The Emergence of Species Impartiality: A Medical Critique of Biocentrism

THE EMERGENCE OF SPECIES IMPARTIALITY: A MEDICAL CRITIQUE OF BIOCENTRISM STEPHEN G. POST* That human beings ought not to inflict pain on sentient animals goes without saying. This proscription underlies the seminal policy statements of the National Institutes of Health regarding humane care and use of laboratory animals [I]. However, humane treatment of animals does not require species impartiality, the view that all sentient animal species, including human beings, are of equal moral standing. Otherwise , one would have to agree with Paul Taylor that human beings have no greater worth than other species, since any claim to greater worth based on human capacities is judged from the human viewpoint, whereas from the perspective of a tree, greater longevity is the valuemaking capacity, and from the viewpoint of a cheetah, speed. Thus does Taylor arrive at the "principle of species impartiality" [2]. Most prominent philosophers of animal rights or liberation in fact do not defend species impartiality; they contend only that animal pain of a certain intensity and duration is as important as human pain of the same intensity and duration, and should be avoided with "equal consideration ." Yet species impartiality is an emerging and no longer peripheral philosophy , according to which human lives count for no more morally than do nonhuman. Thus Alan Wolfe laments "an emerging antihumanist cosmology that is profoundly different in its ethical implications from popular environmental views" [3]. He is careful not to attribute this cosmology to the animal rights or liberation theorists generally. Willard Gaylin does include such theorists in his wider critique, arguing that "the reputation of our species is also under attack, in a way that is half direct and half indirect, through what has come to be known as the The author is grateful to Robert G. Leisey, University of Detroit-Mercy, for his substantive editorial comments. *Center for Biomedical Ethics, Case Western Reserve University, 10900 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44106-4976.© 1993 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 003 1 -5982/93/3602-0809$0 1 .00 Perspectives in Biology andMedicine, 36, 2 ¦ Winter 1993 | 289 animal rights movement." Animal rights or liberation theorists intend "to protect the beast," which Gaylin views favorably, but "in so doing they seriously undermine the special nature of being human" [4]. In fact, Gaylin may overstate the point, since animal rights and liberation theorists, while opposed to cruelty and pain, generally acknowledge that the capacities of normal human beings do count for greater value. Nevertheless Gaylin's point, as Wolfe's, merits serious attention. The basic choice is between (1) a reasonable anthropocentrism, i.e., partiality to human beings that avoids unnecessary or cruel use of animals , and (2) a biocentrism in which all partiality for humans is castigated . A reasonable anthropocentrism maintains that animals, insofar as they are sentient beings capable of experiencing pain, should receive moral consideration. Any moral philosophy that denies this is inconsistent and can be used to justify cruelty. Torture of animals, in experimentation or any setting, is morally wrong; humane use of animals must be for clearly beneficial human purposes. It is not obvious that, as one author suggests, "The current animal-rights movement threatens the future of health science far more than many physicians recognize" [5]. The avoidance of pain and the unnecessary sacrifice of animals in research does not entail the cessation of animal use. Moreover, theorists of animal rights would generally disagree with an extreme and oft-cited statement from a leader of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA): "There is no rational basis for separating out the human animal . A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. They're all mammals" [5]. The not-very-critical activist factions can be distinguished from the philosophers making the strongest contributions to our understanding of these matters. Peter Singer, for example, while convinced that pain suffered by sentient animals is as morally significant as that experienced by Homo sapiens, quickly adds, "This does not mean that a human being and a mouse must always be treated equally, or that their lives are of equal value" [6]. It is biocentrism, rather than reasonable anthropocentrism, that is of concern in this article. Deep...