ABSTRACT
Our collective understanding of the cognitive and emotional capacities of animals has exploded over the past several decades, yet the expanding body of scientific knowledge has not translated into noticeable improvements in the treatment of captive animals. This chapter explores one explanation for this “knowledge translation gap”: the science of what animals think and feel has largely been co-opted by industry and funneled into the narrow field of animal welfare science. Welfare science claims to improve the lives of animals by figuring out what they want, how they feel under certain captive conditions. But these incremental improvements do little for animals, and in fact serve to further entrench and legitimize the exploitation of animals in human industry. Moving forward, this chapter argues that the “Five Freedoms,” a classic formulation of the welfare science agenda, could be destabilized. Detached from their status quo roots, the Five Freedoms could be an aspirational tool in shaping a more appropriate moral response to human-imposed suffering.
