Please select the category that most closely reflects your concern about this content,
so that we can review it and determine whether it violates Civility 101 or isn't
appropriate for some other reason.
Abusing this feature is also a violation of Civility 101.
Explanation:
No one relishes using animals for experimentation, but the medical community has long insisted that such research helps develop potentially life-saving drugs and treatments. Is this justification compelling enough to continue using animals for medical research?
Biweekly updates on new debates and experts
Please check your email to confirm your subscription.
© 2008-2010 Opposing Views, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Opposing Views, Inc. is not responsible for the content posted on this website. Please view full disclaimer under Terms
Regardless of every other argument, this is what is at issue
Missing several differentiating factors
I'll just assume that the statement "I have not yet heard one non-arbitrary reason why this is so" is hyperbole, otherwise I imagine you have not spoken to many serious people who don't share your view. While there are a variety of differences between humans and animals, I'll pick the simplest set: cognitive capabilities. If one believes that types and/or levels of cognition in some way determine moral values and rights, then there is a difference between humans and animals. That of course does not necessarily mean that it is then ok to harm animals, but it can form a basis for an argument for the use of animals under certain conditions.
Animals in scientific studies are bred and therefore would not be alive otherwise. Additionally, in the wild many of them are at risk of far greater pain and harm being prey animals.
In my mind, there are several ethical/values questions that should be considered:
1. Is it better for an animal to never exist or live in a laboratory setting?
2. What types of testing and what levels of pain/stress can be inflicted before life is not worth having lived in the first place? (possibly the most difficult question)
3. What can be done to improve conditions for the animals, without disrupting the science?
4. What is the combination of pleasure/pain for the animals that appropriately can be traded off for advances in medicine?
These questions clearly do not have right or wrong answers as they depend on initial values that are somewhat arbitrary. However they do allow for individuals with their own values to determine the sort of policies that they would be comfortable with. As a graduate student in neuroscience, I am personally involved in animal experiments, and I do occasionally wonder if the research I am doing will provide sufficient advances to justify the use of the animals in my care. I do hope that future research and ethical discussion will lead us to even better rules for care of animals and the conditions for their use. Ultimately I do believe that animal testing is justified, though I am uncommitted on exactly what conditions for which this is true.
- ToddG
December 3, 2008 10:35AM
Reply to this Recommend
(0)
Side: Uncommitted
Thank You for your Comment
We review all comments before they're posted. For more on our comment policy, please see our FAQ.
Arbitary differentiations
Sentience is sufficient criteria for a being to possess the basic moral right not to be used as the resource of another. Cognitive capacity is irrelevant for this purpose, though an animal's c.c. could certainly be relevant to which other rights that animal may have.
Because rights protect interests, we need to look at what interests animals have. All sentient beings have a fundamental interest in not being harmed. As more cognitive capacities are determined, interests relevant to that capacity may then be discerned.
Because you are truly concerned about the issue of animal use in laboratory settings, I strongly recommend reading ch. 5 of Gary L. Francione's book, Animals as Persons.
- Eric Prescott
December 3, 2008 10:55AM
Reply to this Recommend
(1)
Side: No
Thank You for your Comment
We review all comments before they're posted. For more on our comment policy, please see our FAQ.
Re: Arbitrary differentiations
You make an interesting point about an animals being used as a resource, but I don't think it is so simple. After all, a person or animal can be used as a resource and still get what it/he/she wants. I still maintain that the question is what is a fair trade-off between a subject's sacrifice and its gain. One might also put into play the benefit to other beings in a utilitarian model, but I'll leave that aside since my impression is that you would reject that view. Do you think that all experimentation on animals is wrong, just those experiments that cause pain/death, any experiments involving animals bred for experimentation, any experiments involving animals in captivity for whatever reason?
I suppose some of these questions may be addressed in the book you recommended. I appreciate the suggestion and I'll take a look.
- ToddG
December 7, 2008 8:42AM
Reply to this Recommend
(0)
Side: Uncommitted
Thank You for your Comment
We review all comments before they're posted. For more on our comment policy, please see our FAQ.
Clarifications, answers to questions
I do oppose using nonhuman animals in biomedical research whatever the reason, on the grounds that doing so violates their moral rights (I should clarify that above I meant "merely" as a resource, i.e., as our property. We do not allow treating humans merely as resources (or slaves, is the idea), though of course most humans have the ability to consent to have their labor exploited in return for financial consideration (and typically, when properly informed, have the ability to give reasonable consent to be test subjects). Nonhumans do not of course have the ability to consent in this way.
With respect to the reasons why I oppose animal use for research in particular, I think that chapter I recommended is the simplest way to expound on that.
- Eric Prescott
December 7, 2008 11:23AM
Reply to this Recommend
(1)
Side: No
Thank You for your Comment
We review all comments before they're posted. For more on our comment policy, please see our FAQ.
Check out Matter and Memory
It is interesting to have a read of Matter and Memory, on the subject of what consciousness is (Henri Bergson, first published in 1911). Bergson tries to define perception. In so doing he makes an amazing conclusion- perceptions are as real as objects and subjects, moreover, perceptions are the subset of the set of objects and perceptions exist outside the perceiving subject. But the point he makes is that the function of the brain or any complicated nervour system is to defer automatic reaction to stimulus . Of course the more complex the organism- this meaning having a more complicated nervous system, the greater the lapse in time between the initial stimulus and the reaction because the stimulus takes a detour to the brain before being enacted as some kind of response. So, the greater this deferal in time, the less automatic the response and more it is impregnated with an element of choice (for Bergson this means free-will). Time for Bergson is itself a qualitiative multiplicity, hence any deferal in time implies an introduction of qualitative difference. So this detour cuases any organism with nervous system to experience the totality of all the potential (not possible) responses to the stimulus and in this act - that is the deferal and the creation of potential choices- Bergson locates free-will. It is this that he understands to be consciousness. Since, virtually every organism, even the simplest has a nervous system, all have free-will and hence consciousness.
- sor666
February 22, 2010 6:54AM
Reply to this Recommend
(0)
Side: No
Thank You for your Comment
We review all comments before they're posted. For more on our comment policy, please see our FAQ.