Animal Welfare and Social Decisions

Transcription

1 WORKING PAPERS IN ECONOMICS No 485 Anmal Welfare and Socal Decsons Thomas Aronsson and Olof Johansson-Stenman January 2011 ISSN (prnt) ISSN (onlne) Department of Economcs School of Busness, Economcs and Law at Unversty of Gothenburg Vasagatan 1, PO Box 640, SE Göteborg, Sweden , (fax)

2 Anmal Welfare and Socal Decsons Olof Johansson-Stenman* Abstract Ths paper analyzes the standard welfare economcs assumpton of anthropocentrc welfarsm,.e., that only human well-beng counts ntrnscally. Alternatves where anmal welfare matters ntrnscally are explored theoretcally, based on moral phlosophcal lterature, and emprcally where the general publc s ethcal preferences are measured through a survey wth a representatve sample n Sweden. It s concluded that welfare economcs should be generalzed n order to encompass the dea that anmal welfare should sometmes matter ntrnscally. Keywords: anmal welfare, anthropocentrsm, welfarsm, ethcs, ethcal preferences, costbeneft analyss JEL: D6, D7, Q5 * The author s professor at the Department of Economcs, School of Busness, Economcs and Law, Unversty of Gothenburg, Box 640, SE Gothenburg, Sweden. E-mal: Olof.Johansson@economcs.gu.se. Phone: Fax: I am grateful for very constructve comments from Seth Baum, Martn Dufwenberg, Peter Martnsson, workshop partcpants at the London School of Economcs and Poltcal Scence, semnar partcpants at the Stockholm School of Economcs and partcpants at the World Conference n Envronmental and Resource Economcs n Gothenburg. Fnancal support from the European Scence Foundaton, the Swedsh Councl for Workng Lfe and Socal Research, and the Swedsh Research Councl Formas s also gratefully acknowledged. 1

3 Anmals are not self-conscous and are there merely as a means to an end. The end s man. [ ] Our dutes towards anmals are merely ndrect dutes towards humanty. Immanuel Kant (1963 [1780]), The French have already dscovered that the blackness of the skn s no reason why a human beng should be abandoned wthout redress to the caprce of a tormentor. It may come one day to be recognzed, that the number of the legs, the vllosty of the skn, or the termnaton of the os sacrum, are reasons equally nsuffcent for abandonng a senstve beng to the same fate. What else s t that should trace the nsuperable lne? Is t the faculty of reason, or, perhaps, the faculty of dscourse? But a full-grown horse or dog s beyond comparson a more ratonal, as well as a more conversable anmal, than an nfant of a day, or a week, or even a month, old. But suppose the case were otherwse, what would t aval? The queston s not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? Jeremy Bentham (1996[1789], Chapter 17, Footnote b) 1. INTRODUCTION Snce Samuelson (1938), welfare evaluatons n economcs have generally been based on revealed preference methodology, mplctly assumng that people choose what s best for themselves. However, Kahneman, Wakker, and Sarn (1997) argue n ther paper Back to Bentham: Exploratons of Experenced Utlty that psychologcal research has dentfed large and systematc decson errors, and that normatve economc theory should be based on the hedonc measure experenced utlty, as n Bentham s usage, rather than decson utlty as revealed by people s choces. Snce the paper by Kahneman et al., a lterature on paternalstc nterventons has evolved, where people when analyzng approprate regulatons and laws are essentally protected from ther own lmted self control and/or cogntve ablty. 1 The present paper suggests another, but related, potental reason to return to Bentham, 1 See, e.g., Gruber and Köszeg (2002), Camerer et al. (2003), O Donoghue and Rabn (2006), and Thaler and Sunsten (2008); yet see also Bernhem and Rangel (2007, 2009) and Sugden (2004, 2009) for choce or opportunty-based approaches when people do not have coherent preferences. 2

4 namely the ssue of whether we should devote ntrnsc concern for anmal sufferng (or welfare more generally) n publc decson makng. Here too, revealed preference methodology s of lttle help, manly for two reasons: (1) Anmal sufferng s a non-market good (or bad). Hence, snce there s no market, t s hard to reveal people s preferences for such ssues. (2) People may choose, or prefer the government to choose, based on other ends than ther own well-beng. Conventonal welfare economcs s based on what Sen (1970, 1979) denotes welfarsm,.e., that socal welfare depends solely on utlty or well-beng, as well as anthropocentrsm, meanng that t s only human utlty or well-beng that counts ntrnscally. Both of these assumptons, and the latter n partcular, are so commonly made that they are most often not even mentoned n the lterature, ncludng advanced and extensve textbooks n mcroeconomc and envronmental economcs such as Mas-Colell, Whnston, and Greene (1995) and Hanley, Shogren, and Whte (1997). It s of course stll possble that people are wllng to pay for reduced anmal sufferng and for mproved envronmental qualty (and for publc goods n general) to the extent that ther utlty s affected by such changes. For example, the sufferng of a partcular anmal speces may affect socal welfare through altrustc concern n the utlty functon of one or many ndvduals. However, socal welfare s then only affected nstrumentally, and not ntrnscally. Although such an anthropocentrc vew domnates n welfare economcs, t s thus rarely expressed clearly n plan Englsh. Baxter (1974) s an excepton: Penguns are mportant because people enjoy seeng them walk about rocks; and furthermore, the well-beng of people would be less mpared by haltng use of DDT than by gvng up penguns. In short, my observatons about envronmental problems wll be people-orented, as are my crtera. I have no nterest n preservng penguns for ther own sake. (Baxter 1974:5) Ths quotaton makes clear that Baxter holds purely anthropocentrc values, yet t does of course not follow that most people would agree. 3

5 The fundamental queston that the present paper asks, and tres to answer, s ths: Is there reason to relax the anthropocentrc assumpton n economcs, and hence to allow for ncorporatng non-anthropocentrc ethcal assumptons? The focus s partcularly on normatve perspectves of ths queston, when e.g. analyzng approprate regulatons and laws, but t s relevant also for purely descrptve ssues such as understandng the behavor of people. In tryng to answer ths basc queston, we rely on two sources: moral phlosophy and the general publc s ethcal preferences. 2 The reason for consultng moral phlosophy may appear obvous, snce a major purpose of ths dscplne s to systematcally analyze ethcal ssues and assumptons. Yet, not everybody agrees that phlosophcal thnkng and ethcal arguments should nfluence publc decson makng. For example, law professor Rchard Posner beleves that anmal sufferng should only be gven nstrumental values and argues that ethcal argument s and should be powerless aganst tenacous moral nstncts (Posner, 2004, 66-67). 3 Even some phlosophers, such as Bernard Wllams (1985), queston whether phlosophcal thnkng should gude actual publc prortes. Our second source, based on the general publc s ethcal preferences, s nvestgated snce t s often argued that socal decsons should reflect the opnons of the ctzens. Our two sources are of course not ndependent of each other, and most phlosophers presumably beleve that people s ethcal preferences have at least some normatve sgnfcance for publc decson makng; for example, see Mller (1999) for a moral phlosophy explctly made up of people s ethcal preferences. Secton 2 outlnes a smple model where dfferent ethcal preferences are formalzed and competng normatve propostons are expressed. Secton 3 relates these dfferent ethcal assumptons to monetary welfare measures, n terms of prvate and socal wllngness to pay 2 The noton ethcal preferences s unfortunately used wth slghtly dfferent meanngs n economcs. Here the term reflects the opnons people have regardng the prncples that should underpn socal decsons. 4

6 for an anmal welfare mprovement. Secton 4 brefly revews the moral phlosophcal dscusson on anmal sufferng. Perhaps not surprsngly, a large heterogenety of vews s found, yet the narrow anthropocentrc perspectve s found to be rare. The ethcal preferences of laypersons wth respect to anmal sufferng are analyzed n Secton 5, whch provdes evdence from a representatve survey n Sweden where the respondents were explctly asked about ther ethcal perceptons. Lttle support was found for the conventonal hypothess that a reducton of anmal sufferng has no ntrnsc value beyond the nstrumental values (e.g., because some human bengs suffer when anmals suffer). Secton 6 concludes that n lght of the fndngs here, t s problematc to mantan the vew that welfare economcs should always be based exclusvely on the well-beng of humans. 2. COMPETING MODELS AND NORMATIVE PROPOSITIONS Consder a socety n whch we have s envronmental dmensons, wth the correspondng cardnally measured envronmental qualtes gven by the vector E E,..., 1 E s, and m anmals, wth the correspondng cardnal anmal well-beng measures gven by the vector A( E) A ( E,..., E ),..., A ( E,..., E ), where A E 0 for all j, k, and where anmal 1 1 s m 1 s j k well-beng s comparable among anmals as well as between anmals and human bengs. Thus, the unt of analyss when consderng anmal well-beng s each ndvdual anmal. We can thnk of the envronmental dmensons n very broad terms. One dmenson may be the ambent concentraton level of ozone n a specfc area, another may be the condtons at a certan slaughterhouse, and a thrd the (negatve of the) extent to whch force-feedng of ducks takes place. Assume also that we have n human ndvduals, wth utlty functons that depend on ther own ncome (or consumpton of a composte good) x as well as on the well- 3 See, however, the response by Snger (2004). 5

7 beng of the anmals and envronmental qualtes. Snce we are concerned wth welfare analyss, to the extent that experenced utlty and decson utlty dffer (Kahneman, Wakker, and Sarn 1997; Kahneman and Thaler 2006), we are ntrnscally concerned wth experenced utlty. 4 The cardnal and nterpersonally comparable utlty functon of an arbtrary ndvdual k can then be wrtten as u ( x, A( E), E) k, [1] k k u where 0 x u for all ; 0 A j u for all, j, and 0 A j for at least one, j; and where u E k 0 u for all, j and 0 E k for at least one, k. An allocaton can then be defned solely as a functon of each ndvdual s ncome, x, and the envronmental qualtes. Let us further assume that socety s guded by the consequentalst ethcs of maxmzng an ordnal socal welfare functon (SWF). So far, nothng s assumed beyond the conventonal model. We are now ready to state our competng and mutually exclusve ethcs hypotheses and express them n terms of correspondng SWFs. Normatve Proposton 1. No weght should be gven to anmal sufferng. People derve utlty from reducng anmal sufferng, whch mples that for the net effect to be zero, socal welfare must depend negatvely on anmal well-beng per se. Ths s consstent wth an SWF that depends on a vector of ndvdual utltes u x, A( E), E u x, A( E), E,..., u x, A( E), E as well as anmal well-beng such that 1 1 n n W w u x, A( E), E, A( E ), [2] 4 For earler arguments along smlar lnes, see, e.g., Harsany (1982, 1995) and Broome (1999). 6

8 w where 0 u for all. Dfferentatng [2] wth respect to E k mples that dw w u w u A w A de u E u A E A E n n s j s j 1 1 j 1 j 1 k k j k j k k. [3] For the net effect of anmal sufferng on socal welfare to be zero, t then follows that w A j 0 for all j. 5 Thus, n order to obtan Normatve Proposton 1, the government needs to put a negatve ntrnsc weght on anmal well-beng. Expressed n ths way, t s clear that ths approach s nconsstent wth conventonal welfare theory, and presumably also dffcult to argue for n moral phlosophcal terms. Let us now nstead consder the conventonal anthropocentrc socal welfare model: Normatve Proposton 2. No weght should be gven to anmal sufferng per se, yet the fact that some people suffer when anmals suffer should be taken nto account. Ths s consstent wth an SWF as follows: W w u x, A( E), E. [4] Then a margnal welfare effect of an ncrease n an envronmental qualty can be wrtten as dw w u w u A de u E u A E n n s j 1 1 j 1 t t j t t. [5] Thus, here all welfare consequences are taken nto account as long as they ultmately affect human well-beng. 5 If the net welfare effect of anmal sufferng should be zero, we must have that Combnng that wth [3], t follows that w w u A u A n 1 j j dw w u de u E n 1 k k for all k.. Snce by assumpton w u 0 for all, 7

9 Normatve Proposton 3. A postve weght should be gven to anmal sufferng per se,.e., ndependently of nstrumental effects on human well-beng, yet the weght per sufferng unt should be lower for each anmal than for each human beng. w Ths proposton mples an SWF such as [2], but where now 0 A j for all j. 6 Moreover, the margnal socal welfare of ncreased envronmental qualty s gven by [3], where Max w w w w,..., Mn,..., A A u u 1 s 1 n. In the specal case where the weght gven to each human ndvdual s the same, we have that dw u u A A de E A E E n n s j s j 1 1 j 1 j 1 j t t j t t t, [6] j where 1 for all j. Normatve Proposton 4. A postve weght should be gven to anmal sufferng per se, and the weght per sufferng unt should be the same for each anmal as t s for each human beng. Ths proposton s consstent wth a classcal utltaran anmal-ncludng SWF, as defended by, e.g., Peter Snger, as follows: mplyng that n m W u x, A ( E ), E A ( E ), [7] j j u A 0 for all, j, and u A 0 for at least one, j, t follows that w A 0 for all j. j j 6 Ths termnology thus mples that socety s a broad term that ncludes also anmals, even f they carry less j 8

10 dw u u A A de E A E E n n s j s j 1 1 j 1 j 1 t t j t t t. [8] It should be emphaszed that Normatve Proposton 4 does of course not mply that all consequences or treatments for anmals and human bengs should be gven equal weght, snce humans may be expected to suffer much more than certan anmals would from the same consequence or treatment. For example, f humans were to experence the same (or correspondng) knd of forced feedngs as ducks do, t s concevable that humans would suffer much more than the ducks. Consder now the perhaps extreme poston that prortzes anmal sufferng: Normatve Proposton 5. A postve weght should be gven to anmal sufferng per se, and the weght should be hgher for each anmal than for each human beng. Ths mples that [2] holds, but now w w w w mn,..., max,..., A A u u 1 s 1 n. In the specal case where the weght gven to each human beng s the same, we have then that [6] holds j where 1 for all j. Obvously, Normatve Proposton 5 s very strong. Although beyond the man task of ths paper, let us for completeness also menton the possblty of non-welfarstc SWFs 7 such that W w u x, A( E), E, A( E), E, [9] w where 0 E k for all k. Thus, n ths case the envronment s consdered valuable n tself, beyond nstrumental effects for human bengs and anmals. weght n prortes; Baum (2009) uses the term socety n a smlarly broad sense. 7 A non-welfarstc SWF may sound lke an oxymoron. A reader who s not happy wth ths name may then prefer to change t to a non-welfarstc socal objectve functon. 9

11 3. ANIMAL WELFARE, PARETO EFFICIENCY, AND WILLINGNESS TO PAY In ths secton, we wll analyze some mplcatons of gvng ntrnsc weght to anmal welfare for the nterpretaton of the central concept of Pareto effcency as well as for the specfcaton of monetary welfare measures. In both cases, we wll ntroduce new concepts n order to explctly encompass ntrnsc valuaton of anmal welfare. 3.1 Pareto Effcency Consder the feasble allocatons X x1,..., xn, E1,..., E s and X ' x ' 1,..., x ' n, E ' 1,..., E ' s, and let us defne two dfferent knds of Pareto effcency: Defnton 1: A feasble allocaton X s anmal-excludng Pareto effcent (AEP) f there s no other feasble allocaton X ' such that u ( X ') u ( X ) for all = 1,, n and u ( X ') u ( X ) for some. Thus, ths defnton s the conventonal one based on anthropocentrc ethcs; cf., e.g., Mas- Colell, Whnston, and Greene (1995). Defnton 2: A feasble allocaton X s anmal-ncludng Pareto effcent (AIP) f there s no other feasble allocaton X ' such that u ( X ') u ( X ) for all = 1,, n and A ( X ') A ( X ) j j for all j = 1,, m, and at least one of the followng two condtons s fulflled: () u ( X ') u ( X ) for some and () A ( X ') A ( X ) for some j. j j Thus, an allocaton s AIP f there s no other allocaton such that the well-beng of any 10

12 human beng or anmal ncreases wthout a decrease n well-beng for any other human beng or anmal. Maxmzaton of the SWFs assocated wth the dfferent hypotheses subject to a resource constrant then drectly mples that Normatve Proposton 1 s nconsstent wth both AIP and AEP, Normatve Proposton 2 s consstent wth AEP but nconsstent wth AIP, and Normatve Propostons 3, 4, and 5 are consstent wth AIP but nconsstent wth AEP. 3.2 Welfare Measures wth a Representatve Indvdual Welfare measures n appled economcs, ncludng envronmental economcs, are usually based on measures of ndvduals maxmum wllngness to pay (WTP), and, n the contnuous case, on measures of margnal wllngness to pay (MWTP), whch reflects the margnal rate of substtuton between the good to be valued and money. Yet, the relatonshps between welfare changes and ndvdual wllngness-to-pay measures are of course less straghtforward when we also consder the welfare of anmals. As s common n the lterature on welfare measures, we abstract from dstrbutonal ssues trough aggregaton ssues. 8 In ths subsecton ths s done by only consderng a sngle representatve ndvdual wth ntal ncome x; for notatonal smplcty we wll also only consder a sngle representatve anmal wth well-beng A and a sngle measure of envronmental qualty E. 9 In the next sub-secton we wll nstead consder many ndvdual case wth a more restrctve utlty functon. Let us start wth the SWF correspondng to Normatve Proposton 2, such that W w u x, A( E), E, mplyng that no ntrnsc weght s gven to anmal sufferng per se whereas nstrumental human welfare effects caused by anmal sufferng are taken nto 8 See Kaplow and Shavell (1994) and Kaplow (2000) for supportng arguments, based on the dea that t s often well-motvated to deal wth dstrbutonal ssues through more targeted system, such as the ncome tax system, rather than through legal regulatons. 11

13 account. Recallng that w s an ordnal functon, any monotonc transformaton of W, such as 1 W ' w ( W ) u x, A( E), E.e., the utlty functon tself s an equally vald SWF. The MWTP for an ncrease n E s then clearly gven by the slope of the ndfference curve: MWTP dx u E u A A E, [10] de u x u x u where the frst term reflects the MWTP for an mprovement n E holdng anmal sufferng constant, whle the second term reflects the MWTP for the reduced anmal sufferng resultng from the mprovement n E (through correspondngly reduced sufferng for the ndvdual). It s also straghtforward to mplctly determne the WTP (or compensatng varaton) assocated wth a dscrete change n envronmental qualty from E to E E as follows: u x, A( E), E u x WTP, A( E E), E E. [11] So far, we are wthn the framework of conventonal welfare theory. Consder next the case where anmal well-beng enters drectly nto the SWF, as n the remanng Normatve Propostons 1, 3, 4, and 5, where W w u x, A( E), E, A( E ). Then the ndvdual measures of MWTP and WTP for changes n E wll stll be gven by [10] and [11] (provded of course that the ndvdual s a utlty maxmze). However, these measures wll then not fully reflect the welfare changes assocated wth the underlyng SWF. In contrast, let us ntroduce the noton socal margnal wllngness to pay (SMWTP), reflectng how much of prvate ncome (n terms of consumpton of the composte good) that socety s wllng to forego for a small ncrease n E (per unt of E). In other words, SMWTP reflects the slope of the socal ndfference curve, mplyng SMWTP u u A w A dx E A E A E de W u w u x u x. [12] 9 The notatons are then consstent wth the ones used n Secton II wth s m n 1. 12

14 Thus, we have two terms where the frst one s ndependent of the SWF and the second reflects the ntrnsc value attached to anmal sufferng. Comparng [12] wth [10], we can observe that the frst term of [12] s equal to the (prvate) MWTP, mplyng that we can rewrte [12] as SMWTP MWTP A E u x, [13] where w A w gves the relatve margnal weght gven to anmal welfare (on the u margn) compared to an equally large amount of human sufferng. Normatve Proposton 1 then mples that 0, hence SMWTP MWTP, whereas Normatve Proposton 2 mples that 0, hence SMWTP MWTP. When anmal welfare has a postve weght n the SWF, consstent wth Normatve Propostons 3-5, t follows that 0 and SMWTP MWTP. Smlarly, we can mplctly defne the socal wllngness to pay (SWTP), reflectng how much ncome socety s wllng to forego for a certan dscrete ncrease n envronmental qualty from E to E E: w u x, A( E), E, A( E) w u x SWTP, A( E E), E E, A( E E ). [14] Whle we cannot addtvely separate SWTP nto WTP and another term related to the ntrnsc valuaton of anmal welfare (as we could for SMWTP), the correspondng relatonshps between SWTP and WTP dependng on the sgn of hold here as well. 3.3 Welfare Measures wth Many Indvduals In ths sub-secton we wll consder socal welfare changes based on many non-dentcal ndvduals. Yet, n order to stll abstract from dstrbutonal concerns (typcally done n costbeneft analyss) we wll make addtonal functonal form assumptons of both the SWF and 13

15 the ndvdual utlty functons. In partcular, we wll adopt an anmal-welfare extended utltaran SWF as well as utlty functons that are lnear n prvate ncome, and where the margnal utlty of ncome s always the same for all ndvduals. We keep the assumpton of a sngle representatve anmal wth well-beng A, whch we may smply nterpret as the aggregate sum of anmal welfare, and a sngle measure of envronmental qualty E; t s straghtforward to generalze these assumptons. Consder the followng functonal form example where the SWF s addtvely separable n anmal welfare and gven by W u x, A( E), E ( A( E )), [15] where s a parameter wth the same nterpretaton as the correspondng varable n the case above. Hence, t reflects the relatve weght gven to anmal welfare (on the margn) compared to an equally large amount of human welfare. The ndvdual utlty functon for an arbtrary ndvdual k s also addtvely separable and gven by 10 uk xk f ( A( E), E) gk ( A( E), E ), [16] Substtutng [16] nto [15] mples W x f ( A( E), E) g( A( E), E) A( E). [17] X f ( A( E), E) A( E) g ( A( E), E) where X x s aggregate ncome. Based on [10] and [16] we can express the prvate and as follows: MWTP k xk ( f A A E f E) gk A A E gk E f ( A( E), E) [18] Moreover, snce socal welfare only depend on aggregate prvate ncome X and E, such that we may wrte, W w( X, E ), we can from [17] obtan the socal margnal wllngness to pay 10 Note that whle the preferences dffer through the functons g k, the functon lnked wth prvate ncome, f, 14

16 as follows: dx SMWTP de W x ( f A A E f E ) g A A E g E A E f ( A( E), E) f ( A( E), E) MWTP A E f ( A( E), E) [19] where n the last step we have used [18]. Hence, we can observe that the socal MWTP, reflectng how much socety s wllng to reduce prvate ncome per unt of E, equals the sum of the prvate MWTPs plus a term reflectng the ntrnsc value of anmal welfare n the SWF. The nomnator of the rato n the last term reflects the anmal welfare change per unt of E, whereas the denomnator reflects the (socal) margnal utlty of prvate ncome. Smlarly, we can, based on the same functonal forms, express the prvate and socal wllngness to pay for a dscrete change n envronmental qualty. By usng [11] and [16] we obtan: WTP k x k 1 f ( A( E), E) gk( A( E E), E E) gk( A( E), E) f ( A( E E), E E) f ( A( E E), E E) [20] Smlarly, based on the SWF gven by [17], t follows that f ( A( E), E) SWTP X 1 f ( A( E E), E E) g( A( E E), E E) g( A( E), E) A( E E) A( E) f ( A( E E), E E) f ( A( E E), E E) WTP A( E E) A( E) f ( A( E E), E E) [21] where n the last step we have used [20]. Thus, the overall socal WTP for an ncrease n E, resultng n mproved anmal welfare, s here gven by the sum of ndvdual WTPs, based on both anmal welfare and envronmental mprovements, and a term reflectng the ntrnsc value of anmal well-beng. Note that A( E E) A( E ) reflects the dscrete ncrease n s dentcal for all. 15

17 anmal welfare due to the change n E, whereas f ( A( E E), E E ) reflects margnal utlty of ncome (at the envronmental qualty E E). Whle ths specfc result of course hnges upon the restrctons of the utlty functon and on the utltaran augmented SWF, t s a natural benchmark results when dstrbutonal effects between ndvduals are not consdered essental. Note also that for the case where margnal utlty of ncome s approxmately constant n the ntervals consdered, we may smplfy [21] further, as follows: SWTP WTP A / x A( E E) A( E) u / x A / x [22] where u/ x s the (common for all) margnal utlty of ncome and where A/ x can be nterpreted s the margnal utlty of ncome for anmals,.e. how much anmal welfare that one at most can get by an alternatve use of the last dollar spent. [22] then shows that socal WTP for an mprovement n E s gven by the sum of ndvduals WTP plus a term consstng of the product of the relatve weght that anmal welfare has n the SWF compared to prvate welfare ( ), a rato reflectng how much anmal well-beng that at most can be obtaned by reducng human well-beng by one unt A/ u/ x x, and fnally the anmal well-beng caused by the envronmental mprovement, normalzed by the margnal utlty of ncome for anmals A( E E) A( E) A/ x. In ths secton, we have shown that t s possble, and ndeed relatvely straghtforward, to extend the conventonal theory of welfare measurements to the case where anmal welfare carres ntrnsc weght n the SWF. Yet, and perhaps needless to say, ths does not change the fact that t s anythng but straghtforward to quantfy the relatonshps between anmal welfare and underlyng envronmental varables and to compare these wth measures of human well-beng, whch are tasks far beyond the scope of the present paper. 16

18 4. ANIMALS AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY In Geness 1:26 of the Bble, God says: Let us make man n our mage, after our lkeness: and let them have domnon over the fsh of the sea, and over the fowl of the ar, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creepng thng that creepeth upon the earth. In the Western humanstc/chrstan tradton, anmals have been consdered to be dstnctly nferor to humans and have even been treated as objects rather than subjects from an ethcal pont of vew. It s sometmes argued, however, that Greek phlosophy n general, and Arstotle n partcular, has been even more nfluental n ths tradton. 11 He wrtes n Poltcs: Plants exst for the sake of anmals, and brute beasts for the sake of man domestc anmals for hs use and food, wld ones for food and other accessores of lfe, such as clothng and varous tools. Snce nature makes nothng purposeless or n van, t s undenably true that she has made all anmals for the sake of man. (Arstotle, 350 BC, Book 1, Chapter 8) These deas were then ncorporated nto Chrstanty partly through the wrtngs of Thomas Aqunas, who was very nfluenced by Arstotle and wrote about anmals that: by dvne provdence they are ntended for man's use n the natural order. Hence t s no wrong for man to make use of them ether by kllng or n any other way whatever. (Aqunas, 1905[ ]) Ths vew, by and large, domnated both law and general thnkng for a very long tme n Western socetes. In the seventeenth century, Descartes pushed these deas to an extreme when he referred to anmals as automata who could not feel pan. Many followers of Descartes consequently beleved that anmal cryng was just a reflex, smlar to the knd of reacton one may get from a mechancal doll or some other type of machne. One logcal 11 However, the ancent Greek world also contaned much dscusson and reflecton about the moral status of anmals; see, e.g., Sorabj (1993) for an extensve treatment. A well-known example s Socrates hestaton concernng eatng meat, accordng to Plato s (2006 [360BC]) Republc: Would ths habt of eatng anmals not requre that we slaughter anmals that we knew as ndvduals, and n whose eyes we could gaze and see ourselves reflected, only a few hours before our meal? 17

19 mplcaton was that they saw no reason not to experment on anmals wthout anesthetcs. It was not untl the age of enlghtenment that anmals receved serous attenton, and as noted by the explctly non-utltaran phlosopher Martha Nussbaum (2004), ths change was largely due to the early utltaran phlosophers. For example, Jeremy Bentham, n the same secton as hs famous ntal quotaton n An Introducton to the Prncples of Morals and Legslaton, argued that anmals too should be protected by the law and that t s unsatsfactory that anmals, on account of ther nterests havng been neglected by the nsensblty of the ancent jursts, stand degraded nto the class of thngs (Bentham, 1789, Chapter 17, Secton 4). There s evdence (see, e.g., Favre and Tsang, 1993) that hs wrtngs were nfluental n obtanng what s wdely regarded as the world s frst anmal protecton legslaton, the so-called Dck Martn's Act, ntroduced n Brtan n 1822 to prevent, or at least reduce, cruel treatment of cattle. John Stuart Mll had a smlar opnon, and when forcefully defendng Bentham n a debate he made clear that the ssue of anmal welfare was not of perpheral concern to hm: We are perfectly wllng to stake the whole queston on ths one ssue. Granted that any practce causes more pan to anmals than t gves pleasure to man; s that practce moral or mmoral? And f, exactly n proporton as human bengs rase ther heads out of the slough of selfshness, they do not wth one voce answer mmoral, let the moralty of the prncple of utlty be for ever condemned. (Mll, 1874) Perhaps of even more nterest to economsts are the reflectons of publc nterventon n hs Prncples of Poltcal Economy, where he explctly ponts out the need for anmals to be protected by law: The reasons for legal nterventon n favour of chldren, apply not less strongly to the case of those unfortunate slaves and vctms of the most brutal part of manknd, the lower anmals. It s by the grossest msunderstandng of the prncples of lberty, that the nflcton of exemplary punshment on ruffansm practsed towards these defenceless creatures has been treated as a meddlng by government wth thngs beyond ts provnce; an nterference wth domestc lfe. The domestc lfe 18

20 of domestc tyrants s one of the thngs whch t s the most mperatve on the law to nterfere wth. (Mll, 1848, Book 5, Chapter 11, Paragraph 31) He contnues n the same paragraph by explanng that hs concerns are drected towards the anmal sufferng per se, and not towards potental nstrumental effects: It s to be regretted that metaphyscal scruples respectng the nature and source of the authorty of government, should nduce many warm supporters of laws aganst cruelty to anmals, to seek for a justfcaton of such laws n the ncdental consequences of the ndulgence of ferocous habts to the nterests of human bengs, rather than n the ntrnsc merts of the case tself. Henry Sdgwck, who besdes Bentham and Mll s one of the most nfluental utltarans, expressed strkngly smlar opnons n hs Methods of Ethcs: We have next to consder who the all are, whose happness s to be taken nto account. Are we to extend our concern to all the bengs capable of pleasure and pan whose feelngs are affected by our conduct? Or are we to confne our vew to human happness? The former vew s the one adopted by Bentham and Mll, and (I beleve) by the Utltaran school generally: and s obvously most n accordance wth the unversalty that s characterstc of ther prncple. It s the Good Unversal, nterpreted and defned as happness or pleasure, at whch a Utltaran consders t hs duty to am: and t seems arbtrary and unreasonable to exclude from the end, as so conceved, any pleasure of any sentent beng. (Sdgwck, 1907, Book 4, Chapter 1) Many contemporary utltarans hold smlar vews, of whch Peter Snger s probably the best-known example: If a beng suffers, there can be no moral justfcaton for refusng to take that sufferng nto consderaton. No matter what the nature of the beng, the prncple of equalty requres that ts sufferng be counted equally wth the lke sufferng n so far as rough comparsons can be made of any other beng. If a beng s not capable of sufferng, or of experencng enjoyment or happness, there s nothng to be taken nto account. (Snger, 1974) Largely startng wth Snger n the early 1970s, the phlosophcal lterature related to anmal welfare has vrtually exploded. Accordng to Tom Regan (1990, x), t s not an overstatement of the case to say that wthn the past 20 years contemporary moral phlosophers have 19

21 wrtten more on the topc of human responsblty to other anmals than ther predecessors had wrtten n the prevous two thousand years. And snce 1990, the phlosophcal nterest n varous aspects of the relatons between humans and anmals has ncreased even further; see e.g., Sunsten and Nussbaum (2004), Derrda (2008), and Lurz (2009) for recent and much dscussed contrbutons. On the contrary, Immanuel Kant, perhaps the most nfluental rghts or duty-based ethcst to date, argued (as quoted above) that anmals are not part of the categorcal mperatve and have only nstrumental values. 12 The most well-known contemporary rghtsbased ethcal contrbutons are presumably A Theory of Justce by John Rawls (1971) and Anarchy, State and Utopa by Robert Nozck (1974). 13 Although these authors came to very dfferent conclusons regardng redstrbuton and the approprate role of the state, as argung for extreme egaltaransm based on max-mn prncples and vrtually no redstrbuton/a mnmal nghtwatchman state, respectvely, ther vews on how to deal wth anmals are surprsngly smlar. Nether one argues that anmals should have the same rghts as humans, yet both agree that anmals should be gven some weght (as long as they do not nfrnge on human rghts), n what essentally seems to be a utltaran trade-off between anmal and human welfare. Accordng to Rawls (1971, 512): It does not follow that there are no requrements at all n regard to them [the anmals], nor n our relatons wth the natural order. Certanly t s wrong to be cruel to anmals and the destructon of a whole speces can be a great evl. The capacty for feelngs of pleasure and pan and for the forms of lfe of whch anmals are capable clearly mposes dutes of compasson and humanty n ther case. 12 However, Johann Wolfgang Goethe shortly after extended the categorcal mperatve to also accommodate the nterests of anmals. In Metamorphoss of Anmals, he argued that each anmal s an end n tself (Goethe, 1790). The phlosophy of Tom Regan, and many other contemporary phlosophers who argue that anmals have nherent rghts, s also often characterzed as Kantan n a sense that resembles ths broader perspectve. 13 Of whch the rghts n the phlosophy of Rawls are nduced through a contractaran approach, whereas Nozck 20

22 Nozck (1974) s more explct when dscussng our habts of eatng meat: If some anmals count for somethng, whch anmals count, how much do they count, and how can ths be determned? Suppose (as I beleve the evdence supports) that eatng anmals s not necessary for health and s not less expensve than alternate equally healthy dets avalable to people n the Unted States. The gan, then, from the eatng of anmals s pleasures of the palate, gustatory delghts, vared tastes. I would not clam that these are not truly pleasant, delghtful, and nterestng. The queston s: do they, or rather does the margnal addton n them ganed by eatng anmals rather than only nonanmals, outwegh the moral weght to be gven to anmals' lves and pan? Gven that anmals are to count for somethng, s the extra gan obtaned by eatng them rather than nonanmal products greater than the moral cost? Eventually, Nozck rejects utltaran calculatons also for the trade-off between anmal and human well-beng. However, the reason gven s not that such trade-offs would gve anmal well-beng too great a weght. Rather, he concludes that sometmes anmal rghts mply that an acton probably ought not to be taken even f the ncrease n human well-beng outweghs the loss n anmal well-beng. He exemplfes as follows (Nozck, 1974, 42): Would t be alrght to use genetc-engneerng technques to breed natural slaves, who would be contended wth ther lots? Natural anmal slaves? Was that the domestcaton of anmals? Even for anmals, utltaransm won t do as the whole story, but the thcket of questons daunts us. Of the contemporary moral phlosophers n the rghts-based tradton, Tom Regan s the most well-known defender of explct anmal rghts. He argues that hgher anmals n prncple should have the same rghts as human bengs (e.g., Regan, 1983, 2001, 2003). Although Snger and Regan are certanly not representatve for phlosophers as a group, from revewng the lterature t nevertheless appears that most current phlosophers, of ether tradton, who have expressed any vew on the matter, tend to be of the opnon that anmals should at least be gven some ntrnsc weght and that we have some responsblty toward them. Thus, n terms of our hypotheses, most current phlosophers appear to support ultmately reles on a natural-rghts approach. 21

23 ether Normatve Proposton 3 or 4, whereas very few support Normatve Propostons 1 and 2. However, there are of course exceptons. For example, Peter Carruthers (1989, 1992) defends contractualst ethcs and argues that anmals have no ntrnsc moral sgnfcance. It s somewhat paradoxcal that economcs, whch from an ethcal pont of vew almost entrely bulds on consequentalsm, s nevertheless bult on assumptons that resemble Kant s (or Carruthers s) rather than Bentham s (or Snger s) percepton wth respect to anmal sufferng. 5. EVIDENCE FROM A SWEDISH SURVEY In the last secton, we saw that moral phlosophy does not provde much support for always relyng on the conventonal anthropocentrc assumpton. In ths secton, we wll nvestgate whether laypersons tend to be more supportve by analyzng the results from a recent survey of laypersons ethcal values. Let us frst reflect brefly on where our ethcal values and perceptons come from. Accordng to Bromley (2006, 1): 14 As socal bengs, we tend toward ndeed, we are defned by socal belefs. The essence of socalzaton s precsely the stablzaton of belefs. And stablzed belefs defne for us what s normal, correct, rght. It could not be otherwse. 5.1 The Survey and Basc Results The survey was maled to 2,450 randomly selected adults above age 18 n Sweden; the response rate was 45%. Due to mssng responses to partcular questons, the number of observatons ncluded n the analyss vares from 1,032 to 1,072,.e., 42-44% of the total selected sample. The sample s farly representatve of adults n Sweden; the last column of Table 2 provdes mean values and standard devatons of the explanatory varables used. We 14 Herrmann et al. (2010) provde nterestng recent emprcal evdence on how chldren change ther perceptons of anmals n relaton to human bengs over tme. Yet, as the authors pont out, these processes of course dffer among cultures and also change over tme. 22

24 have an over-representaton of unversty-educated people and a slght over-representaton of women. Of course there are possble bases, whch wll be further commented on at the end of ths secton. In order to test the anthropocentrc assumpton, the respondents were asked about how anmal sufferng, per sufferng unt, should count compared to human sufferng n publc decson makng. It s mportant to note that the comparson s thus per sufferng unt, and not n terms of a smlar physcal experence. For example, t s lkely that two anmals from dfferent speces wll experence a very dfferent amount of sufferng from sharng a smlar physcal experence, such as breakng a leg. Moreover, t s mplct n ths formulaton that the number of ndvduals sufferng wll matter too. 15 <<Table 1 about here>> The results clearly show that the standard assumpton n economcs,.e., that anmal sufferng should only count nstrumentally, can be questoned snce only 3.2 percent chose ths alternatve. Thus, n terms of our hypotheses, there s very lttle support for Normatve Propostons 1 and 2. The most frequently chosen alternatve (49.3%) s nstead the one where anmal sufferng and human sufferng are counted as equal, whch s n lne wth opnons expressed by utltarans such as Snger (1974, 1975, 1993, 2004) and wth our Normatve Proposton 4. Almost as many (43.5%) beleve that anmal sufferng should count ntrnscally yet not as much as human sufferng, correspondng to Normatve Proposton 3. Overall, the responses on average mply that anmal sufferng should count less than human sufferng, although the results provde very lttle support for Normatve Proposton 2,.e., for what s typcally assumed n the envronmental valuaton lterature n partcular and n the 15 For example, when anmal sufferng s taken nto account to the same degree as human sufferng, 10 cows experencng one sufferng unt each should, taken together, be consdered more mportant than 8 human bengs experencng one sufferng unt each. Yet t s of course mpossble to know how each respondent nterpreted the queston. 23

25 economcs lterature n general. In order to look nto the determnants of the varaton n ethcal preferences, regresson analyss s used, whch s what we turn to next. 5.2 Econometrc Analyss Snce the man varable under nvestgaton, the degree to whch anmal sufferng should be taken nto account n publc decson makng, s an ordnal categorcal varable, an ordered probt approach s a natural choce. Yet, smple OLS regressons are ncreasngly used for ths type of data due to the more straghtforward parameter nterpretatons and snce t s often found that the two approaches gve very smlar results n terms of parameter sgnfcance and relatve parameter magntudes (.e., where one parameter s compared to other parameters n the same regresson); see n partcular Ferrer--Carbonell and Frjters (2004). Therefore, the results of both an ordered probt regresson and an OLS regresson are presented, and as can be observed they are very smlar n terms of parameter sgnfcance. Yet, snce both ordered probt and (n partcular) OLS regressons rely on strong assumptons, we also present the results from three dfferent probt regressons n order to shed more lght on the underlyng varatons of the ethcal preferences. <<Table 2 about here>> On average, women care more than men about anmal sufferng; the parameter of 0.37 n the OLS regresson mples that women answer on average 0.37 steps closer to a hgher value for anmal sufferng compared to men, whch s clearly not only hghly sgnfcant (n a statstcal sense) but also substantal. Ths result can be compared both wth Eckel and Grossman (1998), who present evdence from dctator games that women tend to behave more altrustcally than men, and wth Andreon and Vesterlund (2001), who found that men are more lkely to be ether perfectly selfsh, or perfectly selfless, whereas women tend to be more equaltarans who prefer to share evenly (p. 0). Whle the former suggests that our 24

26 fndng may smply reflect that women are more altrustc (n ths case towards anmals), the latter hnts that the equal-weght formulaton may have trggered, on average, stronger reactons from women than from men. When consultng the probt regressons, we can observe that the latter explanaton appears not to be the sole one. The frst probt regresson reveals that women are less lkely (2.6 percentage ponts) to choose the alternatve where anmal sufferng s not gven any ntrnsc weght, and the second one reveals that they are 23 percentage ponts more lkely to choose the alternatve where anmal sufferng s gven equal (or more) weght. 16 The thrd probt regresson reveals that women are 20 percentage ponts more lkely to choose any of the extreme alternatves, whch s of course largely drven by the fact that they are more lkely to choose the alternatve where anmal sufferng are gven equal (or more) weght. We also see that concern for anmal sufferng ncreases wth age and that t s lower f the respondent has chldren, s a Chrstan belever, or s unversty educated. The agedependency may seem surprsng, gven that the support for vegetaransm and the anmalrghts movement appears to be partcularly strong among the younger ages. On the other hand, older people have had more experence of agrcultural producton that may be seen as more humane and less ndustral, whch may result n them expressng a stronger negatve atttude toward current agrcultural producton practces. Ths effect may have been amplfed by the fact that a cow was explctly mentoned n the queston. Moreover, Lst (2004) provdes expermental evdence that pro-socal behavor tends to ncrease wth age. The chld effect s perhaps due to a changed focus, where most thngs other than ther own chldren decrease n relatve mportance. The negatve Chrstanty effect s not 16 That the effect s much larger n the second probt regresson s not surprsng snce more than 10 tmes as many chose the alternatves where anmal sufferng s gven equal (or more) weght compared to the alternatves where they are not gven any ntrnsc weght; hence the relatve magntude should not be nterpreted as a dsproportonally large gender effect n the upper end of the dstrbuton. 25

27 surprsng gven the hstorcal development descrbed above, although t s not drectly obvous snce contemporary Chrstan theology emphaszes both that human bengs are superor to anmals and that anmals are part of God s creaton and should therefore be treated well. However, gven that the responses on average gve consderable weght to anmal sufferng, the result appears logcal. The negatve effect of unversty educaton may seem more surprsng. Yet, one possblty s smply that unversty educaton ncreases the probablty of usng cogntvely more demandng strateges when choosng. For example, no weght and equal weght (the most frequently chosen alternatve) are examples of choces that can be made wthout makng complex trade-offs, whereas somewhat lower weght and much lower weght more explctly call for trade-offs to be made. Thus, t s possble that unversty-educated people chose somewhat lower weght nstead of equal weght more often, not because of dfferent ethcal values but because they to a larger extent were wllng to thnk n terms of trade-offs. The results from the probt regressons provde some support for ths explanaton, snce unversty educated respondents are less lkely to choose extreme alternatves n both ends of the dstrbuton, as revealed by the three probt regressons. 17 Somewhat smlarly, whle those who lve n bg ctes (by Swedsh standards) on average have no dfferent opnon about the extent to whch anmal sufferng should matter (compared to those who do not lve n bg ctes or n the countrysde), they are sgnfcantly less lkely to choose an extreme alternatve. Fnally, there appears to be no effect of ncome or poltcal preferences, corrected for other varables, on the extent that one thnks that anmal sufferng should matter 17 The reader may note that the educaton parameter for the no-ntrnsc-weght probt regresson s not sgnfcant at conventonal levels (although t s close to sgnfcant at the 10% level). However, ths does not mean that the educaton effect s small. On the contrary, recallng that only four percent chose not to gve any ntrnsc weght to anmal sufferng, a parameter value reflectng that unversty-educated respondents are almost two percentage ponts less lkely to choose ths alternatve s qute substantal. 26

28 n publc decson makng. 5.3 Should We Trust the Survey Results? In contrast to many other socal scentsts, economsts are generally qute reluctant to use survey evdence (Bertrand and Mullanathan, 2001). However, some ssues that we are ntrnscally nterested n are dffcult to analyze emprcally wth revealed preference methodologes, and the nterest n usng survey methodology has ncreased recently wthn many felds of economcs. 18 Even so, t s mportant to reflect on possble bases. As mentoned, a potental problem wth survey results s that people may want to selfsgnal that they are better and hence end up respondng more n accordance wth ther ethcal vews than wth how they would act n realty. However, ths s less of a problem n our case snce we are not prmarly concerned wth how people would act, or do act, n realty. For example, t s evdent that many of us appear to care qute lttle about anmal sufferng n our daly lfe, and f anmal sufferng were that mportant to us, one may wonder why most people (ncludng the author) contnue to eat meat. But although our ethcs presumably do nfluence our actons, t s certanly not the only determnant. Consder charty as an example: even f we beleve that t s morally good to gve a major share of our ncome to charty, most of us only gve a small share. From ths observaton, we can of course not conclude that most people consder large charty donatons to be morally blameworthy, nor that most people would be aganst publcly funded foregn ad. Smlarly, one cannot conclude that a person who buys caged chcken would be aganst a 18 Examples nclude happness research (e.g., D Tella et al., 2001, 2003; Luttmer, 2005), concerns about relatve ncome (e.g., Johansson-Stenman et al., 2002; Solnck and Hemenway, 2005), wage settng n labor economcs (e.g., Agell and Lundborg, 2003; Agell, 2004), trust and socal captal measures (e.g., Knack and Keefer, 1997; Zack and Knack, 2001), vews about dstrbutve justce and redstrbutve polcy (e.g., Alesna and La Ferrara, 2005; Corneo and Fong, 2008), and judgments of moralty n socal dlemmas (Cubtt et al., 2011). 27

29 law forbddng such chcken treatments. Ths s for at least two reasons, where free-rdng s perhaps the most obvous one. That s, people may be wllng to accept a certan prce ncrease for all chckens to have better lvng condtons, but they may not care enough about them to be wllng to accept the same prce ncrease for the very mnmal mprovement n lvng condtons for chckens that ther own changed chcken consumpton would result n. Condtonal cooperaton provdes another explanaton. A consderable amount of newer expermental research shows that people are often found not to free-rde n stuatons where conventonal theory would predct them to, f they observe or expect that others cooperate too. 19 If, on the contrary, others free-rde, they want to free-rde too. Yet, whle none of these explanatons are due to hypothetcal bas, t cannot be precluded that such bases may stll exst for other reasons, or that there may be other bases. One possble bas s related to the many non-responses (as s almost always the case wth surveys). Although the sample s reasonably representatve of the general adult populaton n Sweden wth respect to measurable characterstcs, t s possble that there are non-neglgble dfferences wth respect to the ethcal vews of the respondents. 20 Stll, t s hard to beleve that the response pattern would be dramatcally dfferent wthout such a bas. Another potental bas s that respondents may want to express certan opnons about whch we do not explctly ask, such as, I beleve that anmals should be treated better than they currently are. By dong so, they may overstate the degree to whch they really beleve that anmal sufferng should compare to human sufferng; cf. Kahneman et al. (1999). One 19 Evdence from lab experments s provded by, e.g., Fschbacher et al. (2001) and Fschbacher and Gächter (2010), whereas, e.g., Frey and Meer (2004) and Alpzar et al. (2008) provde feld expermental evdence. 20 In order to ensure full anonymty, we dd not dentfy the responses. After about two weeks, a remnder was sent out to all households,.e., both to those who had responded and to those who had not, together wth an explanaton (.e., the need for anonymty) as to why we sent remnders to everyone. Of course, the flp sde of ths strategy s that t makes non-response analyss essentally mpossble. One could, for example, argue that people who respond to voluntary household surveys are partcularly socally responsble, and that such people 28