Practice-oriented Ethical Models to Bridge Animal Production, Ethics and Society

Practice-oriented Ethical Models to Bridge Animal Production, Ethics and Society A seemingly unbridgeable distance has grown between contemporary animal production and the ideals living in society. This work delivers a new et hical concept, and describes a practical framework and three concrete ex amples of how to close the gap between animal production and social and ethical concerns, in day-to-day situations. It should be possible to app ly this concept and this framework to other areas in which technology is at odds with society s expectations. Next to normative and applied ethical theories, there is a third level o f ethical deliberation. This level has been named practice-oriented ethi cs ( praktijkethiek ). It deals with ethical assessment, evaluation or d ecision-making at a very practical level. In contrast to normative ethic s, which theorises about ethical concepts, and applied ethics, which the orises about practical issues, practice-oriented ethics is not about the orising, but about taking decisions and acting. Therefor, it seems bette r to talk about (practice-oriented) ethical tools than theories. The lay ered model or goal-indicator model is an elegant and powerful way to rec oncile the need for conciseness with the need for accuracy in such tools . The first tool developed through the layered model is a on-farm animal w elfare assessment system. This system integrates existing knowledge abou t the assessement of animal welfare in a framework based on three compon ents: housing, stockholder and animal. Using a newly created Stockholder Assessment System (SAS), much emphasis is lead upon the role of the sto ckholder, duly recognising his or her pivotal role in the animal product ion environment. Feedback and transparency are key elements throughout t he entire assessment system, not the final score. In order to be able to close the gap between the different stakeholders in the animal welfare debate, it is necessary to develop a common langua ge. A set of Societal Animal Welfare Indicators (SAWI) is presented, off ering a way to inform society about the evolution of animal welfare. Mor eover, the SAWI can be a bridge between the different stakeholders expe ctations. This SAWI system is developed through an intensive dialogue pr ocess with all stakeholders. Such dialogue, if continued and nutured, wi ll prove to be a much better candidate to deliver progress in animal wel fare than any other. As a third ethical tool, an Animal Disease Intervention Matrix (ADIM) is described specifically designed to assist in the evaluation and compari son of animal disease control scenarios. The ADIM can be used to compare existing intervention scenarios in specific situations, but it also is a scenario-building instrument. As an example, the ADIM is applied to H5 N1 AI, showing that a 100% preventive vaccination policy has significant ethical advantages. Cooperation and multistakeholder dialogue are two important concepts in this book. While discussions tend to emphasise differences, dialogue pro cesses are more about looking for similarities and in the longer term they can help to create some form of mutual understanding between stak eholders. The strive for more farm animal welfare will not be an unidirectional mo vement, as there are very few certainties in animal welfare issues. This will inevitably slow progress, but it should not be allowed to stop it. In certain cases, stepping back from certainty is taking a step forward . Using objective-indicator systems such as those in this work will be a n important part of this strategy, as they may be an important bridge be tween scientific, ethical and social concerns. Nevertheless, allowing di alogue and looking for cooperation will be the most important step.status: publishe