Suffering, health and ‘productivity’

Abstract

We will now begin to explore the possible ways of deciding whether and how much an animal is suffering. The first method we will look at is, in practice, one of the most widely used of all, namely, whether an animal is physically healthy or not. People who have to make laws about the way animals should be kept cannot afford to prevaricate on the question of how we know an animal is suffering in the way that scientists do. They have had to sit down and write precise regulations, and in doing this they have tended to rely heavily on physical health as their standard. Conditions which cause suffering have been seen largely as those in which animals look unhealthy or are liable to injure themselves.