Animal Experimentation

AN ARGUMENT OPPOSING MEDICAL AND OTHER SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTATION INVOLVING THE USE OF NON HUMAN ANIMALS

Proponents of medical and other scientific experimentation involving the use of non human animals contend that prohibitions or restrictions on the use of such animals in medical and other experimentation will impede the development of new medicines, retard the refinement of surgical techniques and the training of surgeons, and increase the costs of medical care for human beings (Hay 8; Hoffheimer and Downey 3437; Wyatt 1415). Proponents of medical and other scientific experimentation further justify the use of animals in such activities on the ground that the use of human beings for such purposes is unthinkable. The former justification for the use of animals in medical and other scientific experiments is based on a utilitarian philosophy that in effect holds that the ends justify the means. The latter justification is a reflection of a specie centric outlook based on JudeoChristian religious beliefs that facilitate the acceptance of the utilitarian justification for the use of animals in medical and other scientific experiments. This paper argues that utilitaritarian philosophy does not justify the use of animals in medical and other scientific experimentation.

Background on Animal Rightsand Animal Welfare

As is true of so many social phenomena in the United States, the animal rights movement appeared to most Americans to develop out of thin air in

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perspective, these uses are either justified or unjustified. Approximately 17 million animals are used each year in the United States in laboratory experiments ("The Toll" 50). Biomedical researchers justify this use by stating that it "is necessary to advance human health care . . . ." (Zak 69). This justification is utilitarian in character, because it holds that the good outweighs the bad. It is an evaluation, however, that presumes that humans have a greater worth than do other animals, although some biomedical researchers emphasize that other animals also benefit from the use of animals in laboratory research (Koshland 1253). The presumption that other animals lack the same worth as humans began with Aristotle, who held that a lack of rationality makes them by nature slaves to humans (Zak 6974). Seven hundred years after Aristotle, St. Augustine, in establishing a Christian justification of human domination in the world, argued that Christ taught that (1) to refrain from killing animals is to give in to superstition, and (2) no commonality of rights exist between humans and other animals (Zak 6974). In the sixteenth century, Rene Descartes added to the philosophical underpinning of the idea that human beings had a g

Category: Science - A