Postdoc project Martin Huth

Martin Huth works on a phenomenological theory of the human-animal relationship that is oriented towards the lifeworld meanings. The theory wants to describe the fact that we have always been living with animals and that this fact is embedded in history and culture. Against the background of certain standards animals concern us, we face animals every day. This requires responsibility. It is not enough to simply reconstruct or apply existing manners and standards. In the individual encounter a demand becomes manifest which we cannot not answer. Therefore - independent of specific attributions - we are called upon to assume responsibility which we can only assume within a variable sociocultural context.

FWF Stand-alone project, 2018 ongoing

PI: Dr. Judith Benz-Schwarzburg

Postdoc: Dr. Susana Monsó

PhD student: Birte Wrage, MA

project number: P 31466

Few philosophical ideas have been as resistant to a paradigm shift as the assumption of human superiority over other animals. Human uniqueness has been linked to a range of complex social and cognitive capacities, e.g. the capacity to reason, to use language or culture, or to have consciousness. Most prominently, humans understand themselves as the pinnacle of creation because of their moral capacities: humans can cooperate with others, console them and help them, show empathy and care, understand fairness and react negatively to inequity. But what if other animals can do so as well?

During the past few decades, empirical research in comparative cognition has revealed astonishing abilities in animals. Biologists and philosophers are currently engaged in a vivid debate on how to interpret these findings. Our project contributes to this endeavor by addressing two main questions: What does morality in animals mean? And why does morality in animals matter?

Philosopher Mark Rowlands claims that animals are moral subjects because they can be motivated by moral emotions. However, much conceptual work still needs to be done in order to determine whether animals can indeed behave morally. Departing from Rowlands’ theory, we firstly aim to specify the character and cognitive requirements of moral emotions in animals. Whereas the current debate mostly concentrates on empathy as a moral emotion and on morally good behavior, we will engage in an analysis of other moral emotions, such as patience, compassion, guilt, and grief and, furthermore, consider negative moral emotions, such as cruelty, jealousy, schadenfreude, and callousness. Secondly, we will ask whether the attribution of morality to animals comes with ethical implications – a dimension that scholars in the debate have widely neglected. Our project aims to counter this shortcoming by analyzing the consequences of being a moral subject from the perspective of three important theories in animal ethics: the capabilities approach, the integrity approach, and the rights approach. This will elucidate the entitlements animals could have as moral subjects.

We want our theoretical discussions to move beyond the proverbial armchair. Therefore, we will apply an interdisciplinary and empirically-informed methodology. Ultimately, our theoretical analysis will provide us with a conceptual toolkit to identify and discuss practical cases where humans might interfere with the moral abilities of animals. It is for example impossible for a social animal to console a conspecific in distress if husbandry conditions on farms and in labs separate individuals from each other. Also, some animal experiments aim at reducing the animals’ moral abilities (like their empathic abilities) by brain surgery or extreme forms of conditioning. Examples like these gain an additional ethical dimension if the animals affected by these practices are moral subjects.

Funded by FWF

The Working Group Ethics in Equine Medicine was established in 2015 with the aim of reflecting and working on ethical questions in an interdisciplinary manner that arise in the context of the work at the University Clinic for Equine Medicine.

So far, the working group members have, for example, supervised interdisciplinary diploma theses, developed project ideas and reflected on the handling of ethically challenging cases in the equine hospital via multidisciplinary group deliberations.

A publication on euthanasia in equine medicine is one of the outcomes of the Working Group Ethics in Equine Medicine (Springer, S; Jenner, F; Tichy, A; Grimm, H (2019): „Austrian Veterinarians’ Attitudes to Euthanasia in Equine Practice“ Animals  2019, 9(2), 44; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani9020044).

Currently, a project on criteria and models for decision-making about treatments of old and/or chronically ill horses is ongoing as part of the Interdisciplinary Research Platform Ethics in Equine Medicine, which is associated with the Working Group Ethics in Equine Medicine.  

Members: Dr.med.vet. Ulrike Auer; Dr.med.vet. Sonja Berger; Univ.-Prof. Dr. Herwig Grimm; Dr.med.vet. Rhea Haralambus; Univ.-Prof. Dr.med.vet. Florien Jenner; Gabriel Königsberger;  Dr.med.vet. Iris Ribitsch; Dr.med.vet. Svenja Springer; Dr.med.vet. Karsten Velde, Mariessa Long 

The Interdisciplinary Research Platform Ethics in Equine Medicine works on ethically relevant veterinary aspects of the human-horse relationship in an intensive collaboration and exchange between Gut Aiderbichl, an international animal protection community with animal visitor centres and sanctuaries in multiple European countries, and the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna (Vetmeduni). The focus is on decisions about therapies, decision-making processes and relevant decision-making criteria with regards to geriatric and/or chronically diseased horses. The Interdisciplinary Research Platform Ethics in Equine Medicine is associated with the Working Group Ethics in Equine Medicine.

The first project of the research platform, Decisions about therapies: Criteria and models of decision-making, consists of two PhD projects, one in the Unit of Ethics and Human-Animal Studies at the Messerli Research Institute and one in the University Equine Hospital, in collaboration with the Unit of Anaesthesiology and Perioperative Intensive-Care Medicine at the Vetmeduni.

Complex decisions about therapies and euthanasia for chronically diseased and/or geriatric horses provide the background of the two PhD projects. Often, quality of life is referenced as an important criterion for these decisions. However, to date there is no widely accepted definition of equine quality of life, nor a validated equine quality of life assessment tool available that captures all relevant aspects of chronically diseased and/or geriatric horses. This is what the two projects focus on. The ethics PhD Project (Equine Quality of Life: Ethics of end-of-life decisions for geriatric and/or chronically diseased horses) theoretically and empirically investigates the concept of equine quality of life for geriatric and/or chronically diseased horses. Furthermore, the project aims to support complex decision-making processes regarding veterinary interventions such as therapies and euthanasia. The veterinary PhD project (Development and validation of indicators of Quality of Life in geriatric and/or chronically diseased horses) is concerned with the practical aspects of developing and validating indicators of quality of life for geriatric and/or chronically diseased horses. With this project we aim at providing support in responsible decision making in an increasingly important area of human-horse relationship.

PI: Prof. Dr. Herwig Grimm (Unit of Ethics and Human-Animal Studies, Messerli Research Institute)

PI: Prof. Dr.med.vet. Florien Jenner Dipl.ACVS Dipl.ECVS (Clinical Unit of Equine Surgery, University Equine Hospital, Vetmeduni)

Prof. Dr.med.vet. Jessica Cavalleri Dipl.ECEIM (Clinical Unit of Internal Medicine Horses, University Equine Hospital, Vetmeduni)

PD Dr.med.vet. Ulrike Auer (Clinical Unit of Anaesthesiology and Perioperative Intensive-Care Medicine, Vetmeduni)

PhD student: Mariessa Long, MSc (Unit of Ethics and Human-Animal Studies, Messerli Research Institute)

PhD student: Mag.med.vet. Zsófia Kelemen (Clinical Unit of Equine Surgery, University Equine Hospital, Vetmeduni)

Publications:

Long, M; Dürnberger, C; Jenner, F; Kelemen, Z; Auer, U; Grimm, H (2022): Quality of Life within Horse Welfare Assessment Tools: Informing Decisions for Chronically Ill and Geriatric Horses. Animals (Basel). 2022; 12(14):1822.

Long, M; Jenner, F; Kelemen, Z; Cavalleri, J-M; Auer, U; Grimm, H (2022): Case discussions in a clinical ethics support service for equine medicine: a field report. 344-349.-17th Congress of the European Society for Agriculture and Food Ethics; SEP 7-10, 2022; Edinburgh, United Kingdom. (ISBN: 978-90-8686-387-7).

Kelemen, Z; Grimm, H; Long, M; Auer, U; Jenner, F (2021): Recumbency as an equine welfare indicator in geriatric horses and horses with chronic orthopaedic disease. Animals (Basel). 2021; 11(11):3189. 

Kelemen, Z; Grimm, H; Vogl, C; Long, M; Cavalleri, JMV; Auer, U; Jenner, F (2021): Equine activity time budgets: The effect of housing and management conditions on geriatric horses and horses with chronic orthopaedic disease. Animals (Basel). 2021; 11(7):1867. 

Funding:

This project is funded by the Gut Aiderbichl foundation.

Funding: This project is funded by the FWF. (FWF P 36759-G)

Project title: Stigmatization of a profession? An Empirically Informed Ethical Analysis of Veterinary Work in Slaughterhouses

Project lead: Dr. phil. Christian Dürnberger
PhD: Mag.med.vet. Johanna Karg

Start: 1st November 2023

Contact: Christian Dürnberger

„Simple Summary“: We perceive professions quite differently: some are highly regarded – others far less so. Some seem to be the perfect topic for small talk – others leave us silent. The project focuses on the second category, more precisely on professions that are referred to in research as “dirty work”. This term is not intended as a judgement. The research does not say that these jobs should be valued less than others; the focus is rather on the social perception of these jobs. There are jobs that generally do not have a high prestige, for different reasons: some jobs are perceived as disgusting and repulsive; some are associated with images one would prefer not to see with one’s own eyes; others are considered morally questionable. The research around “dirty work” assumes that these jobs are often done by people who have few alternatives and that these occupational groups experience stigmatisation, which means that they are viewed negatively by parts of society.

All of this does not apply to veterinary medicine: the veterinary profession is generally highly regarded. The profession is mainly associated with actions in the presumed best interest of the animal. However, it is often overlooked that veterinarians do not only work in clinics and practices, but their expertise is also needed in other contexts, for example at the slaughterhouse. This is where we’ve come full circle with what has been described above: Working in a slaughterhouse can indeed be interpreted as “dirty work”. When the word “slaughterhouse” is mentioned, many people think of blood, viscera, noise and stench; some people consider the killing of animals fundamentally immoral; but even people who eat meat generally avoid confrontation with images from a slaughterhouse.

The core of the project is an empirical survey among veterinarians who work in slaughterhouses: To what extent do they experience their work as stigmatised? What coping strategies help them to deal with the (potential) stigmatisation? And to what extent and in what ways do they integrate their work into their professional identity as veterinarians?

The project will deepen the understanding of “dirty work” by looking at a job that has barely been studied in this context. By doing so, it will also address the conditions of current food production in general. Furthermore, the project is located in the research field of empirical veterinary ethics, which identifies and analyses the moral challenges, principles and self-understandings of veterinary medicine in different fields of work.

Funding: This project is funded by the ÖAW (DOC 26841)
Project title: Encountering animals after Wittgenstein Exploring the potential of descriptive ethics to provide moral criticism.

PI: Erich Linder
PhD: Erich Linder

Start: 1st October 2023
Contact: Erich Linder More about me

„Simple Summary“:

The project aims to understand whether descriptive ethics after Wittgenstein (EAW) can account for moral criticism by using animal ethics as a study case. Such an approach to ethics has historically been in contrast with moral individualism (MI). The latter holds that moral theory provides adequate guidance in our moral life and that what we owe to an individual can be determined exclusively by looking at her intrinsic characteristics, such as sentience. In contrast to MI, EAW suggested that we should depart from how we already conceptualise and encounter animals in our practices and that moral theory cannot play a predominant role in our lives.

Ethics after Wittgenstein has been dismissed and criticised as providing a merely descriptive approach to morality, thereby losing the possibility of conducting substantial criticism. If one describes what is already the case, there is the risk of justifying the status quo. Hence the project aims to assess whether EAW can, after all, allow for moral criticism and, at the same time, take into account the plurality that characterises our moral life.

Before answering the main research question, the project will have to substantiate EAW's position by a) understanding how describing the diversity of human-animal interaction can provide us with a plurality of normative frameworks and b) explaining the connection between practice-oriented and theory-oriented approaches.

From a methodological point of view, the Wittgensteinian notion of aspect-perception will play a crucial role: the first task will address a) by explaining moral diversity in the light of aspect-perception. This task will focus on understanding the link between encountering animals in a different context - hence, seeing and describing them in different ways – and having access to different norms and obligations.

The project's second task will be to address b) and therefore test whether EAW substantiated with aspect-perception can account for and encompass theory-oriented approaches – such as moral individualism. In order to do so, the task will be dedicated to exploring whether MI implicitly relies on specific conceptualisations and aspects of the animal and what role these aspects play in moral theory. The third and last task will assess whether EAW, substantiated with the project's results, can secure a critical potential. Since EAW maintains that we do not have access to external sources of criticism and that we have to consider the practice from within, this task aims to test whether ethics after Wittgenstein can be understood as an instance of immanent criticism. That is a critique that finds the normative potential for moral change within a specific practice and does not rely on external concepts and principles.