Welfare Economics

[W]hile the problem of interpersonal comparability of utility is a tricky one, it is not insoluble in principle. It is conceivable that, perhaps several hundred (or a thousand) years from now, neurology may have advanced to the stage where the level of happiness can be accurately correlated to some cerebral reaction that can be measured by a ‘eudaimonometer’. Hence the definition of social welfare [in terms of the sum total of individual happiness] is an objective definition, although the objects are the subjective feelings of individuals.

Yew-Kwang Ng, Welfare economics: towards a more complete analysis, London, 2004, p. 4

The practical reality is that existing cost-benefit analyses of animal welfare policies are speciest: they only explicitly consider the benefits and costs of the policy to people.

Jayson L. Lusk and F. Bailey Norwood, Animal welfare economics, Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, vol. 33, no. 4, 2011, pp. 463–483, p. 468

Yew-Kwang Ng, Welfare economics: introduction and development of basic concepts, London, 1979, p. v