Research
My primary research interest is in exploring philosophical issues in the measurement of animal welfare, which made up the topic of my PhD research. I have also written in applied animal ethics.
Future research interests include how to identify indicators of consciousness/sentience, how the evolution and mechanisms of sentience can inform welfare measurement, performing comparisons of sentience/welfare between different species, how to quantify the badness of death for animals and how much suffering is experienced by wild animals.
Future research interests include how to identify indicators of consciousness/sentience, how the evolution and mechanisms of sentience can inform welfare measurement, performing comparisons of sentience/welfare between different species, how to quantify the badness of death for animals and how much suffering is experienced by wild animals.
Publications
PhD Thesis (2019) - If I Could Talk to the Animals: Measuring Subjective Animal Welfare. Download
- Birch, J. & Browning, H. (2021). Neural organoids and the precautionary principle. The American Journal of Bioethics. 21(1): 56-58. doi.org/10.1080/15265161.2020.1845858 Download preprint
- Veit, W. & Browning, H. (2020). Why socio-political beliefs trump individual morality: An evolutionary perspective. AJOB Neuroscience. 11(4): 290-292. doi.org/10.1080/21507740.2020.1830879
- Browning, H. & Veit, W. (2020). Confined freedom and free confinement: The ethics of captivity in Life of Pi. In Á. T. Bogár and R. S. Szigethy (Eds.). Critical Insights: Life of Pi. Salem Press: 119-134. Book. Download preprint
- Veit, W. & Browning, H. (2020). Perspectival pluralism for animal welfare. European Journal for Philosophy of Science. 11(9). Download
- Browning, H. & Veit, W. (2020). Improving invertebrate welfare. Animal Sentience. 29(4) Download
- Browning, H. & Veit, W. (2020). Is humane slaughter possible? Animals. 10(5): 799 Download
- Browning, H. (2019). The natural behavior debate: Two conceptions of animal welfare. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science. 1-13 doi.org/10.1080/10888705.2019.1672552 Download preprint
- Browning, H. (2019). What is good for an octopus? Animal Sentience. 26(7) Download
- Browning, H. (2019). What should we do about sheep? The role of intelligence in welfare considerations. Animal Sentience. 25(23) Download
- Browning, H. & Maple, T. (2019). Developing a metric of usable space for zoo exhibits. Frontiers in Psychology. 10(791) Download
- Browning, H. (2018). Won’t somebody please think of the mammoths? De-extinction and animal welfare. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics. 31(6): 785-803 doi.org/10.1007/s10806-018-9755-2 Download preprint
- Browning, H. (2018). No room at the zoo: Management euthanasia and animal welfare. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics. 31(4): 483-498 doi.org/10.1007/s10806-018-9741-8 Download preprint
- Browning, H. (2018) Book Review: Zoo Ethics. Quarterly Review of Biology. 93(2): 149 doi.org/10.1086/698059 Download
- Browning, H. (2017) Anecdotes can be evidence too. Animal Sentience. 16(13) Download
Talks
- 2020 - "If I Could Talk to the Animals: Measuring Subjective Animal Welfare" (webinar presented by invitation at 'Listening to Farmed Animals in Welfare Science and Ethics' seminar series for Wageningen University)
- 2020 - "The natural behavior debate: Two conceptions of animal welfare" (webinar presented by invitation for the Practical Animal Welfare Science online platform)
- 2020 - "Developing a metric of usable space for zoo exhibits" (EAZA Animal Welfare forum - online)
- 2019 – “It’s a fine line between pleasure and pain: comparing positive and negative animal welfare” (presented at the International Society for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology conference, Oslo)
- 2019 – “Measuring animal suffering” (presented at the 2nd Oxford Workshop on Global Priorities Research)
- 2019 – “Sentience research and welfare science: a promising partnership” (presented by invitation at ANZLAA Animal Welfare Symposium at ANU)
- 2019 - “Effective animal welfare” (presented by invitation at ANU Effective Altruism event)
- 2018 – “If I could talk to the animals” (presented at ANU 3-Minute Thesis final)
- 2018 – “Sentience research and welfare science: A promising partnership” (presented by invitation at ANU Animal Sentience: Pushing the Boundaries workshop)
- 2018 – “The lion or the lungfish: making intersubjective welfare comparisons” (presented at AAP conference; winner of Postgraduate Presentation Prize)
- 2017 – “Effective animal welfare” (presented by invitation at ANU Effective Altruism event)
- 2017 – “Making inter-species welfare comparisons” (presented by invitation at Philosophy of Biology at Dolphin Beach workshop)
- 2017 – “Validating scientific indicators of hidden targets” (presented at AAP conference)
- 2016 – “Won’t somebody please think of the mammoths? De-extinction and animal welfare” (presented at AAP conference)
- 2016 – “Management euthanasia and animal welfare” (presented at Australasian Postgraduate Philosophy Conference)
- 2015 – “Animal welfare is subjective welfare” (presented at the International Society for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology conference, Montreal)
