The Ethics of Animal Research: Exploring the Controversy

4 Defending Animal Research: An International Perspective

4 Defending Animal Research: An International Perspective Baruch A. Brody Introduction In a recent article, “The Ethics of Animal Research,” philosopher David DeGrazia (1999) asks the very important question of whether or not there is room for at least some agreement between “biomedicine” and “animal advocates” on the issue of animal research. This is an important question, but one on which we are unlikely to make any progress until the contents of both positions are clearly understood. This chapter is devoted to better articulating the position which supports animal research, the position that DeGrazia labels the “biomedicine” position; I leave the analysis of the animal-advocacy position for other occasions. My reason for adopting the strategy is as follows: There has been in recent years an extensive philosophical discussion of various version of the animal-advocacy position, and the variations on this position have been analyzed by several authors.1 Much less attention has been paid to development of the pro-research position. DeGrazia himself describes the articulation of that position in negative terms: It seems fair to say that biomedicine has a “party line” on the ethics of animal research, conformity to which may feel like a political litmus test for full acceptability within the research community. According to this party line, animal research is clearly justified because it is necessary for medical progress and therefore human health. . . . [M]any or most animal researchers and their supporters do not engage in sustained, critical thinking about the moral status of animals and the basic justification (or lack thereof) for animal research. (1999, 23–23) Whether or not this is fully accurate, this perception of the status of the pro-research position seems to be widespread. It therefore seems important to attempt a better articulation and defense of a reasonable version of the position. 54 Chapter 4 What do I mean by a reasonable pro-research position on animal research , the type of position that I wish to defend? I understand such a position to be committed to at least the following propositions: 1. Animals have interests (at least the interest in not suffering, and perhaps others as well), which may be adversely affected either by research performed on them or by the conditions under which they live before, during, and after the research. 2. The adverse effect on animals’ interests is morally relevant, and must be taken into account when deciding whether or not a particular program of animal research is justified or must be modified or abandoned. 3. The justification for conducting a research program on animals that would adversely affect them is the benefits that human beings would receive from the research in question. 4. In deciding whether or not the research in question is justified, human interests should be given greater significance than animal interests. Some preliminary observations about these propositions are in order. Propositions 1 and 2 commit the reasonable pro-research position to a belief that animal interests are morally relevant, and that the adverse impact of animal research on these interests should not be disregarded. This distinguishes the position I am trying to articulate from positions (such as the classical Cartesian position) that maintain that animals have no interests or that those interests do not count morally.2 In light of their ability to experience pleasures and pains, it is implausible to deny animals interests or to give those interests no moral significance at all. Propositions 3 and 4 distinguish the pro-research position from the animal-advocacy position by insisting that it is permissible for animals to be adversely affected by legitimate research—they do not have a trumping right not to be used adversely for human benefit.3 Toward this end, proposition 4 asserts that human benefits have greater significance than harms to animals in determining the legitimacy of the research, as animals have less moral significance than humans.4 What is the nature of humans’ greater significance? [ . . . ] The reasonable pro-research position is actually a family of positions that differ both theoretically (on their conceptions of the nature of the priority of human interests) and practically (on the resulting types of justified research). What is needed first is a full examination of the family of positions, an examination that explores the plausibility of different views on the priority of human interests. Once we can identify the more plausible of these views, we can begin the attempt to justify one of them. [ . . . ] [18.191.171.20] Project MUSE (2024-04-25 07...