Animal Testing and Research

This is also not a new issue. In 1955 the Humane Society of the United States passed a resolution noting that at least 50,000,000 animals were used each year in American laboratories, many in ways causing great and prolonged pain and suffering, many inhumanely housed and cared for. The resolution stated that it was the moral duty of every human society to inform itself about these matters and to take all possible action to prevent cruelty to these animals. Because of this, the Humane Society undertook a systematic study of the use and care of animals in laboratories (Humane Society of the United States 1).

After the study by the Human Society, the group concluded that animal research was a problem and that efforts should be taken to stop it. T

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argument often centers on what attributes separate human beings from animals. Among the uniquely human attributes usually evoked in such discussions are reasoning ability, complex language, and self-consciousness (or our awareness of our own existence). Sentience is also discussed but is, of course, not a uniquely human attribute, since the ability to feel pain is possessed by animals as well. Schopenhauer considered the matter and compared human beings to animals. He noted that abstract concepts are possessed only by human beings, while intuitive presentations are common to both human beings and higher animals: There is a phenomenal world not only for man but also for animals. For the conditions of its possibility are present also in the latter, these conditions being the a priori forms of sensibility, namely space and time, and the category of the understanding, namely causality. (Copleston 267) For Schopenhauer, understanding is found in animals as well as in human beings. Animals do not possess reason, or the faculty of abstract concepts: A dog perceives things in space and time, and it can perceive concrete causal relations. But it does not follow that a dog can reflect abstractly about space, time or causality. To
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Approximate Word count = 1398
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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