Dan Hoogerhyde

The Orthodox View of Animal Welfare (OVAW) has come under scrutiny by those who suggest that the capabilities approach provides a more explanatorily adequate analysis of animal welfare. Capabilities theorists typically proceed in arguing against the OVAW by offering intuition pumps against it—cases in which an animal’s (or animals’) circumstances are described in such a way that their welfare seems different than what the OVAW would imply. This paper defends the OVAW against such criticisms. I argue that, given its simplicity relative to the capabilities approach, the OVAW faces a merely dialectical disadvantage that ought not be mistaken for a genuine theoretical disadvantage, as it is comparatively more liable to intuition pumps given its relatively greater parsimony. I also respond to these arguments directly. First, I show that the capabilities approach has implications similar to those that capabilities theorists criticize the OVAW for having. Second, I distinguish the OVAW from positions it is mistakenly taken to imply. Finally, I dispute their descriptions of the OVAW’s implications for the welfare of particular animals.

The overall aim of this paper is to argue that the permissibility of a policy of cadaveric organ conscription is compatible with a desire-satisfaction principle according to which all desire frustration is harmful. David Boonin suggests that the contrary may be true in his book Dead Wrong: The Ethics of Posthumous Harm. Put simply, the cases offered by Boonin to support that suggestion are not morally parallel with a policy of cadaveric organ conscription such that one may concede that he has offered cases of wrongful desire frustration without conceding that desires frustrated by a policy of cadaveric organ conscription would constitute wrongful harms. Finally, I will offer a tentative defense of the permissibility of cadaveric organ conscription that is compatible with the desire-satisfaction principle.