Aristotle\u2019s Ethics and Farm Animal Welfare

David Grumett

doi:10.1007/s10806-019-09776-1

Abstract

Although telos has been important in farm animal ethics for several decades, clearer understanding of it may be gained from the close reading of Aristotle’s primary texts on animals. Aristotle observed and classified animals informally in daily life and through planned evidence gathering and collection development. During this work he theorized his concept of telos, which includes species flourishing and a good life, and drew on extensive and detailed assessments of animal physiology, diet and behaviour. Aristotle believed that animals, like humans, have purpose, and that telos is natural and unchanging. Moreover, he greatly valued the economic, political and defence contributions of farmers to their communities. In his stockperson ethics, animals are ordered to rational human purposes through husbandry, and good practice is established and shared by experience, habituation and training. Aristotle provides a useful and demanding framework for farm animal ethics that goes well beyond negative theories of welfare as freedom from harms.

Highlights

Aristotle and Animal FarmingA country boy, Aristotle was born in 384 BCE in the village of Stagira on the Chalcidice peninsula in northern Greece
Aged eighteen he moved to the metropolis of Athens to study at Plato’s Academy, where he remained for 20 years, before tutoring the famed Macedonian conqueror King Alexander the Great
Aristotle’s general theory of telos, as outlined in his philosophical writings, may be applied to animals and used to support animal ethics. This examination of the texts in which he discusses animals directly shows that, rather than being first a theory that may subsequently be applied to practice, the idea of telos is developed via the practical observation of animals and farmed animals, and only becomes a theory

Summary

Introduction

Aristotle and Animal FarmingA country boy, Aristotle was born in 384 BCE in the village of Stagira on the Chalcidice peninsula in northern Greece. Keywords Aristotle · Ethics · Farm animal · Stockperson · Telos For an animal to have a telos means, for Aristotle, that there is a set of detailed behaviours and wider life goals that it naturally seeks to pursue.

Results

Conclusion