Use of Animals in Scientific Research

The current debate about animal rights is based on precedent set by Cartesian and utilitarian philosophers. Rene Descartes, the French philosopher, likened animals to machines because nonhuman creatures lacked the ability to reason and think. Animals, who learned only by experience, were inferior to human beings, who possessed the ability to learn through a variety of means. To Descartes, the inferior status of animals justified their exploitation as experimental research subjects. Descartes' basic arguments have been extrapolated by modern scientific researchers to rationalize their use of laboratory animals. Scientists argue that animal experience is related exclusively to the present. Therefore, animals lack the capacity to anticipate pain or to recall past suffering.

The utilitarian argument in favor of animal rights was led by the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham. Bentham argued that the key issue was whether or not animals could suffer. Assuming that animals could, then nonhuman creatures possessed the same rights as human beings to lives free of suffering, pain, and death at the hands of others.

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ortality is significant. Estimates of the number of animals used annually for biological research alone range from 15 million to 120 million (Gendin, 1989, pp. 197-199). Animals serve a wide variety of purposes in scientific research. Animals are used to test the safety of consumer products, e.g., the toxicity of pesticides or household cleaners. Test animals are injected with the product, force-fed it, have it rubbed on their skins, or have it dropped in their eyes. Animals used in behavioral research are usually subjected to psychological deprivation or distress as opposed to physical pain. For example, a baby chimpanzee might be taken from its mother to provide scientific observation of emotional stress. Some animals are used for instructional purposes, such as frogs in the biology classroom. The pharmaceutical industry uses animals to test new drugs and vaccines with in vivo tests. Physicians employ animals in emergency medicine as temporary transplant donors for human patients. Scientists use animals for long-term medical research in tests for disease cures. In addition, millions of animals are used annually for "pure" biological research: "Frequently, investigators have no particular medical aims in mind but, rat
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