Dawkins M S
Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, United Kingdom.
Q Rev Biol. 1998 Sep;73(3):305-28. doi: 10.1086/420307.
Animal welfare is a topic often thought to reside outside mainstream biology. The complexity of the methods used to assess welfare (such as health, physiology, immunological state, and behavior) require an understanding of a wide range of biological phenomena. Furthermore, the "welfare" of an animal provides a framework in which a diversity of its responses can be understood as fitness-enhancing mechanisms. Different methods for assessing animal welfare are discussed, with particular emphasis on the role of an animal's own choices and reinforcement mechanisms. No part of biology is as yet able to explain consciousness, but by confronting the possibility that nonhuman animals have conscious experienced of suffering, animal welfare studies force a consideration of even this hardest problem of all biological phenomena in a particularly direct and evolutionary way.
动物福利是一个通常被认为不属于主流生物学范畴的话题。用于评估福利的方法（如健康、生理、免疫状态和行为）的复杂性需要对广泛的生物现象有所了解。此外，动物的“福利”提供了一个框架，在这个框架中，其多样的反应可以被理解为增强适应性的机制。本文讨论了评估动物福利的不同方法，特别强调了动物自身选择和强化机制的作用。生物学的任何部分目前都无法解释意识，但通过直面非人类动物可能有意识地体验痛苦这一可能性，动物福利研究以一种特别直接和进化的方式促使人们思考所有生物现象中这个最棘手的问题。
