Animal Rights - Animal Experimentation

Animal Rights - Animal Experimentation

THE ETHICS of ANIMAL EXPERIMENTATION

Since the dawn of medical science animals have been used for the purposes of testing hypotheses before risking human health and human lives on untried new technologies. It makes perfect logical sense to do so, but the process is susceptible to moral criticism for subjecting captive animals to disease, discomfort, and often death, exclusively for our benefit. Certain types of scientific uses of animal subjects are justified, even at the animal's expense. Still, the most equitable balance of all the interests and ethical issues involved requires a multidimensional perspective instead of characterizing all animal experimentation right or wrong absolutely. Discussion of the Issues:

Human beings have hunted and raised domesticated animals for food and raw materials since before recorded history. In that respect, we are no different from other animals; in fact, most of the species hunted by people are themselves, hunters of other animals. From that point-of-view, it is difficult to imagine the moral basis of objection to using animals for scientific experimentation selected from the same species that we routinely slaughter and eat.

On the other hand, a moral objection against the use (or even consumption) of animals may be valid if it defines the issue in terms of the amount of suffering at stake for the animal. In that regard, certain types of uses might justify inflicting pain on animal subjects. Other types of uses may justify slaughtering animals, but only in conjunction with a good-faith effort to minimize pain and suffering. It may very well be that the corresponding benefit of dramatically shortening the life of a pig to test heart valves instead of testing them on human patients justifies the use of the pig for that purpose.

Likewise, one could argue that human beings are not morally obligated to except themselves from the biological food chain; we evolved to hunt along with millions of other animal species designed to eat other animal species. However, there is a fundamental difference between using pigs to advance medical science and for the purposes of manufacturing non-essential products (like cosmetics) at maximum profit.

The same fundamental principle morally differentiates slaughtering animals humanely for consumption and deliberately slicing the testicles from a hog before slaughter to (supposedly) "tenderize" the meat by virtue of a last-second surge of testosterone in the throes of agony (Tripp 2003).

In general, the greater the value potentially associated with animal use the greater the moral justification of exploiting the subject. Conversely, lesser values associated with animal may not. The basis of our moral responsibility to animals is not that human life and interests are more important than those of animals; that conclusion is flatly conceded by many who oppose the unnecessary infliction of acute pain and suffering, even on a lower animal (Tripp 2003).

The Moral Equation:

Observations of animals, whether in the wild, in captivity, or in experimental cages reveal undeniable evidence that they perceive physical pain and discomfort as well as pain as acutely as we do (Tangley 2000). Anecdotal evidence of numerous well documented instances seems to suggest that many animals also experience emotions such as grief from of loss of companionship (Moussaieff-Masson 1995).

Not uncommonly, it is scientists and medical researchers themselves who first notice responses and behaviors in laboratory animals that, in the extreme, challenge their previous assumptions about what "rights" animals have not to be subjected unnecessarily, or for no worthwhile purpose, to excruciating pain (Winter 2002). It is possible, for example, to justify infecting animals with cancer for the purposes of learning how to treat human cancer while opposing recreational hunting, or other reasons for using animals. For example, in parts of China it is possible to purchase donkey meat sliced from a living donkey: scalding water is poured over its rump and the cooked flesh sliced off as it writhes in pain (Tripp 2003).

It is likely that few medical researches who regularly use animals as subjects would condone the torture of a donkey as a culinary "technique." The moral analysis of animal experimentation and other uses is one of principle; it is a matter of weighing respective concerns against the purpose of the proposed use. Very valuable benefits justify significant pain and even the sacrifice of animal subjects; comparatively worthless (and especially, illusory) purposes do not necessarily justify subjecting the same degree of pain on a defenseless animal.