Ethics for Animals and the Environment

In the Anthropocene and a globalized world, animals and the environment are threatened by multiple and severe impacts of the global economy and human interactions with non-human nature. These challenges require addressing the moral and political dimensions of human interactions with animals and the environment. It is essential to explore the duties and responsibilities owed to animals, especially wild animals, and to ecosystems for the services and biodiversity they provide. Issues such as conservation ethics and the moral implications of climate change, habitat destruction on animals, or classical questions about the moral value and significance of non-human nature are among the many topics addressed in this area of research.

• FR

  Éthique pour les animaux et l'environnement

  Dans l'Anthropocène et dans un monde globalisé, les animaux et l'environnement sont menacés par les impacts multiples et graves de l'économie mondiale et des interactions humaines avec la nature non humaine. Ces défis exigent de prendre en compte les dimensions morales et politiques des interactions humaines avec les animaux et l'environnement. Il est essentiel d'explorer les devoirs et les responsabilités envers les animaux, en particulier les animaux sauvages, et envers les écosystèmes pour les services et la biodiversité qu'ils fournissent. Des questions telles que l'éthique de la conservation et les implications morales du changement climatique, la destruction de l'habitat des animaux ou les questions classiques sur la valeur morale et la signification de la nature non humaine font partie des nombreux sujets abordés dans ce domaine de recherche.

• DE

  Ethik für Tiere und Umwelt

  Im Anthropozän und in einer globalisierten Welt sind Tiere und die Umwelt durch vielfältige und schwerwiegende Auswirkungen der Weltwirtschaft und der menschlichen Interaktion mit der nichtmenschlichen Natur bedroht. Diese Herausforderungen erfordern eine Auseinandersetzung mit den moralischen und politischen Dimensionen der menschlichen Interaktion mit Tieren und der Umwelt. Es ist unerlässlich, die Pflichten und Verantwortlichkeiten gegenüber Tieren, insbesondere Wildtieren, und Ökosystemen für die von ihnen erbrachten Leistungen und die biologische Vielfalt zu untersuchen. Zu den vielen Themen, die in diesem Forschungsbereich behandelt werden, gehören Fragen wie die Ethik des Naturschutzes und die moralischen Auswirkungen des Klimawandels, die Zerstörung von Lebensräumen für Tiere oder klassische Fragen zum moralischen Wert und zur Bedeutung der nichtmenschlichen Natur.

Collaborators

Ongoing Projects

• 3Rs principles in wildlife research – an online resource

   

  An important landmark in thinking about the welfare of animals used in research was achieved more than 60 years ago when Russell and Burch (1959) proposed the so-called 3Rs principles (Replacement, Reduction, Refinement). While these principles were originally proposed for working with laboratory animal models, they can – and should – be applied across all disciplines of life sciences where research on animals is conducted. A case in point is research on free-living animals, which often includes invasive or lethal research practices. Nevertheless, the application of the 3Rs principles to wildlife research has significantly lagged behind that of research on laboratory animal models, potentially due to a lack of awareness. In contrast to toxicological or pharmacological research on laboratory animal models, until recently there had been no 3Rs databases or online resources designed specifically for wildlife biologists, ecologists, and conservation managers. This project focuses on expanding the content of the recently launched informational website, https://3RsWildlife.info, aiming to encourage and support the implementation of the 3Rs principles into research on wildlife.

  Collaborator: Miriam A. Zemanova

  Contact: miriam.zemanova@unifr.ch

  Duration: 2021-2022

• The Values and Ethics of One Health

  ‘One Health’ describes holistic strategies that recognize the interconnectedness and interdependence of human, animal and environmental health. They demand collaborative effort across disciplines to attain and promote optimal health for humans, animals and the environment. Nowadays, many governments, but also international organizations such as the WHO, FAO and UNEP, consider One Health approaches as one of the most effective ways to prevent and control outbreaks of infectious zoonotic diseases, that is, diseases transmitted between animals and humans. While it has been recognized that One Health approaches give raise to issues about value ascriptions and ethical challenges at the interface of human, animal and environmental health, no fully fleshed out ‘ethics of One Health’ has been developed so far. The aim of the proposed project is to close this gap in the literature, by pursuing two goals: first, to investigate the respective values that should underlie One Health approaches, with a particular focus on acceptable and justifiable policy measures in a pluralistic world; and second, to develop a comprehensive ‘ethics of One Health’ that can guide decision-making at the interface of human, animal and environmental health.

  Collaborator: Angela Martin 

  Contact: angela.martin@unifr.ch

• The notion of benefit in animal research – an ethical analysis

  The ethical and legal permissibility of animal testing is, in most countries, tied—among other things—to the condition that there must be a reasonable balance between the expected benefit and the suffering inflicted on the animals. While the quantification and assessment of animal suffering have been discussed in the literature over the past decades, defining and measuring “benefit” remains an ongoing challenge. It is an open question, for example, whether the benefit should be understood as a societal benefit, a gain in scientific knowledge, or a direct clinical benefit. All of these interpretations present challenges for basic research as well as for replication studies, which are considered legitimate goals of animal testing. It is also unclear whether the benefit should refer to the individual experiment or the broader field of research, and over what timeframe the benefit should be expected to occur.

  The aim of this project, which will result in a report, is to provide a comprehensive analysis of the existing literature on the definition of benefit in animal testing. The central question is how the benefit of animal testing—especially in light of the diverse aims of research (e.g., clinical research, basic research)—should best be understood and defined. To achieve this goal, the current state of research is summarized and critically evaluated. Various definitions and assessment approaches for the benefit of animal testing are analyzed, and their advantages and disadvantages are compared and critically examined. This project thus aims to contribute to making the complexity of benefit assessment in the animal testing debate more transparent.

  Collaborator: Angela Martin 

  Contact: angela.martin@unifr.ch

• Equines in philosophical focus

  Ethical concern for the treatment of equines has grown in focus today in public discourse, within equestrianism and equine cultures, and within equine studies and equine sciences. This reflects a major concern for equine well-being, as well as a consensus that equines must be treated ethically and given good lives. Discourse on equine well-being is dominated by equine welfare science research and, to a lesser extent, equine studies research. Equine studies represent a humanistic turn in equine sciences. This field gives a voice to disciplines of the social sciences and humanities, to inform our understanding of horses and their lives lived alongside humans. Despite this humanistic turn over the past decade, however, philosophy continues to play a minor role in this discourse, overshadowed by anthropological, ethnographic and sociological research.

  The proposed project aims to address this gap in the literature by investigating questions of equine well-being through a philosophical lens. The project's goal is therefore to situate equine issues within the field of animal ethics research and improve our understanding of equine well-being using philosophical methodologies such as conceptual analysis, language analysis, ethical analysis and analysis of power. Some key questions the project will address are: What constitutes equine flourishing? Can humans be friends with horses? How can equines best be given a voice in euthanasia decision-making? What would emancipatory education for equines look like?

  Collaborator: Maude Ouellette-Dubé, University of Fribourg ; Friederike Zenker, University of Copenhagen

  Contact: maude.ouellette-dube@unifr.ch

Publications