Introduction: Challenges for the study of therapeutic interactions with non-human animals (e.g. animal-assisted interventions and dog-walking) include improving the welfare of non-human animals involved in such studies. Many study proposals require submission to both human and non-human animal ethical review boards in order to ensure optimal animal welfare. Our recent work on the health and wellbeing benefits of dog-walking prompted us to review current ethical frameworks for the study of therapeutic interactions with non-human animal studies.
Methodology: In this narrative review, we explored literature from: animal-assisted intervention, animal assisted therapy and dog-walking studies; philosophical and social theories; anon-human animal cognition and behavioural studies; and animal welfare and animal rights publications.
Results: As we learned more about the thoughts, feelings and preferences of non-human animals, the bright line between human and non-human started to blur. Non-human animals not only feel pain, need food, water and shelter etc. but have preferences, experience emotions, have social interactions, learn in complex ways, and constantly surprise humans with new capacities. Existing ethics committees operate from a philosophical standpoint of moral relationism; that is the moral status of a non-human animal is dependent on its relationship to humans (whether a laboratory-model rat or a trained therapy dog). We argue that in light of new knowledge about non-human animal capacities, research ethics governance should be underpinned by moral individualism: recognising inherent and individual worth. The capabilities approach compels us to address the capabilities persons (whether human or non-human animal) require to achieve their desired functioning (wellbeing), prompting revised ethical theory responsive to varying capacities of persons with different desired functioning.
Conclusions: Findings from this narrative review challenge existing dichotomous ethical research governance for therapeutic interactions with non-human animals. In response to this challenge, we propose an ethical framework that goes beyond animal welfare legislation and recognises our obligations to non-human animals in a manner responsive to their capacities. As a concrete example, we pose ways in which ethical principles of autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence and justice could be applied to non-human animals through a morally individual lens for future ethical research governance in all human-animal research contexts.