Animal research

[Athena]

Is this okay? If we don't eat meat for ethical reasons,

is it okay to sacrifice animals in the name of scientific progress?

What about when it saves human lives?

[SomeRandomGuy]

I would this this depends on your view of animals. Someone who considers humans to be above all other animals probably has no problem with testing on animals to help or save humans. For those of us who consider all animals equal (humans, rats, etc) it is difficult to see the justification of harming one animal to help another.

[Plato]

Unfortunately, due to the incommensurable premises in contemporary moral debate, resulting from our inheritance of the broken fragments of a formerly coherent morality, this question cannot be answered.

I apologise for the unneccessarily big words, and if I'm being patronising (patronising, of course means talking down to people... :P). If you want to to understand the problem though, go get a dictionary and then read Alasdair MacIntyre's "After Virtue". Weep at how your vocabulary is so small compared to his but also at why we've lost all ability to use reason to settle debates.

It all began when we rejected teleology. Way back before the Enlightenment we had a three part moral system which consisted of:

1) a concept of man as he is
2) man as he could be if he achieved his telos (or purpose, if you will)
3) ethical tennets which were explicitly designed to help us achieve our telos

Ethical tennets only make sense so far as they go towards helping us achieve a purpose.

Now we have only
1) a concept of man as he is
2) ethical tennets

Our three legged stool of morality lost a leg and fell over!

Incidentally, our incommensurable moral premises are "Utility" and "Rights"...When the utility of one person and the rights of another clash, as in the situation you describe, the debate cannot be resolved. In this case of course it is the utility of humans versus the rights of animals. This means debates are resolved by who is the best rhetoritician, rather than through reason, and as you know, they can get very shrill!

I hope you enjoyed the lecture, collect your homework on the way out. Ciao.

[funchy]

Question:

Is the ethical objection to taking an animal's life? Or is the concern about causing suffering?

What if the experiment kept the animal under pain medicine so he didn't feel anything, then he was euthanized? Would that be better or worse than an animal who might feel discomfort short-term but would be given a good retirement instead of being killed?

[Plato]

Originally Posted by funchy

Question:

Is the ethical objection to taking an animal's life? Or is the concern about causing suffering?

What if the experiment kept the animal under pain medicine so he didn't feel anything, then he was euthanized? Would that be better or worse than an animal who might feel discomfort short-term but would be given a good retirement instead of being killed?

What if the experiment involved injecting hamsters with adrenaline and seeing if they can power a microwave by running in their hamsterwheels?

[ar81]

If we say that any creature that does not do what humans do is inferior, then animals are inferior.
"If you are not like me, you are inferior".

Elephants have better memory.
Deers are faster.
Dolphins have a bigger brain.
Dogs are more loyal.
Most of animals do not kill those of their kind.
Most of predators kill because they are hungry, not because it is profitable.

Half of humanity is starved, and G7 reacts only before a credit crunch, but not before world poverty.
And we dare to call ourselves civilized.
Have you seen any species that let their own kind to die because of an imaginary videogame of money?
If you remove the ability to exchange money for goods, economy becomes a videogame.
We serve a hive that serves companies, not humans.

So who is superior?

[Athena]

How about this question: if a mouse and a human were standing on a train track, and you could only rescue one before the oncoming train, which one would you rescue?

[funchy]

Originally Posted by Athena

How about this question: if a mouse and a human were standing on a train track, and you could only rescue one before the oncoming train, which one would you rescue?

Impossible scenario. But I get the idea. And I think your objection to animal experimentation is on terminating their lives, not on the suffering they might experience, correct?

The original question was about research. The problem is that it's never clear how many human lives you'll save by experimenting on and killing 100 rabbits or monkeys. There are some serious doubts about how accurate the drug safety animal tests are. Look at how many FDA-approved drugs that were later pulled off the market, became targets of lawsuits, etc. Researchers could do some of their tests using cultured tissues. Some drugs or cosmetics are just reformulation of existing approved drugs, so perhaps not all the tests are needed. Some of the research can be done using computer simulation. So much of the suffering in labs is for pointless reasons.

Look at how many animals die to give us cosmetics. How many hundreds of varieties of shampoo does the world need?

I know someone who works in a government lab that experiments on primates and other animals. They test the effects of nerve gasses to make a better KILLING product for the Army.

Do we really need most of the animal experimentation?

[Athena]

Originally Posted by funchy

Look at how many animals die to give us cosmetics. How many hundreds of varieties of shampoo does the world need?

Wow, that's so true!! Especially since most all of the things that are tested on the animals are artificial and human contrived stuff. All unecessary, and either detrimental in the short term or in the long term (even that the tests don't catch at first)

Not to mention doing bad in order to test ways do bad. That's even worse!

Ha!

Though I'm sure humans will see past it and know better in the next decade or so....