Solihull, United Kingdom

Animal Behaviour and Welfare

Language: English Studies in English
Subject area: social
University website: www.solihull.ac.uk
Foundation of Sciences (FdSc)
 
Animal
Animals are multicellular eukaryotic organisms that form the biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals consume organic material, breathe oxygen, are able to move, reproduce sexually, and grow from a hollow sphere of cells, the blastula, during embryonic development. Over 1.5 million living animal species have been described—of which around 1 million are insects—but it has been estimated there are over 7 million animal species in total. Animals range in length from 8.5 millionths of a metre to 33.6 metres (110 ft) and have complex interactions with each other and their environments, forming intricate food webs. The study of animals is called zoology.
Welfare
Welfare is the provision of a minimal level of well-being and social support for citizens and other eligible residents without sufficient current means to support basic needs. In most developed countries, welfare is mainly provided by the government from tax revenue, and to a lesser extent by NGOs, charities, informal social groups, religious groups, and inter-governmental organizations.
Welfare
The only justifiable stopping place for for the expansion of altruism is the point at which all whose welfare can be affected by our actions are included within the circle of altruism. This means that all beings with the capacity to feel pleasure or pain should be included; we can improve their welfare by increasing their pleasures and diminishing their pains.
Peter Singer, The Expanding Circle - Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress, Chapter 4, Reason, p. 120 (1981).
Welfare
What the welfare system and other kinds of governmental programs are doing is paying people to fail. In so far as they fail, they receive the money; in so far as they succeed, even to a moderate extent, the money is taken away.
Thomas Sowell, during a discussion in Milton Friedman's "Free to Choose" television series in 1980.
Welfare
I feel obliged to withhold my approval of the plan, as proposed by this bill, to indulge a benevolent and charitable sentiment through the appropriation of public funds for that purpose. I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the general government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit. A prevalent tendency to disregard the limited mission of this power and duty should, I think, be steadfastly resisted, to the end that the lesson should be constantly enforced that, though the people support the government, the government should not support the people. The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow-citizens in misfortune. This has been repeatedly and quite lately demonstrated. Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood.
"Veto of the Texas Seed Bill" (16 February 1887)
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