Four of the papers (by Donald Broom, Lennart Nordenfelt, Kirsten Schmidt andChristine Leeb) in this issue of Acta Biotheoretica stem from a symposium on thetheme ,,Concepts of animal welfare—interdisciplinary perspectives’’ that was heldon 8–9 October 2009 in Bad Neuenahr (Germany), organised by the Europa¨ischeAkademie zur Erforschung von Folgen wissenschaftlich-technischer EntwicklungenBad Neuenahr Ahrweiler GmbH. The papers by Richard Haynes as well as by SjaakSwart and Jozef Keulartz were invited in addition.The aim of the symposium and of this issue of Acta Biotheoretica has been tobring together experts representing animal welfare science, philosophy and socialsciences in order to discuss how philosophical analysis and explication of scientificterminology, concepts and theory may support the further development of animalwelfare science; this in light of the broad use of the animal welfare concept inanimal ethics, society and legislation. This issue of Acta Biotheoretica is thus acontribution to the current theoretical debate on animal welfare science. The focus ison the relationship between the historical as well as practical political context andnormative content of the animal welfare concept.

中文翻译：

---

社论：动物福利的概念

本期 Acta Biotheoretica 中的四篇论文（由 Donald Broom、Lennart Nordenfelt、Kirsten Schmidt 和 Christine Leeb 撰写）源自于 2009 年 10 月 8 日至 9 日在 Bad 举行的主题为“动物福利概念——跨学科观点”的研讨会Neuenahr（德国），由 Europa¨ischeAkademie zur Erforschung von Folgen wissenschaftlich-technischer EntwicklungenBad Neuenahr Ahrweiler GmbH 组织。此外，还邀请了 Richard Haynes 以及 SjaakSwart 和 Jozef Keulartz 的论文。 本次研讨会和本期生物理论学报的目的是将代表动物福利科学、哲学和社会科学的专家聚集在一起，讨论哲学分析如何科学术语、概念和理论的解释和解释可以支持动物福利科学的进一步发展；这是鉴于动物福利概念在动物伦理、社会和立法中的广泛使用。因此，本期生物理论学报是对当前关于动物福利科学的理论辩论的贡献。重点是动物福利概念的历史和现实政治背景与规范内容之间的关系。