Article 7(d) of New Zealand's Resource Management Act (RMA), for example, requires particular regard to being given to the "intrinsic values of ecosystems".
[3] Moral attitudes towards animals in the West (as expressed in public debate and legislation) have changed considerably over time.
Secondly, as to the scepticism expressed by scientists regarding the presence of consciousness and self-awareness in animals, they should be granted the benefit of the doubt by adopting the so-called analogy postulate.
This point of view is taken for example in a report by the Dutch Federation of Veterinarians in the EEC (FVE, 1978) concerning welfare problems among domestic animals.
Considerations regarding animal welfare ought to be based on veterinary, scientific and ethological norms, but not on sentiment.
And although animals do not have fundamental rights, human beings have certain moral obligations towards them.During the 1970s and 1980s, the criticism regarding the living conditions of farm and laboratory animals was reexamined in other social debates, notably the discussions concerning the protection of the (natural) environment and the ones concerning the development of new breeding techniques.
At that time, a principle was formulated that allowed for the possibility that, in some cases, the interests of animals might prevail over and above those of science and industry.
After the controversy concerning the transgenic bull Herman and the lactoferrin project of GenePharming, modern biotechnology has almost become synonymous with genetic engineering.
One can adhere to a meaning of intrinsic value of animals in a sense that is:[4] Of the first, behaviouristic interpretation, one can say (since it is morally neutral) that it is useless to ethical theory.