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1 J. Animal L. & Ethics 161 (2006)
Animal Welfare: A Political Defense

handle is hein.journals/janilet1 and id is 169 raw text is: ANIMAL WELFARE: A POLITICAL DEFENSE ROBERT GARNER* Defending animal welfare is an increasingly unenviable task for anyone who desires popularity and credibility within the animal protection movement. Animal welfare is clearly not as sexy or cutting edge as animal liberation or animal rights. To talk of animal rights or liberation is to be perceived as modem, radical and daring. The term animal welfare- once regarded as far-fetched and revolutionary-is, by contrast, now perceived as dull, conservative, and inadequate. Part of the problem is that animal welfare has become a victim of its own success. Everyone now claims to support it. Even those farming and experimenting on animals- the enemy in the eyes of animal rights activists-are nowadays apt to emphasize the importance of animal welfare in their pronouncements, if not in their practice.' Whatever else it does, the language of animal rights and liberation enables activists to once again distinguish themselves from those they seek to criticize. This Article bucks the trend somewhat by seeking to suggest that animal advocates reject the concept of animal welfare a little too hastily. This is not to say that animal welfare can be defended philosophically. In this author's view, for reasons that will be explained, animal welfare is philosophically flawed, although this in turn is not the same as saying that moral egalitarianism between humans and animals should be adopted instead. It is not the philosophical value of animal welfare that should be appreciated but its political value. This position will be defended here in * Dr. Garner is Professor of Politics at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom. He has published widely on environmental issues in general and the politics and philosophy of animal rights in particular. His books include Animals, Politics, and Morality and Political Animals: The Politics ofAnimal Protection in Britain and the United States. 1 See, e.g., Press Release, Tyson Foods Inc., Tyson Comments on PETA Claims (May 25, 2005), http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:sLBebOUPDnoJ:www.tysonfoodsinc.com/ PressRoom/ViewArticle.aspx%3Fid%3D 1 760+animal+welfare,+tyson&hl=en&gl=us&ct-cln k&cd=4 (stating that Tyson has had a longstanding commitment to animal welfare focused on the well-being, proper handling and humane slaughter of all animals used in our food products, and accusing a PETA-affiliated Tyson employee of violating Tyson's animal welfare policy). (161)

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