into human-animal interaction and interdependency (Swabe, 1999,
Serpell 1986).
One of the first modern theories concerning the philosophical description of animals with an ethical
analysis as an objective comes from the founder of utilitarianism, Jeremy Bentham. He essentially
defined an animal to be within our ethical area of consideration by its ability to experience pain and
pleasure and he accordingly identified the ethical good with the maximization of pleasure and the
minimization of pain (Bentham 1989). With this characterization animals were inherently inserted
1
‘Ethology’ is the branch of biology dealing with animal behaviour.
‘Fellowship being’ or ‘social being’. Derived from the term ’koinonia’ (κοινωνία) meaning ‘community’ or
‘fellowship’. This is a paraphrase over the Aristotelian concept of ‘zoon politikon’ (ζ ον πολιτικόν) which refers to
man as a social being – a being of the (inherently) human ‘polis’.
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Abstract for Societas Ethica 2008 – Philosophical Ethology and Eudaimonia in Agriculture
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into an ethical sphere – not as an appendix to or in any necessary way reliant on humans – but in
their own right as intrinsic “ethical patients.” Another aspect of Bentham’s and modern utilitarians’
(Singer 1990) assertion is the dismantling of the wall of categorical difference between humans and
animals; a wall with a foundation in many of our belief systems as well as in the sciences (Swabe
1999, Steiner 2005). Within Bentham’s framework we can say, that every sentient being counts as
one and none as more than one, and that the irrelevant discrimination on the grounds of not being
human is mere speciesism. This article supports similar criticism of a speciesistic attitude towards
animals in general and to agricultural animals in particular. Speciesism however is a way of
thinking that, when confronted and shown inept, often give rise to another parallel misconception.
Because, even though we may concur that animals are not per definition or intrinsically set apart
from humans as beings in the world or in ethical consideration, it would be an anthropomorphic
misunderstanding to think of them as entirely ‘like us’. They are in a very concrete sense not like
us, and this is a point well to remember when addressing issues of animal life and animal ethics. An
Aristotelian approach to animal ethics will agree that suffering has a part to play in an adequate
theory. As Aristotle points out, there is no way you can flourish or live ‘The Good Life’ –
eudaimonia – on the torturers bench. But to consider suffering and its opposite, the experience of
happiness or joy, to be the single yardstick against which we judge ethical wrongs and rights is to
oversimplify the entire matter and not take into account the complexity of animal life – of the
entirety of animal being. It is the article’s aim to unfold and describe this complexity and show its
ramifications within the ethical considerations and theories covering animals in the food production
sector.
Thus the ethical theory, that this article sets forth, has two intertwined properties: Firstly, to
distinguish between the relevant limitations of ethical consideration – a sort of lowest common
denominator – and secondly, to explore the upper limits for the unfolding of positive natural farm
animal life; a farm animal eudaimonia. To this end I will avail myself of Aristotle’s philosophy
applied to modern biological theories and to some extent rely on Martha Nussbaum’s neoAristotelian theory of capability as an ethical concept (Nussbaum 2006).
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Abstract for Societas Ethica 2008 – Philosophical Ethology and Eudaimonia in Agriculture
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Selected bibliography
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Allen, Colin & Bekoff, Marc – “Animal Minds, Cognitive Ethology, and Ethics” – in The Journal
of Ethics – vol. 11, 2007
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Armstrong, Susan & Botzler, Richard (ed.) – The Animal Ethics Reader – Routledge, 2003
Attfield, Robin – Environmental Philosophy: Principles and Prospects, Ashgate Pub.ltd., 1994
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Dawkins, Richard – The Selfish Gene – Oxford University Press, 1989
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Farm Animals – Elsevier Science Publishers B.B., 1985
Massey, Gerald – ”Zoological Philosophy” in Philosophical Topics vol. 27 no. 1, 1999
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Press, 2003
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Cambridge University Press, 1986
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Steiner, Gary – Anthropocentrism and its discontents: The moral status animals in the history of
Western philosophy – University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005
Swabe, Joanna - Animals, disease and human society: human-animal relations and the rise of
veterinary medicine – Routledge, 1999
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Wilson, Edward O. – Sociobiology, The New Synthesis – Harvard University Press, 1975
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in The Quarterly Review of Biology, vol. 82, no. 4, December 2007
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