Herwig Grimm

Veterinary University Vienna, Medical University of Vienna, and University of Vienna, Austria · Messerli Research Institute

This paper explores the phenomenon of moral distress in veterinary practice, particularly in environments like animal husbandry, where real-life barriers are in conflict with veterinarians’ moral beliefs. This paper draws controversial parallels, at least on first sight, with Just War Theory, which is understood as a non-ideal theory in response to...

Shame has many faces. On the one hand, it contributes to social cohesion and seems to be indispensable to human morality. A liability to shame is widely regarded as a virtue, while shamelessness is considered morally reprehensible and dysfunctional. On the other hand, shame has shown to be associated with (self-)destructive behaviours and various n...

In this paper, we identify and explain three kinds of bedrock in moral thought. The term “bedrock,” as introduced by Wittgenstein in §217 of the Philosophical Investigations , stands for the end of a chain of reasoning. We affirm that some chains of moral reasoning do indeed end with certainty . However, different kinds of certainties in morality w...

Background Quality of life (QoL) provides a comprehensive concept underpinning veterinary decision-making that encompasses factors beyond physical health. It becomes particularly pertinent when seeking responsible choices for chronically ill or old horses that emphasise their well-being and a good QoL over the extension of life. How different stake...

Ökonomische Interessen stehen in einem inhärenten Spannungsverhältnis zu den Interessen des Tierschutzes. Dieser Interessenkonflikt, der sich in Zeiten wirtschaftlicher Krisen zuspitzt, besteht vor allem, aber nicht nur, im Bereich der erwerbswirtschaftlichen Nutzung von Tieren, bei der es um die Erzielung von Einkünften und um Gewinnmaximierung ge...

The harm-benefit analysis (HBA) is a cornerstone of the European Directive 2010/63/EU (the Directive). The Directive regulates the care and handling of animals used for scientific purposes in the European Union (EU). Since its implementation, there has been ongoing debate around the practical applicability of the HBA for research project review pro...

Wittgensteinian approaches to animal ethics highlight the significance of practical concepts like ‘pet’, ‘patient’, or ‘companion’ in shaping our understanding of how we should treat non-human animals. For Wittgensteinian animal ethicists, moral principles alone cannot ground moral judgments about our treatment of animals. Instead, moral reflection...

Equine veterinarians face a range of challenges when attending competition horses. Athletic goals may significantly impact veterinary decision making, and the veterinarian’s work can be complicated by reputational considerations and rival opinions during an assessment of whether a horse is “fit to compete”. Using an online questionnaire, we found t...

The 3Rs principle of replacing, reducing and refining the use of animals in science has been gaining widespread support in the international research community and appears in transnational legislation such as the European Directive 2010/63/EU, a number of national legislative frameworks like in Switzerland and the UK, and other rules and guidance i...

Despite the challenges the pandemic presented for university teaching, it opened up opportunities to set up and explore digital teaching formats like never before. This paper presents a case study of teaching introductory animal ethics in a digital format with flipped-classroom methods. The Interactive Literature Lecturing Format (ILLF) was designe...

In this paper, we tackle the widely held view that practice-oriented approaches to ethics are conservative, preserving the moral status quo, and, in particular, that they do not promote any (fundamental) change in our dealings with animals or formulate clear principles that help us to achieve such change. We shall challenge this view with reference...

The field of veterinary oncology has advanced greatly over the last decade, and veterinarians have an important role in advising owners on whether and when certain treatments, such as radiotherapy, are indicated for dogs and cats. Using an online questionnaire (N=636), we investigated what treatment Austrian, Danish and UK veterinarians would recom...

Veterinary medicine is increasingly affected by animal owners having the opportunity to become better informed on pet health issues by using various internet resources. Using an online questionnaire including a section on clients’ use of internet resources to obtain medical information, this study aimed to investigate veterinarians’ estimates of th...

Equine Quality of Life (QoL) is an important concern in decision making in veterinary medicine and is especially relevant for chronically ill or geriatric horses towards the end of their lives. To our knowledge, there is no currently available QoL assessment tool for chronically ill or geriatric horses that assesses equine QoL defined as the horse’...

This chapter addresses ethical concerns in companion animal practice including shelter medicine, outdoor cats, overpopulation, neutering/gonadectomy, conformational disorders/brachycephaly, convenience surgeries/declawing/onychectomy, behavioral medicine, referrals, futile intervention, obesity, and access to veterinary care. Modern animal shelters...

Background: Social media is increasingly used in small animal practice, enabling veterinarians to connect with clients and promote their business online. It can also be used by clients to quickly distribute complaints via online communities. Material/methods: Using a questionnaire study we investigated Austrian, Danish and UK veterinarians' atti...

Background: Health insurance offers many benefits to clients and veterinarians, such as the ability to perform necessary and possibly cost-intensive medical interventions without financial constraints, or to potentially prevent euthanasia based on financial challenges. However, concerns about negative consequences, such as the overuse of diagnosti...

In this chapter, the authors discuss the future of veterinary ethics. In doing so, they follow the model of veterinary practice in which veterinarians first document the medical history of a patient, come to a diagnosis, and finally make a prognosis on that basis. The authors provide a brief overview of the development and establishment of the fiel...

Recumbency is a prerequisite for horses achieving rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and completing a full sleep cycle. An inability to lie down due to environmental insecurities or pain results in REM sleep deficiency, which can cause substantial impairment of welfare and health. Therefore, the present study used wearable automated sensor technology o...

Housing and management conditions strongly influence the health, welfare and behaviour of horses. Consequently, objective and quantifiable comparisons between domestic environments and their influence on different equine demographics are needed to establish evidence-based criteria to assess and optimize horse welfare. Therefore, the present study a...

Small animal veterinarians frequently have to manage conflicting interests. Beside the key consideration of the patient’s interests, small animal veterinarians are often challenged to consider not only client’s emotional needs, but also their own personal aspirations to provide quality patient care and to make a good living as a professional. Furth...

The growing academic interest in animals and in their abilities and interactions with humans, along with insights from behavioural biology and philosophical reflections on animals, have led to a reassessment of the relationship between humans and animals—and this has had consequences for theology, which must investigate the philosophical and theolo...

Animal-assisted psychotherapy is increasingly popular and attracts considerable attention in science. Integrating animals into therapy aims at generating added value in health and well-being of humans as well as non-human animals. This approach is reflected in the One Health perspective. However, animal-assisted psychotherapy raises issues regardin...

Der Einsatz neuartiger Verfahren in der Pflanzenzüchtung wird kontrovers diskutiert. Eine Befragung österreichischer Expert(inn)en macht deutlich, dass eine für alle zufriedenstellende Zukunftsvorstellung kaum möglich ist, doch könnten künftige Entscheidungen für oder gegen die neuen Verfahren abgefedert werden, wenn die Kritikpunkte des jeweils an...

The use of animals in research requires careful ethical consideration of whether the burden on the animals is justified. As one important part of the project evaluation, a harm–benefit analysis (HBA) must be carried out in order to approve projects in line with the EU Directive 2010/63/EU. This implies that harms and benefits must be assessed prosp...

In a recent paper in Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics on the necessary conditions for morally responsible animal research David DeGrazia and Jeff Sebo claim that the key requirements for morally responsible animal research are (1) an assertion of sufficient net benefit, (2) a worthwhile-life condition, and (3) a no-unnecessary-harm conditio...

Die veränderten Mensch-Tier-Beziehungen, die gestiegenen gesellschaftlichen Anforderungen an das Tierwohl sowie die hohen moralischen Erwartungen an den Tierarztberuf führen sowohl bei Tierärzten und Tierärztinnen als auch bei Studierenden zu ethischen Herausforderungen. Die so entstehenden Dilemmata erfordern die Entwicklung einer veterinärmedizin...

In this paper, we analyse the Wittgensteinian critique of the orthodoxy in animal ethics that has been championed by Cora Diamond and Alice Crary. While Crary frames it as a critique of “moral individualism”, we show that their criticism applies most prominently to certain forms of moral individualism (namely, those that follow hedonistic or prefer...

Directive 2010/63/EU on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes (henceforth “the Directive”) mandates that every project proposal in EU member states involving procedures on living non-human vertebrates and cephalopods must be approved in a project evaluation which includes a harm-benefit-analysis assessing “whether the harm to the a...

The “One Health” initiative promises to combine different health-related issues concerning humans and animals in an overarching concept and in related practices to the benefit of both humans and animals. Far from dismissing One Health, this paper nevertheless argues that different veterinary interventions are determined by social practices and conn...

Small veterinary practice is experiencing steady improvement in diagnostics and therapies which enable veterinarians to offer evermore advanced medical care for their patients. This focus group study of veterinarians (n = 32) examined the impact of these improvements and the potential challenges they introduce in small animal practice. It shows tha...

Euthanasia of companion animals is a challenging responsibility in the veterinary profession since veterinarians have to consider not only medical, but also legal, economic, emotional, social, and ethical factors in decision-making. To this end; an anonymous questionnaire-based survey of Austrian equine veterinarians examines the attitudes to the e...

Ist Moral ohne Schuld denkbar? Im öffentlichen Raum tendiert Moral regelmäßig zu Moralisierung. Schuld wird hier als Waffe eingesetzt, um den Anderen ins Unrecht zu setzen. Doch zielt eine solche Moralisierung meist auf die Person und nicht auf sein Handeln. Wäre es da nicht besser, das Thema der Schuld aus den Moraldiskursen zu verbannen? Der Band...

Ist Moral ohne Schuld denkbar? Im öffentlichen Raum tendiert Moral regelmäßig zu Moralisierung. Schuld wird hier als Waffe eingesetzt, um den Anderen ins Unrecht zu setzen. Doch zielt eine solche Moralisierung meist auf die Person und nicht auf sein Handeln. Wäre es da nicht besser, das Thema der Schuld aus den Moraldiskursen zu verbannen? Der Band...

Die Idee einer klaren Einteilung in Wesen mit bzw. ohne moralischen Status spielt in der Tierethik eine zentrale Rolle und ist entscheidend für die Grundfrage der Tierethik »Was darf man mit Tieren tun?«, d. h. die Frage nach dem moralisch richtigen Umgang mit Tieren. Das Konzept des moralischen Status und sein Verständnis ist ein wichtiges Fundame...

Animal experiments are widely required to comply with the 3Rs, to minimise harm to the animals and to serve certain purposes in order to be ethically acceptable. Recently, however, there has been a drift towards adding a so-called harm–benefit analysis as an additional requirement in assessing experiments. According to this, an experiment should on...

Directive 2010/63/EU regulates the use of animals for scientific purposes in EU member states and mandates that every project proposal involving procedures on living non-human vertebrates and cephalopods has to be approved in a review process that includes a Harm-Benefit-Analysis, to assess “whether the harm to the animals in terms of suffering, pa...

Modern veterinary medicine offers numerous options for treatment and clinicians must decide on the best one to use. Interventions causing short-term harm but ultimately benefitting the animal are often justified as being in the animal’s best interest. Highly invasive clinical veterinary procedures with high morbidity and low success rates may not b...

The main objective of this paper is to introduce the concept of the “animal patient” to academic debates on animal ethics, veterinary ethics and medical ethics. This move reflects the prioritization of the animal patient in the veterinary profession’s own current ethical self-conception. Our paper contributes to the state of research by analysing t...

Simple Summary According to Directive 2010/63/EU, project proposals involving experiments on animals have to be approved in a harm-benefit-analysis (HBA) that weighs the potential benefits of the experiment against the harm inflicted on animals. Only if the benefit outweighs the harm, will the project be approved. However, it is unclear what counts...

Veterinary ethics deals with moral questions, moral premises and conflicts of veterinary practice. The killing of animals is a controversial issue that is regularly considered in current ethical debates. Euthanasia raises particular ethical issues. Because the killing is carried out in the presumed interest of the animal, it is important to use a t...

Der Begriff ›Tierversuch‹ kann in einem engen und in einem weiten Sinne verwendet werden (Rippe 2012, 331). Im weiten Sinne kann man unter ›Tierversuch‹ jede wissenschaftliche oder experimentelle Verwendung von Tieren verstehen. Im engeren Sinn, der auch dem Tierversuchsrecht der Europäischen Union oder dem deutschen Tierschutz-Gesetz zugrunde lieg...

Within the public debate surrounding food, people often contend that the key to meeting current challenges is changing consumer behaviour. Professionals and practitioners such as farmers, retailers, veterinarians, or researchers only occupy the limelight during media coverage of so-called ‘food scandals’. If we are to better understand and negotiat...

It is our concern that European Union Directive 2010/63/EU with its current project evaluation of animal research in the form of a harm-benefit analysis may lead to an erosion of the credibility of research. The HBA assesses whether the inflicted harm on animals is outweighed by potential prospective benefits. Recent literature on prospective benef...

Both Directive 2010/63/EU on the use of animals for scientific purposes and the recent mission statement from the Max Planck society („White Paper“) articulate strict limitations on animal-based research and acknowledge an impetus to protect animals, along with a need for some harm-justifying benefit; yet, the public perception of animal experiment...

The holistic understanding of health is a crucial idea of One Health and Comparative Medicine. Both concepts aim at bridging human and veterinary medicine and the transfer of medical knowledge. The aim of this paper is to analyze the possibility to transfer knowledge from human biomedical ethics to veterinary ethics. Based on the concept of patient...

The portrayal of animals in the media is often criticised for instrumentalising, objectifying and anthropomorphising animals (e.g. Hirschman and Sanders in Semiotica 115(1/2):53–79, 1997; Lerner and Kalof in Sociol Q 40(4):565–586, 1999; Stewart and Cole in Int J Multidiscip Res 12(4):457–476, 2009). Although we agree with this criticism, we also i...

Abstract Background: Euthanasia of pets has been described by veterinarians as “the best and the worst” of the profession. The most commonly mentioned ethical dilemmas veterinarians face in small animal practice are: limited treatment options due to financial constraints, euthanizing of healthy animals and owners wishing to continue treatment of te...

The field of post-anthropocentrism in current animal philosophy and related disciplines is structured by heterogeneous concepts of anthropocentrism on the one hand and different usages of the prefix ‘post’ on the other. This paper expounds different perspectives on anthropocentrism, while additionally focusing on the possibilities of its overcoming...

Unsurprisingly, the debate on the moral relevance of killing animals is highly influenced by the question whether death matters to animals and in which sense. In this debate, prominent theories - such as Singer's or Regan's - focus on death as an encapsulated phenomenon. In the following we will argue that such approaches, summarized under the cate...

Euthanasia of pets has been described by veterinarians as “the best and the worst” of the profession. The most commonly mentioned ethical dilemmas veterinarians face in small animal practice are: limited treatment options due to financial constraints, euthanizing of healthy animals and owners wishing to continue treatment of terminally ill animals....

Der Begriff ‚Anthropologische Differenz‘ bezeichnet eine grundlegende Mensch-Tier-Unterscheidung. Die Anthropologische Differenz soll Aufschluss darüber geben, was Menschen im Unterschied zu Tieren sind und was folglich den Menschen auszeichnet und auszeichnen soll. Sie identifiziert ein bestimmtes (kognitives, soziales, moralisches, religiöses) Me...

Euthanasia plays an important role in small animal practice. When it comes to killing animals, animals, their owners, public interests, as well as the legal framework, have to be considered by veterinarians. In cases where the interests of veterinarians and owners diverge, ethical conflicts can occur, and different concerns have to be taken into ac...

Zwischen Menschen und Tieren besteht seit jeher eine enge und spannungsreiche Beziehung. Doch erst seit gut vierzig Jahren wird unter dem Begriff der Tierethik unsere moralische Verantwortung gegenüber Tieren intensiv verhandelt. Seit den klassischen Argumentationen von Peter Singer oder Tom Regan sind tierethische Überlegungen in alltäglichen und...

Die Tierphilosophie ist eines der lebendigsten Felder der Gegenwartsphilosophie. Im Mittelpunkt stehen bislang die Frage nach dem Geist der Tiere, das Problem des Tier-Mensch-Unterschiedes und die Themenfelder der Tierethik. Die auf drei Bände angelegte Philosophie der Tierforschung wirft einen neuen Blick auf dieses Gebiet und ergänzt es durch ein...

In: Imago Hominis, 22/3

According to the EU Directive 2010/63 on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes, the harm-benefit analysis is part of the project evaluation that has to be carried out by the competent national authorities. Ethical considerations have to be taken into account during the evaluation procedure. Therefore, all member states face the que...

How can expected study benefits and animal harms be weighed against each other? What is the unit and common currency that allows this weighing to be performed?

The killing of animals is a controversial issue. Mercy killing as a means to end severe suffering and agony has an exceptional and unquestioned position. Killing as an act of mercy not only seems to represent animal interests but also makes the act of killing a moral requirement. Against this background, veterinarians should be especially concerned...

Der vorliegende Wegweiser will einen Beitrag zur Förderung der ethischen Reflexion der amtstierärztlichen Praxis leisten. Anliegen ist es, Amtstierärztinnen und Amtstierärzte dabei zu unterstützen, mit den Konflikten ihres Berufsfeldes strukturiert und fundiert umzugehen. Der Wegweiser entstand im Rahmen des Projekts »Vethics for vets – Ethik in d...

In: Wiener Tierärztliche Monatsschrift – Veterinary Medicine Austria. 102/9-10