Why is the expression “animal welfare” (alas) misleading?

• Official texts define “animal welfare” as a state guaranteed by the satisfaction of five needs qualified as “freedoms”, according to our partner The Conversation.

• But this phrase has misleading implications.

  So it should rather be replaced by the more explicit one of “animal malaise”.

• This analysis was conducted by Marie-Claude Marsolier, director of genetics research at the National Museum of Natural History (MNHN).

The way we think and the words we use are interdependent, and agrifood professionals have understood this well: to conceal violence against animals, they multiply euphemisms and semantic diversions.

In the 19th century,

and

thus became slaughterhouses, and in farms today,

can refer to filing the teeth as well as cutting the beak, the tail or live castration.

Within the general framework of the denial of the suffering inflicted by humans on other animals, a concept has gradually invaded all discourse: “animal welfare”.

While pig farming is one of those that probably causes the most suffering for the animals concerned, the website of Inaporc, the national pork association, for example, proudly proclaims: “Animal welfare: at the heart of the concerns of the sector".

The site argues:

“Because breeders are people who are passionate about their animals and a stressed animal will not produce quality meat, each player in the sector takes great care of the well-being of the animals.

»

The welfarist movement

The concept of "animal welfare" became visible to the general public from the 1960s, first in the United Kingdom.

In English, it is designated by the expression

,

signifying in its general sense a “physical and mental state”, whether good or bad: we can speak of

without contradiction .

Moreover,

refers more specifically since the beginning of the 20th century to social assistance in favor of the most vulnerable humans.

is at

the heart of the so-called

movement , which strives to improve the living conditions of non-human animals, in particular on farms, without however challenging the principle of their exploitation.

This movement can be considered as wishing to extend to animals in general the guarantee that their minimum needs are assured, a principle now commonly accepted for humans.

​From

animal welfare

to animal welfare

Welfare is

distinguished from

, "well-being" in the primary sense of "general feeling of pleasure, of fulfillment that comes from the full satisfaction of the needs of the body and/or the mind", capable of apply to humans as well as non-humans.

In English, then, the distinct meanings of

and

apply equally to humans and other animals.

was translated as “

bien-être animal” in French, which broke this beautiful symmetry.

for humans in fact corresponds in French

to "protection" (of childhood, etc.) or "social assistance", while "animal welfare", supposed to express the generalization of social

to non- -humans, intuitively refers French speakers to

, to the extension of human well-being to other animals.

In other words, to fundamentally positive notions (we are not talking about “poor well-being”) and hedonic (spas, massages, etc.), unrelated to welfarist measures as brutal as the smashing of the skull (“stunning”) required before the throat is cut. .

A misleading term

Official texts define “animal welfare” as a state guaranteed by the satisfaction of five needs, qualified as “freedoms” (absence of hunger, fear, etc.).

Even so restricted, the term “animal welfare” remains misleading, its systematic use seeming to imply that respect for the “five freedoms” is guaranteed to the majority of individuals.

However, for farm animals, “animal welfare”, even in its official definition, is only guaranteed in a minority of cases.

It is thus obvious that the "freedom of expression of normal behavior of its species" (fifth freedom) is not respected for animals living in intensive farms (estimated at 80% of animals slaughtered in France).

Even today, the tail docking and live castration of pigs are legal or tolerated by the state (not to mention the conditions of slaughter), while the "absence of pain" is recognized as the 4th freedom defining the good - being an animal...

"Animal malaise", more appropriate to designate these issues

The expression "animal welfare" therefore has two misleading implications for the general public: on the one hand, its stakes seem to cover ancillary points, of "comfort", and not problems of acute suffering (when "welfare is interpreted in its usual hedonistic sense).

On the other hand, it suggests that the living conditions of the majority of farm animals, for which we constantly speak of “well-being”, would at least meet their primary needs.

These misunderstandings would be avoided by using the expression “animal illness” (in the sense of “physical and mental suffering”) to refer generally to animal protection issues.

When we have agreed to speak of "well-being", as the agricultural sector has been doing for decades, it seems difficult to refuse "ill-being" to describe this real lack of "well-being" existing among the majority of livestock.

For animalist movements, the interest of the expression "animal malaise" is also to imply a conscious feeling, better than the terms

and

do (a claim or a rule can also "suffer"... a delay or an exception).

The use of "animal welfare" and the fact of limiting the use of "animal welfare" to its intuitive meaning of "feeling of pleasure and fulfillment" would also make it possible to distinguish clearly, by naming them from appropriately, “negative” measures to “reduce animal welfare” which limit psychological and physical distress, “positive” measures aimed at increasing “animal welfare”.

After having been neglected for a long time, scientific research centered on the promotion of positive emotions is now booming, referred to as

.

True “animal welfare” presupposes not only the absence of discomfort, but also the occurrence of pleasant life experiences.

​Stop covering up the violence

Restricting, without abandoning it, the use of “animal welfare” would avoid its use for the purpose of minimizing violence.

To persist in using this expression to speak indiscriminately of stopping mutilation and enriching the living environment seems to us to undermine the cause that we are supposed to defend.

Our “ANIMAL PROTECTION” file

We are not proposing to change overnight the way of speaking of all the players in this field.

But animal associations could play a role of lexical prescriber in this case.

Neglecting this issue by endorsing terms that run counter to common sense and harm animals is not insignificant.

Planet

Animal suffering: Does organic farming guarantee more "well-being" for farm animals?

Company

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This analysis was written by Marie-Claude Marsolier, director of genetics research at the National Museum of Natural History (with the contribution of Frédéric Mesguich, doctor of chemistry specializing in materials for energy and founder of the Animalist Blogotheque).

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