THE TRADE-OFF BETWEEN ANIMAL-WELFARE AND HUMAN INTERESTS

Assessments of welfare do not in themselves answer the ethical questio n: How should we treat domestic animals? We also have to take human in terests into account. Any weighing of interests, however, is confronte d with the problem of animal and human interests being so different in nature that they seem to be incomparable. This problem is analysed by drawing an analogy to comparisons of welfare between humans. It is ar gued that the weighing of interests is possible, at least to some degr ee. The argument suggests that an increase in animal. welfare will hav e considerably more weight than the lowering of prices on animal produ cts.