Do regulators of animal welfare need to develop a theory of psychological well-being?

The quest for a "theory of nonhuman minds'' to assess claims about the mora l status of animals is misguided. Misframed questions about animal minds fa cilitate the appropriation of animal welfare by the animal user industry. W hen misframed, these questions shift the burden of proof unreasonably to an imal welfare regulators. An illustrative instance of misframing can be foun d in the US National Research Council's 1998 publication that reports profe ssional efforts to define the psychological well-being of nonhuman primates , a condition that the US 1985 animal welfare act requires users of primate s to promote. The report claims that "psychological well-being'' is a hypot hetical construct whose validity can only be determined by a theory that de fines its properties and links it to observed data. This conception is used to contest common knowledge about animal welfare by treating psychological well-being as a mental condition whose properties are difficult to discove r. This framework limits regulatory efforts to treat animal subjects less o ppressively and serves the interests of the user industry. A more liberatory framework can be constructed by recognizing the contested nature of welfare norms, where competing conceptions of animal welfare hav e implications about norm-setting authority, as it does in other regulatory contexts, e.g., food safety. Properly conceptualized welfare should includ e both the avoidance of distressful circumstances and the relationship betw een an animal's capacities to engage in enjoyable activities and its opport unities to exercise these capacities. This conception of animal welfare avo ids appropriation by scientific experts. The development of the psychological well-being regulation is a good illust ration of how social norms are contested and then appropriated, and a criti que of this appropriation shows how it can be challenged.