There are many decision contexts in which we require accurate information on animal welfare, in ethics, management, and policy. Unfortunately, many of the methods currently used for estimating animal welfare in these contexts are subjective and unreliable, and thus unlikely to be accurate. In this paper, I look at how we might apply principled methods from animal welfare science to arrive at more accurate scores, which will then help us in making the best decisions for animals. I construct and apply (...) a framework of desiderata for welfare measures, to assess the best of the currently available methods and argue that a combined use of both a whole-animal measure and a combination measurement framework for assessing welfare will give us the most accurate answers to guide our action. (shrink)

Animal welfare has a long history of disregard. While in recent decades the study of animal welfare has become a scientific discipline of its own, the difficulty of measuring animal welfare can still be vastly underestimated. There are three primary theories, or perspectives, on animal welfare - biological functioning, natural living and affective state. These come with their own diverse methods of measurement, each providing a limited perspective on an aspect of welfare. This paper describes a perspectival pluralist account of (...) animal welfare, in which all three theoretical perspectives and their multiple measures are necessary to understand this complex phenomenon and provide a full picture of animal welfare. This in turn will offer us a better understanding of perspectivism and pluralism itself. (shrink)

Animal welfare is a concept that plays a role within both our moral deliberations and the relevant areas of science. The study of animal welfare has impacts on decisions made by legislators, producers and consumers with regards to housing and treatment of animals. Our ethical deliberations in these domains need to consider our impact on animals, and the study of animal welfare provides the information that allows us to make informed decisions. This thesis focusses on taking a philosophical perspective to (...) answer the question of how we can measure the welfare of animals. Animal welfare science is an applied area of biology, aimed at measuring animal welfare. Although philosophy of animal ethics is common, philosophy focussing on animal welfare science is rare. Despite this lack, there are definitely many ways in which philosophical methods can be used to analyse the methodologies and concepts used in this science. One of the aims of the work in this thesis is to remedy this lack of attention in animal welfare. Animal welfare science is a strong emerging discipline, but there is the need for conceptual and methodological clarity and sophistication in this science if it is to play the relevant informative role for our practical and ethical decision-making. There is thus is a strong role here for philosophical analysis for this purpose. The central aim of this thesis is to provide an account of how we can measure subjective animal welfare, addressing some of the potential problems that may arise in this particular scientific endeavour. The two questions I will be answering are: what is animal welfare, and how do we measure it? Part One of the thesis looks at the subjective concept of animal welfare and its applications. In it, I argue for a subjective welfare view - that animal welfare should be understood as the subjective experience of individuals over their lifetimes - and look at how the subjective welfare concept informs our ethical decision-making in two different cases in applied animal ethics. Part Two of the thesis looks more closely at the scientific role of welfare. Understanding welfare subjectively creates unique measurement problems, due to the necessarily private nature of mental states and here I address a few of these problems, including whether subjective experience is measurable, how we might validate indicators of hidden target variables such as welfare, how we can make welfare comparisons between individual animals and how we might compare or integrate the different types of experience that make up welfare. I end with a discussion of the implications of all these problems and solutions for the practice of welfare science, and indicate useful future directions for research. (shrink)

The performance of natural behavior is commonly used as a criterion in the determination of animal welfare. This is still true, despite many authors having demonstrated that it is not a necessary component of welfare – some natural behaviors may decrease welfare, while some unnatural behaviors increase it. Here I analyze why this idea persists, and what effects it may have. I argue that the disagreement underlying this debate on natural behavior is not one about which conditions affect welfare, but (...) a deeper conceptual disagreement about what the state of welfare actually consists of. Those advocating natural behavior typically take a “teleological” view of welfare, in which naturalness is fundamental to welfare, while opponents to the criterion usually take a “subjective” welfare concept, in which welfare consists of the subjective experience of life by the animal. I argue that as natural functioning is neither necessary nor sufficient for understanding welfare, we should move away from the natural behavior criterion to an alternative such as behavioral preferences or enjoyment. This will have effects in the way we understand and measure welfare, and particularly in how we provide for the welfare of animals in a captive setting. (shrink)

In the evolution of the vertebrates and probably a few other animals (Metazoa), biological values have been translated (subjectivized) into affective experience that necessarily involves the consciousness of external objects/events (as different from one’s body), which is tantamount to the origins of subjectivity. Mammals, birds and other vertebrates are experiencing subjects even though their negative and positive experience greatly vary in scope. Some mammals are capable of vicarious experience and may act as empathic agents, and some of them, at least (...) the great apes, use true reflective self-consciousness and thus perceive themselves as agents, which generates attributive feelings. The balance of positive and negative experience determines the intrinsic value of (an individual) life. Every subjective life is autotelic in striving to maximize this balance. A subjective life may also have a social value that is measured in terms of the impact on intrinsic values of other lives. The social value of life is contingent upon an agency, that is, conscious intentional actions that impact intrinsic value of other lives. The difference between the social value of a subjective life and an instrumental value of an individual comes down to the difference between agent causation and event causation. The moral agency refers to a subcategory of agent causation that involves the awareness of impact on another subject’s wellbeing (interests). The moral agency is at present known only in the hominids (including the chimpanzees) which understand causality and use reflective self-consciousness, which in turn enables them to perceive themselves as agents and attribute to themselves responsibility. The moral agency originated as a motivational mechanism of reciprocity execution , and thus as an adaptation for group life, which is why it favors ingroup members and often promotes norms that harm other groups. The human moral agency is frequently used by third parties to implement group norms that are based on ideologies (religious or secular) and may actually harm both group members and the entire groups. Any received, bioculturally evolved morality is unlikely to be good in either absolute or universal sense. Therefore, the moral capacity alone does not make a human life categorically more valuable, even if human motivation were dominated by moral agency (which is true only of some people). The life of a vertebrate has, therefore, two values, intrinsic and social. Each can be negative or positive, and may vary to a large extent independently of the other, whereby a joint value of a subjective life cannot be sensibly assessed and compared without prior assessments of the intrinsic and social component separately. In the absence of objective reasons to rate the intrinsic value of a human life as categorically higher than that of other mentally advanced mammals, and in consideration of the observed range of social values of human lives, some of which approach zero and some are highly negative (lower than any thinkable negative values of non-human lives), the doctrine of extraordinary and inalienable (innate) human „dignity” is groundless and unethical, as it leads to a depreciation of the lives of non-human subjects, and often preempts the need to impart a real social value to one’s own life. (shrink)

This paper replies to the first 36 commentaries on my target article on “Is human information processing conscious?” (Behavioral and Brain Sciences,1991, pp.651-669). The target article focused largely on experimental studies of how consciousness relates to human information processing, tracing their relation from input through to output, while discussion of the implications of the findings both for cognitive psychology and philosophy of mind was relatively brief. The commentaries reversed this emphasis, and so, correspondingly, did the reply. The sequence of topics (...) in the reply roughly follows that of the target article. The discussion begins with a reconsideration of the details of the empirical findings, whether they can be extrapolated to non-laboratory settings, and the extent to which one can rely on their use of subjective reports. This is followed by an in-depth discussion of what is meant by “conscious processing” and of how phenomenal consciousness relates to attentional processing. We then turn to broader philosophical and theoretical issues. I point out some of the reasons why I do not support epiphenomenalism, dualist-interactionism, or reductionism, and elaborate on how first- and third-person views of the mind can be regarded as complementary and mutually irreducible. I suggest how the relation of conscious experiences to their neural correlates can be understood in terms of a dual-aspect theory of information,and how this might be used to resolve some of the paradoxes surrounding the causal interactions of consciousness and brain. I also suggest that, viewed from a first-person perspective, consciousness gives purpose to existence, which allows a different way of viewing its role in evolution. (shrink)

Though much is written about animal suffering, little is said about the nature of suffering itself. Without any clarity about its conceptual nature, discussions concerning detection, prevention and reduction of suffering are seriously hampered. This paper considers – and rejects – some of the more usual understandings of suffering. Instead, an alternative understanding of suffering is proposed, namely that suffering is the experiencing of one's life as going badly. This notion is tied to the loss of individuals' central life projects. (...) It is suggested that non-human animals' central projects are their evolved survival skills. This alternative view of suffering has major implications for animal welfare. (shrink)

Classical ethology encourages a causal approach to animal behaviour, using Tinbergen's four questions concerning evolution, function, mechanism and development of behaviour. It sets aside the study of mental processes, which could otherwise help to unify our picture of the relationships between animal and environment. Here the steps in research focused on the psychological meaning of a peculiar behaviour in the mouse — carrying its tail — and what this implies regarding the mouse's cognitive world are given. Initial empirical observations suggested (...) epistemic choices concerning space and object notions in the mouse; this led us to go beyond the first stage in exploring the significance of this behaviour. Later experiments showed the limitations of an explanation based on a cause-effect relationship. An interpretative model integrating a phenomenological conceptual framework is proposed. (shrink)

Animal behaviour and welfare research are part of a wider endeavour to optimize the health and wellbeing of humans, animals and ecosystems. As such, it is part of the One Health research agenda. This article applies ethical principles described by the One Health High Level Expert Panel to animal behaviour and welfare research. These principles entail that animal behaviour and welfare research should be valued equitably alongside other research in transdisciplinary and multisectoral collaboration. It should include and promote a multiplicity (...) of marginalized voices, including those of animals, and it should apply and describe a harmonious balance between human—animal-environment interactions. Lastly, it should describe how humans need to change behaviour, adopt sustainable solutions and recognize the importance of animal welfare and the integrity of the whole ecosystem. (shrink)

Investigations of the function of consciousness in human information processing have focused mainly on two questions: (1) where does consciousness enter into the information processing sequence and (2) how does conscious processing differ from preconscious and unconscious processing. Input analysis is thought to be initially "preconscious," "pre-attentive," fast, involuntary, and automatic. This is followed by "conscious," "focal-attentive" analysis which is relatively slow, voluntary, and flexible. It is thought that simple, familiar stimuli can be identified preconsciously, but conscious processing is needed (...) to identify complex, novel stimuli. Conscious processing has also been thought to be necessary for choice, learning and memory, and the organization of complex, novel responses, particularly those requiring planning, reflection, or creativity. (shrink)

Investigating perceptual and cognitive abilities of zoo animals might help to improve their husbandry and enrich their daily life with new stimuli. Developing new environmental enrichment programs and devices is hence necessary to promote species-specific behaviours that need to be maintained in controlled environments. As far as we are aware, no study has ever tested the potential benefits of motion illusions as visual enrichment for zoo animals. Starting from a recent study showing that domestic cats are spontaneously attracted by a (...) well-known motion illusion, the Rotating Snake (RS) illusion, we studied whether this illusion could be used as a visual enrichment for big cats. We observed the spontaneous behaviour of three lionesses when three different visual stimuli were placed in their environment: the RS illusion and two control stimuli. The study involved two different periods: the baseline and the RS period, in which the visual stimuli were provided to the lionesses. To assess whether the lionesses were specifically attracted by the RS illusion, we collected data on the number of interactions with the stimuli, as well as on the total time spent interacting with them. To investigate the effect of the illusion on the animals’ welfare, individual and social behaviours were studied and compared between the two periods. The results showed that two lionesses out of three interacted more with the RS stimulus than with the two control stimuli. The fact that the lionesses seemed to be more inclined to interact with the RS stimulus indirectly suggests the intriguing possibility that they were attracted by the illusory motion. Moreover, behavioural changes between the two periods were reported for one of the lionesses, highlighting a reduction in self-directed behaviours and an increase in attentive behaviours, suggesting positive welfare implications. Thus, behavioural observations made before and during the presentation of the stimuli showed that our visual enrichment actually provided positive effects in lionesses. These results call for the development of future studies on the use of visual illusions in the enrichment programs of zoo animals. (shrink)

Most Enlightenment thinkers believed that the World’s order (as ultimately based on divine laws) is good and thus every gain of knowledge will have good consequences. Scientific process was assumed to entail moral progress. In fact some moral progress did occur in the Western civilization and science contributed to it, but it is widely incommensurate with the progress of science. The Enlightenment’s concept of a concerted scientific and moral progress proved largely wrong for several reasons. (1) Public morality and science (...) evolve largely independently and may either enhance or inhibit each other. (2) There are no objective values to be read in the World’s order and simply followed. Instead, our real, subjective values and the moral systems they fuel have all been generated and shaped by evolution rather than designed to be universally good, and thus ought to be managed rather than simply followed. (3) Our evolved morality is flawed, deficient, prone to doctrinal manipulation and refractory to progress. (4) The majority of people show metaethical incompetence in failing to take a reasoned critical stand toward the principles and assumptions of received morals. This makes moral progress largely dependent on those who reach metaethical competence by transcending the conventional stages of moral development. (shrink)

Due to increasing empiricalinformation on farm animal welfare since the1960s, the prospects for sound decisionmakingconcerning welfare have improved. This paperdescribes a strategy to develop adecision-making aid, a decision support system,for assessment of farm-animal welfare based onavailable scientific knowledge. Such a decisionsupport system allows many factors to be takeninto account. It is to be developed accordingto the Evolutionary Prototyping Method, inwhich an initial prototype is improved inreiterative updating cycles. This initialprototype has been constructed. It useshierarchical representations to analysescientific statements and statements (...) describingthe housing system. Welfare is assessed fromwhat is known about the biological needs of theanimals, using a welfare model in the form of atree that contains these needs as welfarecomponents. Each state of need is assessedusing welfare relevant attributes of thehousing system and weighting factors.Attributes are measurable properties of thehousing system. Weighting factors are assignedaccording to heuristic rules based on theprinciple of weighting all components(attributes and needs) equally, unless thereare strong reasons to do otherwise. Preliminarytests of the prototype indicate that it may bepossible to perform assessment of farm-animalwelfare in an explicit way and based onempirical findings. The procedure needs to berefined, but its prospects are promising. (shrink)

For many people, laypeople as well as animal scientists and philosophers, animal welfare involves animal feelings. Scientifically, however, animal feelings are problematic. In the concluding remarks of a conference about the welfare of domestic animals in 1994, for example, two questions for further research were proposed: (1) What is the nature of feelings? and (2) Why is it not possible to measure the occurrence of feelings in animals directly? This book intends to give a philosophical and scientific-theoretical answer to both (...) questions. The two questions are transformed into the following: (1) How can we conceptualize animal experiences such as feelings or emotions in a philosophically and theoretically sound way? and (2) Which method is appropriate to gain knowledge of animal experiences?These questions are answered first by examining two ethological animal welfare theories, namely that of Wiepkema and Toates and that of Dawkins. These theories have animal feelings of welfare as their subject matter. My conclusion after examining these welfare theories is that they do not conceptualize and obtain scientific knowledge of animal feelings at all. These theories only study animal behaviour and physical aspects of animals and assume that these aspects refer to animal feelings of welfare. Because they are applications of animal ethology, these theories stick to the natural-scientific method of research. The use of this method leads to two different conceptualizations of animal welfare feelings. The theory developed by Wiepkema and Toates conceives of animal feelings as unobservable, internal causes of animal behaviour. In Dakwins' theory, seen as a logical-behaviouristic theory, "animal feelings" are names for particular forms of law-governed animal behaviour. My comment on both theories is that animal experiences are solely theoretical concepts or designations. These ethologists simply assume rather than demonstrate that particular animal behaviour is caused by or associated with animal experiences.Wiepkema, Toates and Dawkins also acknowledge this. In order to say that animal behaviour refers to subjective animal feelings, they use the argument from analogy that states that because there are similarities between human and vertebrate animal behaviour and (neuro)physiological processes, it is plausible that animals have similar experiences as humans. However, like most animal welfare scientists, they correctly say that this is an unscientific argument. My final conclusion is that it is impossible to infer subjective animal experiences from objectively studied, physical and behavioural phenomena.This conclusion is in line with the main thesis of philosophical hermeneutics. This thesis states that subjects cannot be studied as such in a natural-scientific way because the concept of 'subject' demands a different, non-objectivating method of knowledge. Philosophical hermeneneutics can perhaps answer the question of a proper concept for subjective animal experience, although animals are not the explicit subject matter of this discipline.Two founding fathers of 20th Century hermeneutics, namely Dilthey and Gadamer, are studied concerning the concepts of 'subject' and 'experience'. My conclusion is that the subject-philosophy of these two philosophers is primarily a philosophy for human subjects, thereby more or less excluding the possibility for animal subjectivity. Since Gadamer does not consider animals linguistic beings, he seems to exclude animal experience. However, he opens up the way to a philosophy about animal experiences as bodily experiences. Dilthey, in his later writings, follows the same line of reasoning as Gadamer emphasizing the common, cultural-historical meaning of experiences and their expression and understanding, which is typically human. In his early writings, however, Dilthey underlines the individual, subjective aspects of experiences in humans and higher animals. Although he later does not reject this psychological foundation of experience, he simply fails to ask: what about animal experience? thereby evading the question of how we as cultural and historical humans can understand non-cultural and non-historical animal experience. The line of reasoning these two philosophers have in common is that they say: if animals have experiences, then these experiences must be similar to human experiences. Actually, their subject-philosophy is a philosophy of human subjectivity which can hardly cover animal experiences.Rather than trying to find a philosophical concept of human experience that can cover animal experience, a third possibility between human experience and the absence of experience is looked for. The philosophies of the phenomenologists Merleau-Ponty and Plessner which emphasize the bodily character of human and animal experience offer this possibility.Merleau-Ponty's philosophical phenomenology seems to promise a conceptualization of bodily animal experiences. The conclusion of his analysis of human perceptions is that not the linguistic but the bodily way of human being is the foundation of human perceptions and experiences. He sees the human body as ambiguous: both physical and conscious (i.e., experiencing) and he assumes this philosophical analysis adequate to cover animal relationships with their environment. Inspired by the difference that Merleau-Ponty makes between the bodily comprehension of humans and the hermeneutic understanding of person, I propose the concept of the impersonal meaning of animal experience as an alternative of the personal, cultural and historical character of human experience.Because Merleau-Ponty repeatedly says that all living beings are intertwinings of physical body and consciousness, he seems to say that plants and micro-organisms are also experiencing beings, thereby making no distinction between animals and other non-human organisms.Plessner offers the required specification. He asserts that human as well as animal relationships to their environment are mediated by a self. To him, the human relationship to the environment is mediated by language, personality, culture and history. What Plessner calls a "double human self" - namely a bodily bound self and a reflective "I" - is the foundation of this relationship. He further states that human personality, culture and history give form to bodily experiences. Animals, by contrast, cannot distance themselves from their own body and bodily-bound self. Animals do not have the capacity of reflective, linguistic, personal or cultural-historical experience; they have only bodily and environmentally tied, here-and-now experiences. Thereby, Plessner provides an elaborated, philosophical concept of animal experience that is not similar to the concept of human experience.Buytendijk, who worked as an animal psychologist around the middle of this century, can be seen as applying Plessner's concept of bodily and environmentally tied animal experience to research. He fully adopted Plessner's philosophy of animals and humans and in his own animal experiments and in discussions of those performed by others, he adopts the view that animal behaviour is an expression of their experiences which are bound to the present Umwelt and bodily possibilities of the animals involved.When comparing the method that Buytendijk used with the hermeneutical and phenomenological method of understanding human experiences, one can see that:Unlike the meaning of human experiences, the meaning of animal experiences is not personal within a cultural-historical context. This is a vital, impersonal meaning that is bound to momentary bodily perceptions and actions in the present Umwelt.We can understand this meaning within a species-specific context.This species-specific context is not given beforehand as a standard for interpreting animal behaviour. We attain knowledge of this context by interpreting the meaning of expressions of particular animals of a species under various circumstances.Because animals, contrary to humans, are not open to others, we cannot share with them our knowledge of the meaning of their experiences.The conclusion of these comparisons is that our interpretation of the meaning of animal expressions always remains, conceptually and methodically, our human interpretation. Whether our interpretations of the meaning of animal expressions are more or less adequate depends on whether they meet the usual standards of hermeneutical understanding: coherence between interpretations and accordance with biological knowledge of the animals involved.Finally, two contemporary animal welfare debates are discussed. The first (a conference about welfare of domestic animals in 1994) is a philosophical and theoretical debate about the concept of animal welfare and the method for measuring it. The two main issues at that conference were: are feelings a fundamental aspect of animal welfare? and how can we measure animal welfare? The second question turned out to be the most important. Some participants said that feelings, although important, should not belong to the scientific concept of animal welfare because they cannot be measured; physical indicators of welfare are sufficient for speaking of welfare. Other participants held that we can indirectly know feelings by measuring physical and behavioural indicators. However, most of these indicators are the same as those used by animal welfare scientists who claim that they measure only the physical aspects of animal welfare, irrespective of associated animal feelings. Animal welfare scientists who stress feelings of welfare simply add that these observations refer to the animals' feelings of poor welfare. One participant of the conference argued that physical indicators of animal welfare cannot be used as indicators of feelings of welfare too; these feelings have to be demonstrated independently of physical indicators of welfare.In the second debate about welfare of farm mink, the validity of the argument that feelings have to be demonstrated independently has been exemplified. The question in this debate was whether some particular behaviour of farm mink, called "stereotypic behaviour", counted as expressions of poor welfare. All participants in this debate tried to demonstrate or contest this by means of natural-scientific experiments. A critical reading of this debate demonstrates that scientists only agree upon the designs and results of such experiments if they also agree upon the interpretation of the meaning of the animals' behaviour. Almost all the conclusions from experiments regarding mink's welfare can be contested from the point of view of another interpretation of the mink's behaviour. This debate shows the primacy of the interpretation of animal behaviour as an expression of experiences over results of natural- scientific experiments. This primacy requires an explicit method for interpreting animal behaviour in order to reach an agreement about various interpretations. The type of research into welfare of farm mink as used by one of the participants in this debate is considered as containing elements of such an interpretative method. Contrary to her own intention, the researcher does not see the mink's behaviour only as a causal effect of fulfilled or unfulfilled needs, but primarily as meaningful behaviour. By carefully looking at and comparing the form of the behaviour of farm mink and wild mink, she tries to interpret their behaviour. The aim of these interpretations is not to look into the animals' heads in order to see experiences as causes of animal behaviours. I state that the aim is to attain a coherence between the assumed meanings of various animal behaviours. This coherence provides us with a background for natural-scientific explanations of these behaviours, experimental results and other physical data.At the end of this book, the four principles of animal welfare research as an integration of interpretative and natural-scientific research are evaluated:In order to study animal welfare as subjective experience, a view is needed that conceptually and methodically maintains animal welfare as subjective experience. Saying that animal welfare is not only physical but primarily a matter of feelings, requires something other than physical measurements of welfare. The debate about farm mink shows that scientists studying animal welfare from a natural-scientific angle already take this view, albeit implicitly. The method developed above can make the interpretation of animal behaviour a matter on which ethologists and other animal scientists can attain an argumentative consensus.Although the concept of animal welfare is about what matters to the animal, the animal's point of view should be abandoned as the criterion of knowledge of animal experiences of welfare. Animals are not able to agree upon interpretations of their behaviour. Hence, these interpretations always remain human interpretations.The species-specificity of animal behaviour cannot function as the criterion of animal welfare. Whether a particular animal behaviour is species-specific or not depends on one's interpretations of various behaviours of animals of a certain species.Interpretations of animal behaviour as indications of good or poor animal welfare should not be in contradiction with natural-scientific research data that also refer to good or poor welfare. They should be brought into coherence with each other. Natural science studies the physical aspect and interpretative science the expressive aspect. These two types of research are not independent of each other; they both rely upon background knowledge regarding what counts as good or poor animal welfare. In some cases the results of both types of research can contradict and challenge each other. I argue that one cannot say beforehand which of these views is correct; this can only be decided upon by trying to attain a new consensus about interpretative and natural-scientific assessments of the animals' welfare. (shrink)

Human attitudes to animals have changed as non-humans have become more widely incorporated in the category of moral agents who deserve some respect. Parallels between the functioning of humans and non-humans have been made for thousands of years but the idea that the animals that we keep can suffer has spread recently. An improved understanding of motivation, cognition and the complexity of social behaviour in animals has led in the last 30 years to the rapid development of animal welfare science. (...) Early attempts to define welfare referred to individuals being in harmony with nature but the first usable definition incorporated feelings and health as part of attempts to cope with the environment. Others considered that welfare is only about feelings but it is argued that as feelings are mechanisms that have evolved they are a part of welfare rather than all of it. Most reviews of welfare now start with listing the needs of the animal, including needs to show certain behaviours. This approach has used sophisticated studies of what is important to animals and has replaced the earlier general guidelines described as freedoms. Many measures of welfare are now used and indicate how good or how poor the welfare is. Naturalness is not a part of the definition of welfare but explains why some needs exist. In recent years, welfare has become established as one of various criteria used to decide on whether a system is sustainable because members of the public will not accept systems that cause poor welfare. The study of welfare has become part of the scientific basis upon which important political decisions are made. (shrink)

Animal models are used in experiments in the behavioural neurosciences that aim to contribute to the prevention and treatment of cognitive and affective disorders in human beings, such as anxiety and depression. Ironically, those animals that are likely to be the best models for psychopathology are also likely to be considered the ones that are most morally problematic to use, if it seems probable that (and if indeed they are initially selected as models because) they have experiences that are similar (...) to human experiences that we have strong reasons to avoid causing, and indeed aim to alleviate (such as pain, anxiety or sadness). In this paper, against the background of contemporary discussions in animal ethics and the philosophy of animal minds, we discuss the views that it is morally permissible to use animals in these kinds of experiments, and that it is better to use less cognitively complex animals (such as zebrafish) than more complex animals (such as dogs). First, we criticise some justifications for the claim that human beings and more complex animals have higher moral status. We argue that contemporary approaches that attribute equal moral status to all beings that are capable of conscious strivings (e.g. avoiding pain and anxiety; aiming to eat and play) are based on more plausible assumptions. Second, we argue that it is problematic to assume that less cognitively complex animals have a lesser sensory and emotional experience than more complex beings across the board. In specific cases, there might be good reasons to assume that more complex beings would be harmed more by a specific physical or environmental intervention, but it might also be that they sometimes are harmed less because of a better ability to cope. Determining whether a specific experiment is justified is therefore a complex issue. Our aim in this chapter is to stimulate further reflection on these common assumptions behind the use of animal models for psychopathologies. In order to be able to draw more definite conclusions, more research will have to be done on the influence of cognitive complexity on the experience of (human and non-human) animals. (shrink)