When we make decisions that affect the lives of animals, their interests count for very little. 2025-2030, I lead a project based at the Philosophy Department at the University of Oslo exploring and ethically assessing new ways to make animals count in our decision-making by putting a price on their interests. This approach of pricing animal interests has largely been neglected because animal ethicists have ignored economics and political philosophy, and economists and political philosophers have ignored animals.
Valuing lives monetarily can help protect those lives. Pricing the loss of a healthy (human) life year in cost-benefit analysis does not try to capture the intrinsic value of a life in monetary terms but to establish how much a society should be willing to pay to prevent (risk of) harm. It can be used to ensure that only projects with more benefits than risks are implemented and improve the allocation of scarce healthcare resources. In this project, we aim to adapt this methodology to include animals and explore methods for assessing how much society should pay to prevent harm to animals, allowing for systematic decision-making across species.
Political, not Metaphysical
A problem in much of animal ethics is that it primarily deals with the first-order question of what we morally ought to do in relation to animals. But what we morally ought to do in individual cases is not identical to what we politically ought to require people to do. The project seeks convergence on a set of normative premises pertaining to how we should make animals count in our collective decision-making. Reasonable people can agree that we should reduce animal suffering, provide animals with care, and allow wild animals to live flourishing lives.
Tax Animal Suffering
Another part of the project is to develop a tax on suffering (and a subsidy on positive animal welfare) in proportion to the harm (and the benefits) that accrue to the animals. Some animal rearing practices produce more suffering than others, and those that produce more suffering will be taxed at a higher level. I will argue that a tax on suffering is a very useful policy tool to improve animal welfare under the highly non-ideal circumstances of intensive farming practices.
The value of animal’s life
We will explore how economic approaches to valuing human lives can be extended to animal lives. One method for doing so explicitly is called the value of a statistical life approach, and another is called the quality adjusted life years approach. We will extend these to animals. We will also explore ways to price harm to animals that do not require ranking all animals on a single scale using a Multi-Criteria Decision-Analysis to come to expert agreement about different dimensions of animal welfare
Our Goal
There is a growing awareness of animal welfare in many societies. Thus, it is the right time to develop methods to help societies systematically consider animals in their decision-making and help individuals make more informed decisions, as consumers and citizens, in choices that affect animals. An ambitious goal is that this project will contribute to a reorientation in the UN Sustainable Development Goals to become more oriented towards animals’ interests.
Work with us
Are you interested in contributing to this project in any capacity, please be in touch. You can reach me at akselbst (at) gmail.com.
Aksel Braanen Sterri 