The project 3T (animal protection, animal welfare, animal ethics)

Questions about an appropriate and ethical responsible contact with animals arise in different practical contexts, ranging from agricultural livestock farming to research with animals. To find an answer, an interdisciplinary cooperation of the fields of animal protection, animal welfare and animal ethics is necessary:

Which practical, organizational or institutional measures are necessary to guarantee animal protection? This depends not only on the definition of animal wellbeing, but it is must also agree with demands of animal ethics. Animal welfare can often only be defined with regard to concrete situations and is often dependent on implicit normative requirements. Animal ethics tries to make these expectations transparent, but it also provides a basis for the other two aspects. To define animal welfare, information about animal’s satisfaction, welfare and luck is necessary. Furthermore, insights and normative demands  of animal ethics must be applicable in practical situations.

Under the guidance of PD Dr Johann Ach, Prof Dr Sylvia Kaiser, Prof Dr Helene Richter, Prof Dr Stefan Schlatt and Prof Dr Arnulf von Scheliha, researchers from different disciplines, such as philosophy, biology, medicine, theology and other disciplines, try to answer questions about practical, organizational and institutional measures that are necessary, to actually guarantee animal protection.

This interdisciplinary project 3T combines basic foundational research and practical research. It connects separate research activities at the WWU, improves existing initiatives, plays part in the profile building of the WWU and tries to sharpen societal sensibility for animal welfare and protection issues through science transfer.

The project started with a workshop about animal protection.

After two presentations about animal protection and animal medicine, as well as animal protection and politics, there were different contributions about practical matters. These included problems, questions relevant for animal welfare, protection and ethics, official rules about animal protection, welfare and ethics, their implementations, as well as expectations towards science and politics. These were related to agriculture, pets, animal trade, sports, equitation, hunting, zoos and experiments.

A lecture series about the three 3T followed this workshop.

A second workshop focused on aspects of animal welfare and animal ethics.

Animal welfare was analyzed and discussed from biological, animal medical, economical, as well as political perspectives. Contributions from practical research allowed insights about feelings of different animals.

Following this, a contribution of animal ethics was considered and different positions from philosophy, Islamic and Christian ethics were presented.

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