A Difference that Makes a Difference: Welfare and the Equality of Consideration

In Welfare, Happiness, and Ethics, L.W. Sumner defends two significant constraints on one’s theory of welfare: formality and generality. An adequate theory of welfare, claims Sumner, must give a constitutive account of the “good-for” relation. This constitutive account must be sufficiently general that any entity whose status as a welfare subject is uncontroversial falls within its scope. This paper will argue that Sumner’s proposed constraints are particularly significant to utilitarian arguments for the equal moral considerability of non-human animals. In the absence of these constraints, the inconsistency that is alleged to follow from denying moral considerability to non-human animals, while affirming it for humans, fails to obtain. I will focus on Peter Singer’s argument for the equal moral considerability of non-human animals, in order to support the conclusion that questions about the formality and generality of welfare are significant areas of further research for philosophers of animal welfare. Introduction: Welfare and Animal Ethics Welfare is about how well an individual is faring, relative to the circumstances of their life. Well-being and prudential value are both synonymous with welfare, such that talk about an individual’s wellbeing, or the prudential value of some aspect of their lives, is taken to be about their welfare. There are many different accounts of what welfare is, but all largely agree that welfare concerns how individuals are faring, and that welfare matters for ethics. Thus, questions about animal welfare are properly questions about how non-human animals are faring, and what sorts of things would make their lives better for them. In Welfare, Happiness, and Ethics, L.W. Sumner proposes two requirements for an adequate theory of welfare. One of these is the requirement of generality. This requirement states that an adequate theory of welfare should accommodate the wide variety of types of welfare subjects to which our welfare vocabulary is applied (Sumner