Download Individual striving as an ingredient of wellbeing

Individual striving as an ingredient
of well-being: human-centered
works shed light on animal wellbeing
By Elizabeth Oriel, Toni Frohoff,
Susan Wilson
Striving – A Useful Rubric of
Well-Being
• Conatus—Latin term for effort, vital force in
living things
• Striving occurs within many/most activities,
relates to inner experience (thoughts and
feelings)
• Cessation of striving in humans is often sign
of decreased well-being
• Wellbeing defined
Our Main Points
• Striving and wellbeing connected in the works
of philosophers, psychologists, economists
• Human-centered work on capacities and
striving relates to animals
• Assess ecological/captive conditions for
striving potential and behavioral cues
• Research on wellbeing/evaluating striving
Aristotle Connects Striving and
Capacities to Wellbeing
Aristotle, courtesy of Statistics Dept. University of St Andrews, Scotland
Aristotle: One of the First to Connect
Capacities and Well-being
• Teleological—beings
strive to fulfill their own
nature
• Each individual strives
to fulfill and utilize their
capacities and
potentiality=wellbeing
• Aristotle denied that
animals have reason or
belief
• Philosopher Richard
Sorabji explains the
legacy today from this
Aristotelian tradition
Aristotle, De Anima, translator Hugh Lawson-Tancred, 1986, London: Penguin Books.
Sorabji, R. 1993. Animal Minds and Human Morals, Ithaca, Cornell University Press.
Baruch Spinoza—2000 years later
(1677 A.D.)
• Striving is essential to
all life forms
• Humans are not
separate from nature
• Living things strive to
change, to know more,
to live with greater
force
Baruch Spinoza, picture courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Spinoza, B. in Edwin Curley, translator, The Collected Writings of Spinoza,
Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1985. Volume 1.
Human Psychological Studies
• Personal striving for goals is significant factor
in wellbeing (Emmons 1986, Deci and Ryan
2008)
• Allport (1937) –teleonomic trends
• Autonomy is factor in striving and wellbeing
(Devine et al. 2008)
Amartya Sen/ Martha Nussbaum
• Capabilities and opportunities central to wellbeing for humans
• They assess justice and equality based on
capabilities and opportunities that society
provides
• Can be applied to non-human animals—
incorporate into management decisions and
assessing ecological conditions/captivity
Nussbaum, M. C. 2000. Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sen, A. 1992. Inequality Reexamined. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Martha Nussbaum’s Ten Capabilities
1) Life expectancy
2) Bodily Health
3) Bodily Integrity
4) Senses, Imagination,
Thought
5) Emotions
6) Practical reason
7) Affiliation
8) Other Species
9) Play
10) Control over one’s
environment
Nussbaum, M. C. 2000. Women and Human Development: The
Capabilities Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Where Does Striving Occur?
• Short and long-term goals
• Spontaneous activities,
such as play
• Movement and
exploration, foraging,
social interaction and
bonds, reproduction and
rearing young, play
• Through the presence of
opportunities
Harbour seal pups playing, Photo courtesy of
Susan Wilson
How To Assess Striving?
Photo courtesy of Toni Frohoff, PhD
Assessing Wellbeing
• First: focus on species. Seek knowledge of species
in question-- their sensory, emotional, social, and
mental capacities
• Second: Observe behaviors, e.g. play, mother
relation with young, etc.
• Third: focus on environment and ask “can this
species strive to fulfill their capacities in a given
environment?”
• Answers will help assess the “striving potential”
of that environment
Toni Frohoff’s research
Researching impacts to dolphins from
these swim-with-dolphin programs
Photos courtesy of Toni Frohoff
Free ranging dolphin in Irish waters
interacts with researcher
Assessing harbour seal wellbeing
Pups being released from rehabilitation
Photo courtesy of Susan Wilson
Adult in
captivity
What May Reduce Striving in the
Wild?
• Decreased food resources. Malnourishment
affects striving, e.g. studies find decreases in
play and learning
• Exposure to toxins and accumulation in body,
e.g. Zala and Penn found changes in
motivation and communication
• Excessive predation or hunting
• Changes or reduction in habitat area
Relevance?
• What is striving potential within long-term
captive setting?
• What are the differences between striving
potential in free ranging captive setting versus
zoo or aquaria?
An example of empirical wellbeing
study
Summary
•Can apply the humancentered works on
striving to animals in
long-term captivity, in
rehabilitation, in
sanctuaries, in wild
•Valuable concept for
any welfare assessment
•Future work to create
evaluative tool for
assessment of striving
potential
Mating hippos in Africa, photo courtesy of Toni Frohoff
Acknowledgments
• We wish to thank Beth Kaplin
• We also wish to thank Hilary Kornblith and
Bob Remy-Powers for philosophical
discussions
• Elizabeth wishes to thank Gay Bradshaw for
sharing her views and vision
Sources
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Allport, F. H. 1937. Teleonomic description in the study of personality. Charatcer and Personality 5: 202-214.
Aristotle, De anima, translator Hugh Lawson-Tancred, 1986, London: Penguin Books.
Deci, E. L. and R. M. Ryan. 2008. Hedonia, eudaimonia, and well-being: an introduction. Journal of Happiness Studies 9: 1-11.
Devine, J., L. Camfield, and I. Gough. 2008. Autonomy or dependence—or both? Perspectives from Bangladesh. Journal of
Happiness Studies 9: 105-138.
Diener, E. 1984. Subjective Well-Being, Psychological Bulletin 95: 542-575.
Emmons, R. A. 1986. Personal strivings: an approach to personality and subjective well-being. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology 51: 1058-1068.
Frohoff, T. 1993. Behavior of captive bottlenose dolphins and humans during controlled in-water interactions. MS thesis,
Texas A &M University.
Frohoff, T. and J. M. Packard. 1995. Human interactions with free-ranging and captive bottlenose dolphins. Anthrozoos 8:
44-53.
Nussbaum, M. C. 2000. Women and human development: The capabilities approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Sen. A. 1992. Inequality Reexamined. Oxford: Oxford university Press.
Sorabji, R. 1993. Animal minds and human morals: the origins of the western debate. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Spinoza, B. in Edwin Curley, translator, The Collected Writings of Spinoza, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985.
Volume 1.
Verhoog, H. 2005. Animal Integrity. In: Marie, M. et al (Eds.) Animal Bioethics—Principles and Teaching Methods.
Wageningen Academic Publishers. The Netherlands.
Wilson, S. C., G. J. Pierce, C. M. Higgins, and M. J. Armstrong. 2002. Diet of harbour seals of Dundrum Bay, north-east
Ireland. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the UK82: 1009-1018.
Zala, S. M. and D. J. Penn. 2004. Abnormal behaviors induced by chemical pollution: a review of the evidence and new
challenges. Animal Behavior 68: 649-664.