Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
do, however, compromise the practical implications of the following moral analysis,
an issue to which I shall return at the end of this chapter).
At the same time,
if
eating or hunting animals is impermissible, this does not entail
that research is immoral. Apart from the involvement of a weightier human interest, a
major moral difference between the two kinds of killing relates to alternatives. Dieti-
cians hold that a non-meat- based diet is nutritious, and today's supermarkets make it
easily available. On the other hand, the provivisection claim is that in spite of deve-
loped alternatives, there are still no real replacements for lab animals. If this is cor-
rect, dietary reform is distinct from the moral status of vivisection in two ways: first,
the latter may present a trumping human interest whereas the former does not. Se-
cond, unlike dietary reform, the established view within the scientific community re-
garding experimenting with animals perceives the sacrificing of animals as having no
satisfactory alternatives. Both reasons make it possible to hold that killing animals for
food or sport is wrong, but killing them for applied or non-applied knowledge is not.
Vivisection is an autonomous issue within animal welfare.
I will now examine each of the four components of the common justification for
research.
THE GREATER VALUE OF HUMANS
Provivisection literature is specked with assertions of human superiority that are
perceived as adequate support for animal experiments:
We are a species unique in our cognitive abilities: to use just a few examples, we
create beautiful sculptures, write on philosophical issues, and devise just laws. These
laws, as well as tradition handed down from long ago, bind us together in a moral
community. Yet, we are autonomous beings living in that community. Only we, of all
species on Earth, can be held accountable for our deeds, judged guilty in a court of
law. We are burdened in a way that no other species is, even to the extent of caring
for other species. These responsibilities make us special in my view and warrant spe-
cial consideration and compassion. I think it follows that we owe it to our fellow
man to alleviate the pain and misery of disease through biomedical research.
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It will obviously not do to merely assert the importance, worthiness, or cognitive
advantages of humans over nonhumans as a justification of animal-based experimenta-
the justification of causing suffering. In what way does the superiority of A over B
justify A in
doing
anything with regard to B? As antivivisectionists were always
quick to point out, a race of aliens of superior cognitive and technical power is not
justified in experimenting on us. A crude assertion of superiority cannot then suffice.
