Animal Welfare in a Changing World

Societal recognition of non-human animal welfare extends from lobsters to zoo elephants. Human wellbeing is now directly linked to animal welfare and environmental sustainability. As such, as consumers, humans also play a critical role on animal welfare.

The moral status of non-human animals is of central importance in debates about animal ethics. Prominent in this debate are questions about our moral obligations toward animals: What are these and what grounds them? If, as it is becoming increasingly accepted, we do have significant (direct) obligations towards non-human animals, and if obligations in general must be grounded in considerations of welfare, we need to have a deeper understanding of what animal welfare entails. Currently, we lack this knowledge. This is a significant lacuna in animal ethics, one which we hope to fill at least parts and will be the main research question of the interdisciplinary ‘Animal welfare in a changing world’ PhD cluster. To do so we will explore cognitive and behavioural abilities that animals display in different contexts so that objective criteria can be established to recognize their welfare.

Impact of the research

Welfare sits directly at the heart of sustainable food production, environmental best practice, climate justice, and climate change mitigation. The potential impact of our cluster will directly affect both animal and human health and wellbeing.