John Hadley

In this chapter I outline a key element of animal neopragmatism: relational hedonism. Relational hedonism is a psychological-cum-anthropological thesis about public concern for pain. The central claim is that to show concern for the pain of an individual is to betray concern for them in a much broader sense. The basic idea is that concern for pain is concern for more than pain. This concern can be variously expressed as concern for life, well-being, intrinsic value, inherent value, or simply concern for the individual for their own sake. The theory of relational hedonism draws upon Helm’s theory of love and friendship. In line with Helm’s view, to show concern for a particular aspect of a person’s life is to show concern for them in a holistic sense. I adapt Helm’s theory to explain the broad-based conception of welfare that the attitudes-to-animals data suggests is the folk’s conception of welfare.

In this chapter I present two theories that stand as putative solutions to the problems of welfare. The two theories are experiential pluralism and expressivism. Experiential pluralism is the view that there are feelings other than pleasure and pain that can impact upon the welfare of an individual. Pluralists can avoid the charge of changing the subject by claiming their view is aligned with the feelings-centred welfare orthodoxy by remaining experientially-focused. Expressivism is a theory of moral language use. In line with expressivism, ethical claims are analysed as simply the expression of the emotions or attitudes of the speaker. Expressivists avoid the charge of changing the subject because, in line with expressionism, when a person uses rights-based terms such as dignity and respect, they are not singling out for ethical attention a consideration that is outside the scope of the welfare orthodoxy.

In this chapter, I argue that orthodox analytic animal rights theory faces two metalevel problems: the equivocation problem and the placement problem. The equivocation problem is that the basic animal rights argument commits a fallacy of equivocation. Following Darwin, it is a truism that human and animal mental states differ by degree. While the degree of difference may not have ethical implications, I argue it must have semantic implications for the meaning of the term sentience in the premises of the basic argument for animal rights. The placement problem is a well-known problem in analytic metaphysics that is passed over by orthodox animal rights theorists. If philosophical realism and scientific naturalism are framing assumptions of orthodox animal rights theory, then it is difficult to find a place for the signature concept of animal rights theory, inherent value, in a naturalistic account of the world. The basic criticism is that, at the metaphysical level, animal rights theory has a similar structure to religious ethical theories.

In this chapter I reiterate the main elements of animal neopragmatism and discuss some of the central themes of the book. The main elements of animal neopragmatism are relational hedonism and expressivism. The former is a theory of folk concern for pain and a related claim about the proper focus of welfare policy; the latter is a thesis about the function of nonhedonistic or rights-based vocabulary. The central themes of the book are (1) the democratic legitimacy of the prevailing welfare paradigm can be called into question (2) fundamental metaphysical, epistemological, metaphilosophical and linguistic questions have serious implications for debates about human-animal relations (3) orthodox animal rights theory faces two serious problems (4) neopragmatism offers scope for reconciling existing ideas about welfare with more progressive ideas; in other words, neopragmatism is a novel way of moving from welfare to rights.

In this chapter I explain the political problem of welfare. There is a question mark hanging over the democratic legitimacy of the prevailing policy conception of welfare. The political problem of welfare arises because of a key difference between the policy conception of welfare and the folk conception of welfare. The policy conception is that welfare is all about feelings, specifically, measurable suffering; the folk conception is that welfare is about more than feelings. The folk view encompasses nonhedonistic considerations such as dignity, respect, and naturalness. I explain the development of the policy conception and identify its origins in animal welfare science and the theory of value known as hedonism. I present a survey of the attitudes-to-animals literature as support for the claim that the folk view of welfare is broad-based.

In this chapter, I address two objections to animal neopragmatism: the anything goes objection and the no practical difference objection. The anything goes objection is in response to pragmatism’s signature rejection of philosophical realism and the correspondence theory of truth. The claim is that neopragmatism entails that there are no epistemic standards against which to evaluate rival claims in public deliberation about animal related issues. In response, I point out how a Peircean view of truth and a warranted assertibility theory of justification are compatible with neopragmatism. The no practical difference objection is that because neopragmatism preserves the vocabulary of welfare and rights, debate about animal protection will proceed in familiar terms in the usual ways. In response to this objection I stress that, consistent with its pragmatic inheritance, neopragmatism is an ameliorative theory. To conclude, I discuss the work of institutional animal ethics committees to illustrate the practical implications of neopragmatism. The inclusion of consensus or resonance in the neopragmatic theory of deliberation generates a hypothetical prudential obligation on the part of deliberators to be cognizant of the motivations of their fellow community of inquiry members.

In this chapter I explain the philosophical problem of welfare. The philosophical problem of welfare is also known as the changing the subject problem. The problem arises as a consequence of the background framing assumptions operative on all sides in the contemporary animal ethics debate. The assumptions are metaphilosophical, metaphysical and epistemological. The most important framing assumption is philosophical realism and its attendant representational view of language. In line with realism, questions have once and for all answers and conceptual definitions are set in stone. The result is that any attempt to broaden the concept of welfare beyond the feelings-focused orthodoxy to encompass nonhedonistic considerations can be fairly accused of changing the subject.

In this chapter I explain the main elements of animal neopragmatism and the theoretical motivations for it. Neopragmatism has both a negative case and a positive case supporting it. The negative case is the critique of orthodox animal rights theory in Chapter 6 and the familiar pragmatist arguments against philosophical realism. The positive case is the theory of relational hedonism in Chapter 4 and the expressivist theory of rights-based vocabulary in Chapter 5. The chief virtue of neopragmatism is that it affords a democratic theory of animal welfare by aligning the specialist or policy conceptions of welfare with the folk or layperson conception of welfare, without falling prey to the problems that beleaguer orthodox animal rights theory. When the usage of terms such as dignity and respect is understood in line with an anti-representational theory of language such as expressivism, there is no sense in which the speakers can be accused of shifting debate about animal protection from the familiar welfare paradigm to an unfamiliar rights-based paradigm.