Teaching animal ethics to understand animal welfare

Thanks to higher consumer expectations that animals in the production process are treated with appropriate care, there has recently been a significant increase in the attention given to issues related to animal welfare across Europe. For this reason, from the 60s onwards several attempts to define a concept of welfare that applies to animals reared for human ends have been made. Providing veterinary students with ethical frame- works and teaching them a correct approach to animal welfare will help integrate science-based knowledge about animals and preferences with ethical values, which will strengthen ethical welfare vocabulary and reasoning skills of future practitioners.