Zur prinzipiellen Unterbindung des direkten Zugangs zu den Befindlichkeiten des Pferdes.

The way in and the extent to which the feelings of the horse remain hidden to men principally and in practice will be discussed here. The problem of finding practical measures to treat horses regarding their feelings will be made clear. The widespread practice of declaring impressions, assumptions and projections as knowledge will be explained. In addition, the risk of relativising the importance of good health and eufunctional behaviour, while struggling to judge the feelings will be explained. The more or less likely to be true statements about feelings are compared with the, at least, extensive validity and reliability of statements about good health and eufunctional behaviour. It is not possible to arrive at reliable findings about the feelings of equids. Finding different measures of managing horses in practice by reference to reliable knowledge of the feelings is not possible. It is impossible to demonstrate the suppositions of special feelings as wrong. Consequently, the proceeding of the morally engaged people following the principle "in dubio pro equo" has to be respected as an ethically legitimate procedure: the former, on the basis of their more or less intense knowledge about analogies in the neuronal organisation of humans and animals, are impressed by the behaviour of the horse structured in a similar way to human behaviour. They establish convictions corresponding to their impressions about the horse's feelings and act based on their ethical attitudes and the moral appeals they heed, not on well-founded knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]