Abstract
The discipline of economics uses a particular utilitarian logic that has become the dominant language of policy in the worlds of economics, business, public policy, and often in law. Economic methods allow us to make difficult comparisons of costs and benefits. This allows economic theory to speak in a unified, accessible manner about the many options that a businessperson or policymaker have before them in any situation. In the areas of life where pragmatic arguments rule, economists provide the logic and the language.
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Notes
- 1.
Steve King, “The Protect Interstate Commerce Act Offers State Trade Solution,” National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, accessed August 29, 2015, http://www.beefusa.org/ourviewscolumns.aspx?NewsID=2620.
- 2.
Bob Torres, Making A Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights (Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2007); David Nibert, Animal Rights/Human Rights (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002).
- 3.
Charles Blackorby and David Donaldson, “Pigs and Guinea Pigs: A Note on the Ethics of Animal Exploitation,” Economic Journal 102, no. 415 (1992): 1345–69; F. Bailey Norwood and Jayson L. Lusk, Compassion, by the Pound: The Economics of Farm Animal Welfare, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).
- 4.
Olof Johansson-Stenman, “Should Animal Welfare Count?,” Working Papers in Economics (Göteborg University, Department of Economics, 2006), http://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/gunwpe/0197.html.
- 5.
Cary Funk and Lee Rainie, “Chapter 7: Opinion About the Use of Animals in Research,” Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech, accessed July 2, 2015, http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/07/01/chapter-7-opinion-about-the-use-of-animals-in-research/; Rebecca Riffkin, “In U.S., More Say Animals Should Have Same Rights as People,” Gallup.com, May 18, 2015, http://www.gallup.com/poll/183275/say-animals-rights-people.aspx.
- 6.
Riffkin, “In U.S., More Say Animals Should Have Same Rights as People.”
- 7.
“Report on Welfare Labelling” (London: Farm Animal Welfare Council, 2006), http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20121007104210/http://www.fawc.org.uk/reports/welfarelabel-0606.pdf.
- 8.
Jae Bong Chang, Jayson L. Lusk, and F. Bailey Norwood, “The Price of Happy Hens: A Hedonic Analysis of Retail Egg Prices,” Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 35, no. 3 (2010): 406–23; Jayson L. Lusk, F. Bailey Norwood, and J. Ross Pruitt, “Consumer Demand for a Ban on Antibiotic Drug Use in Pork Production,” American Journal of Agricultural Economics 88, no. 4 (2006): 1015–33.
- 9.
Tyler Cowen, “Market Failure for the Treatment of Animals,” Society 43, no. 2 (January 1, 2006): 39–44, doi:10.1007/BF02687369.
- 10.
Ian J. Bateman, Kenneth George Willis, and Kenneth J. Arrow, Valuing Environmental Preferences: Theory and Practice of the Contingent Valuation Method in the US, EU, and Developing Countries (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); Daniel Kahneman and Jack L Knetsch, “Valuing Public Goods: The Purchase of Moral Satisfaction,” Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 22, no. 1 (January 1992): 57–70, doi:10.1016/0095-0696(92)90019-S; W. Michael Hanemann, “Valuing the Environment Through Contingent Valuation,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 8, no. 4 (October 1, 1994): 19–43.
- 11.
Norwood and Lusk, Compassion, by the Pound, Chap. 10; Jayson L. Lusk and F. Bailey Norwood, “Speciesism, Altruism and the Economics of Animal Welfare,” European Review of Agricultural Economics 39, no. 2 (2012): 189–212.
- 12.
The auctions that Norwood and Lusk ran were carefully designed. Participants had good information about the farming systems, and sacrificed real money. The participants were told that none of the animals that they moved from one system to another would be sold to them, ensuring that their valuations would reflect a “public good” valuation, rather than a “private good” value of animal welfare.
- 13.
Norwood and Lusk, Compassion, by the Pound, 295–300.
- 14.
Cowen, “Market Failure for the Treatment of Animals.”
- 15.
Siobhan O’Sullivan, Animals, Equality and Democracy (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).
- 16.
Norwood and Lusk, Compassion, by the Pound, Chap. 7.
- 17.
Ibid., 214–17.
- 18.
Cowen, “Market Failure for the Treatment of Animals.”
- 19.
Ibid.; Norwood and Lusk, Compassion, by the Pound, 188, 240.
- 20.
A summary and survey of the argument is found in Gaverick Matheny and Kai M. A. Chan, “Human Diets and Animal Welfare: The Illogic of the Larder,” Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 18, no. 6 (December 1, 2005): 579–94, doi:10.1007/s10806-005-1805-x. The argument is common, showing up in the specialized works discussed here, but also many broader works about food, see for example: Robert Paarlberg, Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 123.
- 21.
Gustaf Arrhenius, Jesper Ryberg, and Torbjorn Tannsjo, “The Repugnant Conclusion,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta, Spring 2014, 2014, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/repugnant-conclusion/; Tyler Cowen, “What Do We Learn from the Repugnant Conclusion?,” Ethics 106, no. 4 (July 1, 1996): 754–75.
- 22.
Norwood and Lusk, Compassion, by the Pound, 356.
- 23.
“Pigs and Guinea Pigs.”
- 24.
“Human Diets and Animal Welfare.”
- 25.
Ibid.
- 26.
“Animal Welfare Approved Standards,” Animal Welfare Approved, accessed October 28, 2014, http://animalwelfareapproved.org/standards/.
- 27.
Steven McMullen and Daniel Molling, “Environmental Ethics, Economics, and Property Law,” in Law and Social Economics: Essays in Ethical Values for Theory, Practice, and Policy, ed. Mark D. White (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).
- 28.
Note, moreover, that must not compare the well-being of a domesticated animal to that of the same domesticated animal in a natural environment, since most such animals would not survive. Instead the opportunity cost logic demands that we compare to a similar non-domesticated animal born free in a natural habitat.
- 29.
Genuine Progress, “Genuine Progress Indicator—Genuine Progress,” accessed August 31, 2015, http://genuineprogress.net/genuine-progress-indicator/. The GPI is an alternative to GDP for use in broad economic accounting. The goal of the data series is to include environmental, health, and quality of life measures not included in GDP.
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McMullen, S. (2016). The Ethical Logic of Economics. In: Animals and the Economy. The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43474-6_3
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