•Qualitative investigation of how consumers of organic food products define health.•Three overall concepts of health were found in existing research literature.•Health is an important motivation for ...buying organic food products.•Consumers relate the healthiness of organic food to purity.•Healthiness in general is, by contrast, primarily understood as nutritional value.
There is increasing demand for organic food products throughout the Western world. Health concerns have frequently been found to be the main motivation of consumers purchasing organic products, but the literature on consumer preferences and behavior is less clear about what ‘health’ means to consumers of these products, and because of this it remains unclear what exactly drives consumers to choose organic products. This article investigates health from the perspective of consumers, and analyzes negotiations of, and justifications behind, their consumption preferences. The analysis is based on a focus group study conducted in Denmark in 2016. Three different understandings of health can be found when consumers explain their preferences for organic products: Health as purity; Health as pleasure, and a Holistic perspective on health. The first two are familiar from the literature on food. The third, which reflects principles behind organic agriculture, is less documented in the context of consumption. Health as purity was the dominant understanding of health used by the participants when explaining why they purchased organic food products. When participants discussed healthy eating in general, detached from a specific context, most employed a purely nutritional perspective as a definitive argument in supporting claims about healthy eating. The paper’s findings have implications for future research on organic consumption. They also have practical implications for organic food producers and manufacturers.
It is claimed that positive animal welfare (PAW) developed over the last decade in reaction to animal welfare focusing too much on avoiding negatives. However, it remains unclear what PAW adds to the ...animal welfare literature and to what extent its ideas are new. Through a critical review of the PAW literature, we aim to separate different aspects of PAW and situate it in relation to the traditional animal welfare literature. We find that the core PAW literature is small (n = 10 papers) but links to wider areas of current research interest. The PAW literature is defined by four features: (1) positive emotions which is arguably the most widely acknowledged; (2) positive affective engagement which serves to functionally link positive emotions to goal-directed behavior; (3) quality of life which serves to situate PAW within the context of finding the right balance of positives over negatives; (4) happiness which brings a full life perspective to PAW. While the two first points are already part of welfare research going back decades, the two latter points could be linked to more recent research agendas concerning aggregation and how specific events may affect the ability of animals to make the best of their lives.
Modern veterinary medicine offers a level of care to cats and dogs similar to that available to their owners, including blood transfusions, chemotherapy and MRI scans. The potential benefits to the ...animals of owners who can afford such care are obvious, but there can also be negative consequences if owners with strong emotional attachments to their pets pursue treatments that significantly reduce the quality of the animal's life while attempting to prolong it. Moreover, caring for a chronically or seriously ill animal can lead to emotional distress and financial and practical challenges for the pet owner. A questionnaire was used to survey cat and dog owners from representative samples of citizens in the UK, Austria and Denmark, to investigate owners' expectations and attitudes towards advanced veterinary care, and the factors that might influence those views. Overall, 58.4% of the pet owners surveyed believed that their pets should have access to the same treatment options as humans, while 51.5% believed that they should have access to the same diagnostic tests as humans. Owners were most likely to be neutral on the question of whether advanced veterinary care has 'gone too far' (45.3%), and to disagree with the statement that advanced care is 'unnecessary' (40.1%). In all three countries, the level of attachment owners had to their pets was most strongly associated with attitudes towards advanced care, with owners scoring higher on Lexington Attachment to Pets Scale (LAPS) being more likely to expect advanced care to be available. Other factors such as owner age, living situation (alone or not), income or possession of pet insurance were less consistently with owner attitudes. Our findings will help inform veterinarians and other health care providers about pet owner expectations and attitudes towards advanced veterinary care, and contribute to the debate on increasing specialisation within the profession.
Ethical treatment of wildlife and consideration of animal welfare have become important themes in conservation, but ethical perspectives on how best to protect wild animals and promote their welfare ...are diverse. There are advantages to the consequentialist harms ethical framework applied in managing wild herbivores for conservation purposes. To minimize harms while achieving conservation goals, we argue that overabundant wild herbivores should in many cases be managed through consumptive in situ killing. Advantages of this policy are that the negative welfare states imposed on animals last only a short time; remaining animals are not deprived of positive welfare states (e.g., linked to rearing offspring); poor welfare states of animals in overabundant populations are avoided (e.g., starvation); negative welfare impacts on heterospecifics through resource depletion (i.e., competition) are prevented; harvesting meat reduces the number of (agricultural) animals raised to supply meat; and minimal costs maximize funding for other wildlife management and conservation priorities. Alternative ethical approaches to our consequentialist framework include deontology (containing animal rights) and virtue ethics, some of which underpin compassionate conservation. These alternative ethical approaches emphasize the importance of avoiding intentional killing of animals but, if no population reduction occurs, are likely to impose considerable unintentional harms on overabundant wildlife and indirectly harm heterospecifics through ineffective population reduction. If nonlethal control is used, it is likely that overabundant animals would be deprived of positive welfare states and economic costs would be prohibitive. We encourage conservation stakeholders to consider animal‐welfare consequentialism as an ethical approach to minimize harms to the animals under their care as well as other animals that policies may affect while at the same time pursuing conservation goals.
Conservación Compasiva versus Conservación Consecuencialista
Resumen
El trato ético de la fauna y la consideración por el bienestar animal se han convertido en temas importantes para la conservación, pero las perspectivas éticas sobre cuáles son las mejores maneras para proteger a los animales silvestres y promover su bienestar son diversas. Existen ventajas en el marco de trabajo ético de los daños consecuencialistas aplicados en el manejo de herbívoros silvestres por motivos de conservación. Para minimizar los daños a la vez que se alcanzan los objetivos de conservación argumentamos que los herbívoros silvestres sobreabundantes deberían, en muchos casos, ser manejados por medio de muertes in situ consuntivas. Las ventajas de esta política son que los estados negativos de bienestar impuestos sobre los animales duran muy poco tiempo; a los animales que permanecen no se les priva de un estado positivo de bienestar (p. ej.: conectados a la crianza de descendencia); se evitan los estados pobres de bienestar en las poblaciones sobreabundantes (p. ej.: hambruna); se previenen los impactos negativos de bienestar por medio de la disminución sobre los heteroespecíficos (es decir, competencia); la crianza para carne reduce el número de animales (agrícolas) criados para abastecer de carne; y los costos mínimos maximizan el financiamiento para otras prioridades de manejo y conservación de fauna. Las estrategias éticas alternativas a nuestro marco de trabajo consecuencialista incluyen la deontología (que contiene los derechos de los animales) y la ética de virtudes, algunas de las cuales apoyan la conservación compasiva. Estas estrategias éticas alternativas enfatizan la importancia de evitar la muerte intencional de los animales pero, si no ocurre una reducción de la población, es probable que impongan daños considerables accidentales sobre la fauna sobreabundante y dañen indirectamente a los heteroespecíficos por medio de la reducción infructuosa de la población. Si se utiliza un control no letal, es probable que los animales sobreabundantes quedarían privados de estados positivos de bienestar y los costos económicos serían prohibitivos. Alentamos a los accionistas de la conservación a considerar el consecuencialismo del bienestar animal como una estrategia ética para minimizar los daños que sufren los animales bajo su cuidado así como otros animales que podrían ser afectados por las políticas mientras se busca alcanzar objetivos de conservación.
摘要
善待野生动物及动物福利问题已成为保护中的一个重要话题, 但人们对于如何最好地保护野生动物并提升其福利有不同的伦理观点。其中, 应用于野生食草动物保护管理中的结果论伤害伦理框架有很多优势。为了在实现保护目标的同时尽量减少伤害, 我们认为许多情况下可以通过消费性的就地捕杀过剩的野生食草动物, 以进行管理。这项政策的好处在于:动物只在很短的时间内处于不良福利状态、剩下的动物仍享有较好的福利 (如养育后代方面) 、避免了过剩种群中较差的动物福利情况 (如饥饿) 、防止了其它物种的福利因资源耗竭而遭受负面影响 (如竞争) 、肉类的获得可以减少饲养的农业食用动物的数量, 且能以最低成本最大程度地为其它野生动物管理和保护优先问题供给资金。这个结果论框架伦理学的替代方法有道义论 (包括动物权利) 和美德伦理学, 其中有一部分是怜悯性保护 (compassionate conservation) 的基础。这些伦理替代方法强调了避免故意杀害动物的重要性, 但是, 如果不减少种群数量, 很可能会在无意间对数量过剩的野生动物造成很大伤害, 并间接地伤害其它物种。如果用非杀伤性的控制方法, 过剩的动物可能会被剥夺良好的福利状态, 所需的经济成本也过于昂贵。我们鼓励保护利益相关者以动物福利结果论为伦理方法, 在追求保护目标的同时, 尽量减少对他们管理的动物和政策可能影响到的其它动物产生的伤害。【翻译: 胡怡思; 审校: 聂永刚】
Article impact statement: Strategic killing of animals can be justified by an ethics approach that aims to maximize animal‐welfare outcomes.
As biobank research has become increasingly widespread within biomedical research, study-specific consent to each study, a model derived from research involving traditional interventions on human ...subjects, has for the sake of feasibility gradually given way to alternative consent models which do not require consent for every new study. Besides broad consent these models include tiered, dynamic, and meta-consent. However, critics have pointed out that it is normally not known at the time of enrolment in what ways samples deposited in a biobank may be used in future research and that, for a consent to be informed, exactly this kind of knowledge is required. Therefore, there is an ongoing debate about the ethical acceptability of going for less than study-specific consent.
In light of this debate we address the question of how to best protect participants against relevant risks and violations of autonomy. We apply the central aims of the informed consent process to the unique circumstances of biobank research where samples and data in many cases are stored for long periods of time and reused in subsequent studies. Thereby we are able to formulate a set of criteria focusing both on the risk of informational harm and the potential violation of participants' values. We compare existing models of consent based on their ability to satisfy the criteria, and we find that the broad consent model offers the best level of protection for participants, although, it suffers from a few important deficiencies with regards to protection against participant value violations and long-term protection of autonomy, if it is applied without qualifications. For this reason, we propose modifications to the current broad consent model, in order to ensure that it provides protection of autonomy and participant values through strong ethical review and continuous communication.
We conclude that a modified form of broad consent is ethically superior in biobank research, not only because it is most feasible but primarily because it offers the best available protection against the hazards facing research subjects in this form of research.
The purpose of the present paper is to investigate the market potential of pork labelled to indicate medium and high levels of animal welfare. The paper asks, in particular, whether there is a risk ...that Danish consumers will abandon high level welfare pork if less expensive products with a medium level of animal welfare became available. The study was based on an online questionnaire with a choice experiment involving 396 Danish respondents. The results indicated that the Danish market could accommodate more than one pork product with a welfare label but the price differential separating medium and high level animal welfare pork will have to be quite narrow. In addition, full willingness-to-pay of consumers who want to buy high level welfare pork cannot be relied upon to incentivise new consumers to buy medium welfare pork. Further, raising brand awareness in the shopping situation and improving consumer's understanding of brand attributes for high level welfare brands were found to be vital.
•Many consumers will not pay for improving animal welfare beyond the medium level.•Small difference between willingness-to-pay for medium and high level welfare pork•Full willingness-to-pay for high level welfare pork cannot be exploited.•Increasing brand awareness and consumers' knowledge of brands is vital.
The domestication of new crops would promote agricultural diversity and could provide a solution to many of the problems associated with intensive agriculture. We suggest here that genome editing can ...be used as a new tool by breeders to accelerate the domestication of semi-domesticated or even wild plants, building a more varied foundation for the sustainable provision of food and fodder in the future. We examine the feasibility of such plants from biological, social, ethical, economic, and legal perspectives.
A second wave of the green revolution is underway that focuses on environmental sustainability, low input, and increased nutritional value.
Of the more than 300 000 plant species that exist, less than 200 are commercially important, and three species – rice, wheat, and maize – account for the major part of the plant-derived nutrients that humans consume.
Plants with desirable traits, such as perennials with extensive root systems and nitrogen-fixing plants, are currently being domesticated as new crops.
Recent years have given rise to the use of CRISPR/Cas9 for genome editing in plants. The method allows mutations to be generated at precise locations in genes that can lead to knockout or knockdown of protein activity.
Several traits in crops that were crucial for their domestication are caused by mutations that can be reproduced by genome-editing techniques such as CRISPR/Cas9, offering the potential for accelerated domestication of new crops.
Animal use in biomedical research is generally justified by its potential benefits to the health of humans, or other animals, or the environment. However, ethical acceptability also requires ...scientists to limit harm to animals in their research. Training in laboratory animal science (LAS) helps scientists to do this by promoting best practice and the 3Rs. This study evaluated scientists' awareness and application of the 3Rs, and their approach to other ethical issues in animal research. It was based on an online survey of participants in LAS courses held in eight venues in four European countries: Portugal (Porto, Braga), Germany (Munich, Heidelberg), Switzerland (Basel, Lausanne, Zurich), and Denmark (Copenhagen). The survey questions were designed to assess general attitudes to animal use in biomedical research, Replacement alternatives, Reduction and Refinement conflicts, and harm-benefit analysis. The survey was conducted twice: immediately before the course ('BC', N = 310) and as a follow-up six months after the course ('AC', N = 127). While courses do appear to raise awareness of the 3Rs, they had no measurable effect on the existing low level of belief that animal experimentation can be fully replaced by non-animal methods. Most researchers acknowledged ethical issues with their work and reported that they discussed these with their peers. The level of an animal's welfare, and especially the prevention of pain, was regarded as the most pressing ethical issue, and as more important than the number of animals used or the use of animals as such. Refinement was considered more feasible than Replacement, as well as more urgent, and was also favoured over Reduction. Respondents in the survey reversed the 'hierarchy' of the 3Rs proposed by their architects, Russell and Burch, prioritizing Refinement over Reduction, and Reduction over Replacement. This ordering may conflict with the expectations of the public and regulators.
Greater production of agricultural biomass for energy generation means a greater overlap between the energy and agricultural value chains. The production of biofuels from food crops was previously ...criticised as conflicting with food production. Use of so-called ‘marginal land’ is proposed to overcome previous controversies.
Using interviews and document analysis, this paper explores the meaning of ‘marginal land’ for non-food energy crop production in Denmark and conflicts that arose over its proposed use. In Denmark there was a different conception of marginal land – environmentally sensitive land where intensive cultivation causes impacts. Policies were put in place to promote the use of this ‘environmentally marginal land’. However, competing environmental objectives for this land – for different types of biodiversity, ecosystems services and aesthetic preferences meant these policies were repealed.
The paper shows how discussions of biomass production on agricultural land, and particularly marginal land, reflect the nuances of competing land uses in agriculturally intensive countries like Denmark. It is not only a matter of trade-offs between different types of agricultural production, such as food and fuel, or between environmental benefits and production, but over the optimal environmental use of the land to achieve multifunctional benefits. As well as questions of equity, access and practicality, the marginal land debate in agriculturally intensive countries needs to include questions of appropriate and desired environmental outcomes and means of stakeholder engagement to establish these.
•Growing biomass on marginal land is seen to overcome ‘food versus fuel’ debates.•Danish stakeholders identified marginal land as environmentally sensitive land.•Growing biomass on ‘environmentally marginal’ land creates environmental benefits.•Use of this land for biomass was resisted due to landscape and biodiversity change.•‘Marginal land’ debates should include symbolic and aesthetic land use dimensions.
We present a questionnaire-based measure of four animal ethics orientations. The orientations, which were developed in light of existing empirical studies of attitudes to animal use and ethical ...theory, are: animal rights, anthropocentrism, lay utilitarianism, and animal protection. The two latter orientations can be viewed as variants of animal welfarism. Three studies were conducted in Denmark in order to identify the hypothesised orientations, evaluate their concurrent validity, and report their prevalence and relevance in animal-related opinion formation and behaviour. Explorative factor analysis (Study 1) and confirmative factor analysis (Study 2) successfully identified the four orientations. Study 2 revealed good measurement invariance, as there was none or very modest differential item functioning across age, gender, living area, and contrasting population segments. Evaluation of concurrent validity in Study 2 found that the orientations are associated with different kinds of behaviour and opinion when the human use of animals is involved in the hypothesised directions. In Study 3, a representative population study, the animal protection orientation proved to be most prevalent in the Danish population, and as in study 2 the four orientations were associated with different behaviours and opinions. Remarkably, the animal protection orientation does not lead to increased animal welfare-friendly meat consumption, the main reason for this being non-concern about the current welfare status of farm animals. We argue that the developed measure covers a wide range of diversity in animal ethics orientations that is likely to exist in a modern society such as Denmark and can be used in future studies to track changes in the orientations and to understand and test hypotheses about the sources and justifications of people's animal-related opinions and behaviours.
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