Animal Welfare and Human Ethics: A Personality Study

32 Pages Posted: 8 Sep 2017

See all articles by Konstanze Albrecht

Konstanze Albrecht

RWTH Aachen University - Institute of Psychology

Florentin Krämer

Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) - Faculty of Economics

Nora Szech

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

Date Written: August 8, 2017

Abstract

We revisit the long-standing question whether there is a relation between animal welfare and human ethics. Therefore, we elicit concern for animal welfare in an incentivized, direct, and real setup: Subjects choose between intensive farming versus organic living conditions for a hen. Guaranteeing organic living conditions is costly, but implies organic feed, access to daylight, and more space. We compare the interest in animal welfare with morally relevant dispositions in subjects, relying on well-established measures such as Machiavellianism scores and the Big 5 personality test. The data confirm a strong, positive relation between caring for animal welfare and moral dispositions.

Keywords: Animal Welfare, Human Ethics, Experiment, Sustainability

JEL Classification: D010, D620, D690

Suggested Citation

Albrecht, Konstanze and Krämer, Florentin and Szech, Nora, Animal Welfare and Human Ethics: A Personality Study (August 8, 2017). CESifo Working Paper Series No. 6609, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3033615 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3033615

Konstanze Albrecht

RWTH Aachen University - Institute of Psychology ( email )

Jaegerstrasse 17-19
Aachen, 52062
Germany

Florentin Krämer

Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) - Faculty of Economics ( email )

Ludwigstrasse 28
Munich, D-80539
Germany

Nora Szech (Contact Author)

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology ( email )

Kaiserstraße 12
Karlsruhe, Baden Württemberg 76131
Germany

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