Searching for the Animal of Animal Ethics
IX Annual Symposium on Biomedicine, Ethics and Society, June 11-12 June 2007
The Animal of Animal Ethics
The IX Annual Symposium on Biomedicine, Ethics and Society, Searching for the Animal of Animal Ethics was hosted by the Centre for Bioethics at Karolinska Institutet and Uppsala University and held on June 11-12 June 2007 in Sandhamn.
The symposium had 69 registered participants from a variety of research fields such as ethology, veterinary science, neuroscience, bioethics, philosophy, law, gender research, animal welfare science, theology and animal breeding. The symposium gathered researchers, doctoral students, journalists, and representatives from Swedish authorities as well as animal rights and veterinarian organizations for two days of presentations and discussions.
We wish to thank the FACIAS Foundation, The Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning (FORMAS), Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation), and The Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet) for the financial support that made the symposium possible.
Searching for the Animal of Animal Ethics
Animal ethics – which inevitably contains assumptions about animals and animal life – can have far-reaching consequences for the use of animals in biomedical research and agriculture. Discussion of how new findings in animal science can become relevant for animal ethics is therefore urgent.
The aim of the symposium was to direct the bioethical discussion towards the basic question of our notion of an animal and contemporary scientific knowledge of animal life. What can we learn from ethology, evolutionary psychology, animal welfare science and philosophy about animal behaviour and animal minds? Is there scientific consensus on what an animal is, or do scientists sometimes disagree in their basic outlook on animal mind and behaviour? What does ‘welfare' mean when applied to animals? Is welfare something that we are supposed to measure, for instance, via stress hormone levels, or is it something that the animals can be said to express as sensitive and communicative subjects? Animal ethicists often discuss animals as moral subjects, but can animals also be moral agents? Natural behaviour is often emphasized as a prerequisite for animal welfare, but scientists are often more doubtful about the validity of this concept than ethicists. How does the interface between animal ethics and animal science function and how can scientific findings affect positions in animal ethics?
During the first day, four keynote lectures addressed the above topics from different angles. Marc Bekoff, University of Colorado, discussed from an ethological perspective if animals can be moral beings. Francoise Wemelsfelder, Scottish Agricultural College, discussed from an animal welfare perspective our human ability to understand psychologically expressive animal behaviour. Pär Segerdahl, Centre for Bioethics at Karolinska Institutet and Uppsala University, discussed the concept of natural behaviour from a philosophical point of view. Finally, Helena Röcklinsberg, Lund University, developed a meta-perspective on the symposium, discussing the interface between animal ethics and animal science. The first day also contained a panel discussion and a poster session.
The second day consisted of two parallel sessions which together comprised eighteen presentations on six themes:
- “What do they feel?”
- “Relating to individual animals and scientific discourse”
- “Discussing and treating laboratory animals”
- “Interpreting animal welfare documents”
- “Arguing the human/animal relationship” and
- “The ethics and welfare of bred and transgenetic animals”
Answering the basic questions posed during the symposium presupposes that we learn from interactions with animals. The symposium thereby highlighted the question if a rational approach to animal ethics requires that we shift focus from asking whether we have a right to use animals, to discussing how we should treat animals in those cases where we actually need to use them, and how we most efficiently integrate the knowledge achieved the process in various sectors such as animal breeding, animal husbandry, animal law, agriculture and biomedical research.
More information, programme and abstracts of presentations
- Programme (pdf)
- List of participants (pdf)
Monday June 11
Plenary session & posters:
Keynote talks
Poster presentations
Tuesday June 12Session I:
1:1: What do they feel?
1:2: Relating to individual animals and scientific discourse
1:3: Discussing and treating laboratory animalsSession II:
2:1: Interpreting animal welfare documents
2:2: Arguing the human/animal relationship
2:3: The ethics and welfare of bred and transgenic animalsPrintable version (pdf)
List of participants (pdf)
Programme:12:00 Lunch 13:10
Welcome and introductions Mats G. Hansson
Professor of Biomedical Ethics, Director, Centre for Bioethics at Karolinska Institutet & Uppsala University13:20 Marc Bekoff PhD, Professor of Biology, University of Colorado, USA:
Wild justice, cooperation, and fair play: can animals be moral beings?
Abstract of keynote talk (pdf)14:10 Helena Röcklinsberg ThD, University Lecturer, Lund University, Sweden:
The interface between animal ethics and animal science
Abstract of keynote talk (pdf)15:00 Coffee 15:30 Pär Segerdahl PhD, Associate Professor, Centre for Bioethics at Karolinska Institutet & Uppsala University, Sweden:
What is natural behaviour and can it be cultivated?
Abstract of keynote talk (pdf)16:20 Françoise Wemelsfelder PhD, Senior Research Scientist, Scottish Agricultural College, United Kingdom:
How do animals communicate their welfare?
Abstract of keynote talk (pdf)17:10 Discussion Moderator: Mats G. Hansson 18:30 Poster presentations Posters will be on display throughout the symposium Bo Algers (1) & Vonne Lund (2) (1) Department of Animal Environment and Health, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Skara, Sweden & (2) National Veterinary Institute, Oslo, Norway:
A biological approach to the concept of natural behaviourAbstract (pdf)
Raymond Anthony Department of Philosophy, University of Alaska Anchorage, USA:
Identity and the moral status of animals: Developing an animal ethics through the philosophy of technologyAbstract (pdf) (also presented in subsession 1:1)
Siri Martinsen Veterinarian, InterNICHE, Sweden:
The role of “educational use” of animals: a way to keep ethical concerns out of science?Abstract (pdf)
James W. Yeates, (1, 2) R. ter Meulen, (1) & D.C. Main (2) (1) Centre for Ethics in Medicine, and (2) Department of Clinical Veterinary Science, University of Bristol, United Kingdom:
Rational decision-making for animals and their humansAbstract (pdf)
19:00 Dinner Tuesday 12 June: Parallel sessions
Session I:
1:1: What do they feel?
1:2: Relating to individual animals and scientific discourse
1:3: Discussing and treating laboratory animalsSession II:
2:1: Interpreting animal welfare documents
2:2: Arguing the human/animal relationship
2:3: The ethics and welfare of bred and transgenic animals
Session I
Subsession 1:1: What do they feel? Moderator: Marc Bekoff 08:30 Bengt Meyerson (1), Hanna Augustsson (2) & Erika Roman (3)
(1) Department of Neuroscience, Uppsala University, (2) Department of Clinical Science, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and (3) Department of Pharmaceutical Biosciences, Uppsala University, Sweden:
Animal welfare: on essential measures to take and how to avoid anthropomorphism
Abstract (pdf)
09:00 Raymond Anthony Department of Philosophy, University of Alaska Anchorage, USA:
Identity and the moral status of animals: Developing an animal ethics through the philosophy of technologyAbstract (pdf)
09:30 Kate M. Millar & S. Tomkins Centre for Applied Bioethics, Veterinary Medicine and Science (VMS), University of Nottingham, United Kingdom:
Ethical and sociological dimensions of animal pain management: Understanding perceptions of pain and treatment driversAbstract (pdf)
10:00 Coffee Subsession 1:2: Relating to individual animals and scientific discourse Moderator: Françoise Wemelsfelder 10:30 Robert Heeger Ethics Institute, Utrecht University, the Netherlands:
Positive moral duties to dependent animalsAbstract (pdf)
11:00 James W. Yeates, (1, 2) R. ter Meulen, (1) & D.C. Main (2) (1) Centre for Ethics in Medicine, and (2) Department of Clinical Veterinary Science, University of Bristol, United Kingdom:
Searching for this animal: The contribution of the concept of identity in animal ethicsAbstract (pdf)
11:30 Herwig Grimm Institut TTN, Germany:
Empirical facts in farm-animal welfare discourses and their moral implicationsAbstract (pdf)
12:00 Lunch Subsession 1:3: Discussing and treating laboratory animals Moderator: Gert Helgesson 13:00 Anders Nordgren Centre for Applied Ethics, Linköping University, Sweden:
Animals as "models": scientific value and limitationsAbstract (pdf)
13:30 Malin Ideland School of Teacher Education, Malmö University, Sweden:
In the name of science? How members of animal ethics committees talk about ethicsAbstract (pdf)
14:00 Tora Holmberg Centre for Gender Studies, Uppsala University, Sweden:
Handle with care - making animal experimentalistsAbstract (pdf)
14:30 Coffee, Symposium ends Session II
Subsession 2:1: Interpreting animal welfare documents Moderator: Stefan Eriksson 08:30 Henrik Lerner Tema Health and Society/Department of Health and Society (HIS), Linköping University, Sweden:
Species and roles as tools to understand animal ethics, legislation and welfareAbstract (pdf)
09:00 Mickey Gjerris, Stine B. Christiansen & Peter Sandøe Danish Center for Bioethics and Risk Assesment, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Denmark:
Sex with animals - An interscandinavian comparative studyAbstract (pdf)
09:30 Ian Robertson Animal Law Consultancy, Law Schools (University of Leeds School of Law, UK, and University of Canterbury School of Law, NZ):
Translating the bioethical animal into a legal animal for animal welfare legislationAbstract (pdf)
10:00 Coffee Subsession 2:2: Arguing the human/animal relationship Moderator: Helena Röcklinsberg 10:30 Judith Benz-Schwarzburg Interdepartmental Centre for Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities (IZEW), University of Tübingen, Germany:
Culture, speech and theory of mind in animals and their ethical implicationsAbstract (pdf)
11:00 Fredrik Karlsson Department of Theology, Uppsala University, Sweden:
Assumptions of human-non human relation and the analogy argumentAbstract (pdf)
11:30 Anders Tolland Department of Philosophy, Göteborg University, Sweden:
Is it being human or being us that makes the difference?Abstract (pdf)
12:00 Lunch Subsession 2:3: The ethics and welfare of bred and transgenic animals Moderator: Pär Segerdahl 13:00 Lotta Rydhmer Department of Animal Breeding and Genetics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden:
Animal welfare in breeding programmesAbstract (pdf)
13:30 Arianna Ferrari Department of Philosophy, Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany:
Genetically engineered insentient animals: the ambiguities of sentienceAbstract (pdf)
14:00 Felix Laub Young@science, Weizmann Institute, Israel:
Animal domestication: primordial sin or fair contract?Abstract (pdf)
14:30 Coffee, Symposium ends
The symposium was arranged in collaboration with
The FACIAS Foundation
Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (RJ)
The Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet)
The Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning (FORMAS)
More information:
Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics
Josepine Fernow, Co-ordinator, josepine.fernow@crb.uu.se
Associate Professor Pär Segerdahl, par.segerdahl@crb.uu.se
