Abstract
Readily available data are used to provide relevant decision making information on the highly subjective issue of animal rights. Two examples of alleged crowding; cattle being finished in concrete lots, and broilers in confined operations were evaluated to determine the impact on producers and consumers from increasing space per animal. It is concluded that similar policy changes, such as doubling floor space, can lead to dramatic differences in economic impact depending on the industry affected. It is shown that economic analysis can provide valuable information in estimating the tradeoffs in moral issues.
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James R. Simpson is Professor and Livestock Marketing Economist at the Food and Resource Economics Department, University of Florida, Gainesville, U.S.A. He was formerly President and Senior Economist of InterAmerican Research Associates, and Cooperative Advisor of the Cooperative League of U.S.A. He was Scholar-in-Residence at the Rockefeller Foundation, Villa Serbelloni at Bellagio, Italy, 1979 and Visiting Research Professor at Kyoto University, Fall, 1982. His most important publications are: James R. Simpson and Don Farris, The World's Beef Business and ‘Toward a Humanist Consensus on Ethics of International Development’, in Morris Storer (ed.), Humanist Ethics. He is also author or co-author of over 100 articles in professional journals and chapters in books on livestock, international development and ethics.
Bernard E. Rollin is Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Physiology and Biophysics at the Colorado State University. His book Animal Rights and Human Morality (Prometheus Books) was selected as Outstanding Academic Book, in Choice Magazine, 1981. Other important publications by him are: Natural and Conventional Meaning: An Examination of the Distinction (Mouton, 1976); Papers published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association; Poetics; Kant-Studien; and Perspectives in Biology and Medicine.
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Simpson, J.R., Rollin, B.E. Economic consequences of animal rights programs. J Bus Ethics 3, 215–225 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00382923
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00382923