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Marc Bekoff Abstract

Animal Emotions and Beastly Passions: why 'good welfare' isn't 'good enough' Do animals have emotions? Of course they do. Just look at them, listen to them, and if you dare, smell the odors that pour out when they interact with friends and foes. Look at their face, tail, body, gait, and most importantly dare to look into their eyes. What we see on the outside tells us a lot about what's happening inside animals' heads and hearts. Animal emotions aren't all that mysterious. Recent research in cognitive ethology and noninvasive social neuroscience clearly shows that animals are emotional and empathic beings (even mice), but we already knew it, didn't we? And, what animals feel matters very much in our decisions about how we use them for predominantly human ends. Animal emotions are rather public and the privacy of mind argument can no longer be used to claim that we don't know if, for example, dogs, cats, mice, or chimpanzees feel anything. The notion of evolutionary continuity figures largely into some of my arguments. I also consider the question of whether animals have a sense of awe, wonder, and mystery as they ponder their surroundings and the ups and downs of daily life? And, it just might be that some animals are moral beings (especially when they play with one another), a topic I call "wild justice." Finally, I'll discuss why animal emotions HAVE to matter in our interactions with other animals. Quite often "good welfare" just isn't "good enough."