This module by Hallie Liberto and Robert Streiffer provides general training for graduate students using animals for food and fiber, introducing them to philosophical discussions of the moral status of animals from various moral traditions, including Cartesianism, utilitarianism, animal welfare and animal rights.
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The Use of Animals in Scientific Research
To most of us, using animals for scientific research seems like the most justifiable form of animal use. After all, we have synthetic materials that keep us warmer than fur can keep us in cold temperatures. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) says that vegetarianism is a healthy and nutritionally adequate alternative to meat eating. But the use of animals in research has allowed us to produce life saving medicines that, in some cases, we might not have been able to produce in any other way.
In this module we will look at arguments from philosophers who defend and challenge the moral permissibility of animal use in science. This module will help you understand why some people think that animal use in science is wrong and why others think it is right. It should also help you develop your own moral stance on the extent to which animal use in scientific research is permissible.
The Current State of Animal Research
Because reporting requirements are incomplete, estimates for the number of animals used in research vary, but they typically fall between 50 and 100 million animals per year worldwide. The Humane Society reports that 25 million vertebrate animals are used annually in the United States in research, testing, and education. Some reporting requirements, however, exclude birds, mice and rats, which make up between 85 and 90 percent of the total animals used for scientific research. (Estimates of animals (excluding marine animals) used for agricultural purposes are around 10 billion per year in the U.S. and around 50 billion per year worldwide.)
Policies regulating animal use vary between countries. Animal research in the U.S. is regulated by the Animal Welfare Act of 1966 which requires that researchers provide a certain standard of care for their animals, although exceptions are allowed if such care would interfere with "the design, outlines, or guidelines of actual research or experimentation." Each institution is required to have an institutional animal care and use committee (“IACUC”) that oversees research to make sure that it is in compliance with the AWA. This act was amended in 2002 to exclude birds, mice, and rats specifically bred for scientific research from its scope of protection. You can read the 1966 Animal Welfare Act, as well as its 2002 amendment by following the link on the bottom right hand corner of the screen. In order for a researcher in the U.S. to get federal funding, the research institution must meet the standards for the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. These standards are enforced by the Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare (OLAW). Birds, mice, and rats are not excluded from OLAW’s protection; in fact, all research on vertebrate species must meet the standards in the Guide. Moreover, many institutions require compliance with these regulations independently of the source of funding.
Together, the AWA and the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals allow animals to be used in the U.S. in ways that would not be allowed in the European Union (EU). Researchers in the EU must comply with the “Directive 86/609/EEC on the protection of Animals used for Experimental and other Scientific Purposes,” and although interpretation varies, the entire EU has agreed to some particular statutes for the protections of animals. For example, the EU is phasing in a ban on cosmetic products that have been tested on animals starting in 2009, along with a ban on all cosmetic research on animals. The United States, by contrast, has product safety testing requirements that mandate animal testing for certain drugs, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals. This makes it harder for individual companies to avoid using animals for testing purposes.
Descartes, Language & Reason
Rene Descartes was a philosopher who lived from 1596 to 1650. Immanuel Kant was a philosopher who lived from 1724 to 1804. Rene Descartes and Immanuel Kant both thought that we have no direct duties to animals.
Rene Descartes believed that the behavior of animals could be accounted for entirely mechanistically, without any appeal to consciousness. A mechanistic account was simpler, and therefore, preferable. Descartes thought that the behavior of humans was importantly different, though, and that our use of language and ability to reason could not be accounted for mechanistically. Rather, we must appeal to consciousness. Because individuals that are not conscious do not have their own welfare, Descartes and his followers concluded that there is nothing ethically wrong with performing scientific experiments on animals.
Descartes’ conclusion that it is ethically permissible to experiment on animals depends upon his claim that we should only believe that an individual is conscious if he or she exhibits language and reason. However, young human infants are conscious even before they acquire those skills, and their lack of reason and language does not justify concluding that they do not have their own welfare. So Descartes’ argument depends on taking certain properties as necessary for consciousness and welfare that clearly are not. Moreover, scientific research has shown that many animals have feelings, and can experience suffering, distress, pain, and pleasure. Additionally, contemporary research suggests that many animals have beliefs and desires (DeGrazia, ch.6). This further undermines Descartes’ view, for having feelings, beliefs, and desires, requires being conscious.
Scientific research also raises doubts for Descartes’ claim that animals do not have language. Although early research on chimpanzees and gorillas conducted in the 1970s was widely criticized on several grounds, especially grounds of observer bias, later research with better observer controls has shown that some species have sophisticated forms of communication that might well be considered language.
Of course, the mere fact that Descartes’ argument for animal use was mistaken does not by itself show that it is morally wrong to conduct scientific experiments on animals. However, if language is not necessary for consciousness or having a welfare, and if some animals do have language, then Descartes’ argument does not by itself establish that permissibility.
Kant & Indirect Duties
Though Immanuel Kant believed that we have no direct duties to animals, he did think that we have indirect duties to them. By hurting an animal a human might be hurting another person’s property. For instance, if you shoot my cat, then you have destroyed an item of material worth that belonged to me. I’ll, subsequently, have to buy a new cat to do my mousing. Also, by hurting an animal a person might develop a character trait that would make him less sensitive to his duties not to harm other humans. For instance, if Al beats up his dog on a regular basis, he might be less repulsed by the notion of beating up a child than he would otherwise be.
However, it is clear that some scientific experiments cause animals to suffer, and when they do, the suffering of the animal clearly plays a role in explaining why such research must be justified. And if that is, then we do have at least one direct to animals, even if we also have, in addition, indirect duties to them. The following two sections discuss philosophical perspectives that do recognize animals as being objects of direct moral concern, or, as philosophers say, as having moral status.
Singer, Utilitarianism & Speciesism
When people hear the words “Animal Welfare”, they often think of a position less extreme than that voiced by advocates of “Animal Rights”. This association is largely due to the acts and policies observed by the scientific community that are labeled as protections of “Animal Welfare”. The regulators that enforce these protections are not opposed to using animals for science testing. They work within the system to improve the conditions under which animals are used for science testing.
In fact, philosophers who advocate “animal welfare” provide some of the strongest challenges to the use of animals in science. Peter Singer, an Australian philosopher, wrote the book Animal Liberation. Singer is a proponent of “animal welfare” and subscribes to a moral theory called utilitarianism, and on that basis calls for the cessation of scientific research on animals. He does not believe he needs to invoke “rights” for animals in order to make a case for their protection.
Utilitarianism is a moral theory that comes in a number of different forms. Traditionally, it is the moral theory that tells us to always choose the act that will maximize the net balance of pleasure in the world and minimize suffering. This moral theory is well-liked by many people who believe that all human beings are equal, because it weighs everyone’s pleasure and pain equally. For instance, if I can use my five dollar bill to buy a meal for one hungry person in the United States, or I can use it to buy meals for 20 hungry people in Niger, then I should use it on the people in Niger. Since the suffering of each person in Niger is just as weighty as that of each person in the United States, saving a larger total number of people from suffering is the morally correct action.
The form of utilitarianism that Singer invokes is called “interest utilitarianism”. Instead of being concerned with the net total of pain and pleasure in the world, interest utilitarianism is concerned with maximizing the net satisfaction of interests. For instance, a human being has an interest in being healthy, participating in his government, getting an education, and avoiding pain. A chimpanzee may not have an interest in participating in his government or getting an education, but does have an interest in avoiding pain and being healthy. When we decide to damage the health of a chimpanzee in hope of learning something that will improve the health of a human being, we justify it by saying that the value of satisfying the human interest in health is higher than the value of satisfying a chimpanzee’s interest in health. But why? Is it because we are more intelligent, have more abilities, or have more worth to society that our interests are more important?
Singer points out that it is not because all humans have equal abilities, worth to society, or intelligence that we think that human beings are equal. We think that regardless of how able, how much they contribute, or how intelligent humans are we should consider their interests equally.
Therefore, if a person, Jack, is so mentally disabled that he cannot function as well as a chimpanzee can function, is not as smart as an average chimpanzee, and cannot contribute to society, we still think that his pain and suffering are as important to prevent as the pain and suffering of you or me. We care equally about preventing this suffering because, despite his deficiencies in ability and intelligence, Jack has just as much interest in not suffering as we have. He may not have an interest in voting, or in assembling, or in learning how to read and write. The fact that we give Jack equal consideration does not mean that we must treat him the same as we treat healthy humans. However, Singer asserts that “[T]he interests of every being affected by an action are to be taken into account and given the same weight as the like interests of any other being". Here is the resulting argument:
According to Singer, if we do not value the interests of Jack and the chimp to the same extent then we are guilty of speciesism. Speciesism is a concept that functions much like sexism and racism function. I am a sexist if I weigh the interests of those who belong to my sex more highly than I weigh the interests of those who don’t belong to my sex. I am a racist if I weigh the interests of people who belong to my race more highly than I weigh the interests of people who don’t belong to my race. Similarly, I am a speciesist if I weigh the interests of those who belong to my species more highly than those who don’t belong to my species.
Singer then utilizes interest utilitarianism to argue against almost all animal research: once we give equal consideration to the interests of animals, animal research will not maximize the net satisfaction of interests because of the tremendous amount of animal suffering involved, the triviality of some kinds of research (for cosmetics, for example), the redundancy of much research, and the difficulties in extrapolating useful results about humans.
The parallels between speciesism and sexism or racism are not perfect, because most human beings have the same interests. For instance, except for in few cases, (like the interest in good medical care during pregnancy) sex and race do not change people’s interests. However, species membership is correlated with differences in interests. (Singer, 2) No animals have an interest in learning to read and write; no animals have an interest in voting. We do not need to treat animals in such a way as would protect these sorts of interests. However, animals do have as much of an interest in not suffering as we do.
Someone who is not a speciesist would have to be committed to weighing the suffering of animals as highly as she weighs the equal suffering of humans. If the non-speciesist had to choose between delivering a painful electric shock to a human child and delivering an equally painful electric shock to two different dogs, she would be morally required to shock the human child.
Does Singer’s theory also imply that the lives of animals are of equal moral importance to the lives of humans? If so, then Singer’s theory would imply that in situations where we have to choose between saving the lives of two animals and saving the life of one human being, we are morally required to save the lives of the animals, which many would find implausible. But Singer’s interest utilitarianism actually provides grounds for distinguishing between the value of the lives of most animals and the value of the life of most human beings. He thinks that, unlike most humans, most animals cannot conceive of their own future, and so have less, if any, of an interest in not dying than a normal human being does.
However, notice that if the human being was so mentally disabled that he could not conceive of his own future, then the anti-speciesist would be required to save the lives of two animals over the life of that human being, and many people would also find this conclusion implausible. Even so, the challenge posed by Singer’s argument to the use of animals in science remains: if one wants to hold that humans merit better treatment than animals, one is rationally required to point to some morally relevant attribute that is shared by all humans, no matter how badly off, but which all animals, no matter how sophisticated, lack. This will be very difficult to do.
Regan & Animal Rights
According to Regan, Singer’s utilitarian grounding for animal welfare is not very strong. Regan thinks that Singer does not do enough work to show us that animal use does result in less overall utility than its alternatives, and if, at some point, the positive consequences of using animals for these purposes did outweigh the negative consequences of using them, then utilitarianism would require that we use them. Regan also points to the sorts of jobs that would be lost if animals stopped being used for research. He does not say that Singer is wrong about which alternative has the best overall utility. He just says that Singer needs to weigh these consequences more carefully before making an assertion (309-311).
More fundamentally, Regan points out that utilitarianism implies that if there came a point where the positive consequences of killing mentally disabled humans for research outweighed the negative consequences, then utilitarianism would demand that we killed these humans for research (320). Regan thinks that this highlights the fatal flaw of utilitarian theories: they do not have room for the existence of the moral rights that make it wrong to kill human beings for research, no matter how good consequences might be. Even mentally disabled humans have rights, he says:
… we owe it to them not to treat them in certain ways, not out of niceness, or sentimental interest, or because they provide a sort of “warm-up” for the really serious moral game played between rational free beings, or because treating them thus is optimific-rather, we owe it to them not to treat them in certain ways because they themselves have a moral right not to be treated in these ways. It is only, I think, if rights are postulated even in the case of morons that we can give a sufficiently firm theoretical basis for our conviction that it is wrong to treat them in the ways in question. (322)
Regan explains that there must be grounding for rights. If you have a right and a severely mentally handicapped human has the same right, then there must be some characteristic that you both share that grounds that right. Regan says that this characteristic is that you are both “subjects-of-a-life,” which he explains as follows:
Individuals are subjects-of-a-life if they have beliefs and desires, perception, memory, and a sense of the future, including their own future; an emotional life together with feelings of pleasure and pain; preference and welfare-interests; the ability to initiate action in pursuit of their desires and goals; a psychophysical identity over time; and an individual welfare in the sense that their experiential life fares well or ill for them, logically independently of their being the object of anyone else’s interests.
In order to ensure that even human beings with limited cognitive capacities have rights, Regan argues that we have to understand being a subject-of-a-life relatively minimally. But given that understanding, many animals (“all mentally normal mammals of a year or more”) that have cognitive capacities superior to those human beings will easily meet that criterion. Hence, many animals have rights that make it wrong to kill or harm them on utilitarian grounds.
Philosopher Mary Anne Warren notes one problem with Regan’s view: self-awareness and the ability to anticipate the future are components of being a subject-of-a-life, but these things come in degrees. A rat has less self-awareness and ability to anticipate the future than a chimp. Both a rat and a chimp have greater self-awareness and ability to anticipate the future than a spider. If these component parts of “subjecthood” can come in degrees, then being a subject of life can come in degrees. If being a “subject of life” is what grounds a being’s rights, the those rights should come in degrees (519). Since a normal human exemplifies the characteristics that are components of being a subject-of-a-life to a much greater degree than any animal, normal humans will have much more stringent rights than any animals.
However, notice that Warren’s view appears to imply that Jack, the human being so mentally disabled that he has the cognitive capacities of a chimpanzee, will also have much weaker rights than a normal human. This, too, many people will find implausible, including Regan.
Can Use of Animals in Scientific Research Be Justified?
Both Singer and Regan think that using animals in science research is wrong. Singer thinks that animal use in science research is wrong because there is never more pain saved by such research than there is pain suffered by the animals used in the experiments. Regan thinks that animal use in science research is wrong because it is always wrong to kill or inflict pain upon individuals who have rights if such actions are not in the interests of those individuals. However, if we consider the objections that Regan makes to Singer’s theory, and the modification that Warren makes to Regan’s theory, then we can derive applications of utilitarianism and animal rights to the use of animals in science that still allow room for some animal research.
According to utilitarianism, more pain must be saved by science research than is inflicted on animals during the research process. How might we gauge such consequences? One way that doctors and social workers compare consequences like these is to compare Qualitatively Adjusted Life Years. For instance, if a doctor is deciding whether to perform an operation on a patient or not, she might use the following method:
Without the surgery, the patient can be expected to live four years of 90 percent quality of life. With the surgery, the patient can be expected to live eight years with 50 percent quality of life. With the surgery, 50 percent of 8 years equals 4 quality adjusted life years. Without the surgery, 90 percent of 4 years equals 3.6 quality adjusted life years. The doctor would then opt for the surgery. (Philips and Thompson)
In weighing the consequences of animal use in research, scientists could make use of a similar method. If causing 100 animals a certain degree of suffering that lasted a day would enable a scientist to discover a medicine that would take away 50 years of the same degree of suffering for 2 humans, and if there is no alternative way to discovery that medicine, then this research would be morally justifiable by utilitarianism.
According to a rights-based view, it is wrong to kill or inflict pain upon individuals who have moral rights not to be killed or hurt if such actions are not in the interests of those individuals. It may be that some individuals have weaker rights to not be killed or harmed than other individuals. It could be that some creatures’ right to life is weak enough that it is outweighed by considerations of human needs. We do allow, in the case of humans, that weak rights can be overridden by considerations of human needs. For example, my right not to have you trespass on my property would be overridden in a case where you had to trespass in order to get out of the way of an oncoming train. Similarly, if I am considering distributing a medicine to help 100,000 humans, but this medicine might not be safe, then the risk involved in distributing such medicine to humans might outweigh the wrongness of violating a weaker right to life in some animals.
On the other hand, there is some research that even defenders of animal research should agree is impermissible. This is research that causes suffering to animals that is not necessary for producing any human benefit. Three uncontroversial examples are:
The moral permissibility of using animals in scientific research is especially unclear in cases in which the research is done for the sake of the species of animals that is being tested. Here is an example of such research:
Rhesus monkeys are given the choice to pull a chain that will give them food and which will also deliver a shock to a companion, or to go without food. If the monkeys refrain from pulling the chain and are willing to starve themselves, then would provide strong evidence that they have some altruistic tendencies. As it turns out, the Rhesus monkeys are willing to starve themselves for days rather than administer an electric shock to their companions.
This research could be influential in changing the public’s attitudes towards Rhesus monkeys. People who were willing to exclude them from their moral community before hearing of the experiment might be less willing to do so after learning that these monkeys are capable of altruism. Yet, if these monkeys are in our moral community and are suffering as much as a child would in a similar situation, then it seems like the study itself might inflict distress and suffering that is morally impermissible. Do the benefits of changing people’s minds about how we should treat Rhesus monkeys outweigh the cost of putting some Rhesus monkeys through trauma? What would Singer say? What would Regan say? What would you say?
Quiz
Question 1: Under what circumstances does Utilitarianism require the cessation of the use of animals in science?
A. in all circumstances
B: in no circumstances
C. in circumstances in which the overall suffering of humans and animals is greater given the use of animals than it would be without the use of animals
Question 2: What role does the comparison of animals to humans with severe mental disabilities play in Regan’s argument?
A. Some humans with severe mental disabilities and some animals share the same mental capabilities, types of experiences, and contributions to society. Therefore those humans should be treated as we currently treat animals.
B. Species membership is not itself the basis of moral rights, and there must be some other characteristic that determines rights. Humans with severe mental disabilities and some non-human animals share the same mental capabilities, types of experiences, and contributions to society. Therefore, if those humans have rights, then some animals have rights too.
C. Species membership determines rights. Because humans with severe mental disabilities are human beings, they have rights. Even if some non-human animals have the same mental capabilities, types of experiences, and contributions to society as those humans, they still do not have rights.
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Credits & Bibliography
Written by Hallie Liberto with the help of Rob Streiffer [contact liberto@wisc.edu] Site Design by Sam Liberto [contact www.samliberto.com]
DeGrazia, David. Taking Animals Seriously: Mental Life and Moral Status. Cambridge University Press. New York: 1996. Masserman et al. "Altruistic Behavior in Rhesus Monkeys.” Am J Psychiatry.1964; 121: 584-585
Philips, Ceri and Guy Thompson. “What is a QALY?” http://www.jr2.ox.ac.uk/bandolier/painres/download/whatis/QALY.pdf Vol. 1, number 6. Aventis Pharma: 2001.
Regan, Tom. “Utilitarianism, Vegetarianism, and Animal Rights.” Philosophy and Public Affairs, Volume 9, Issue 4 (Summer, 1980), 305-324).
Rollin, Bernard E. “Ethics, Animal Welfare, and ACUCs” in Applied Ethics in Animal Research ed. by John P. Gluck, Tony DiPasquale, F. Barbara Orlans. Purdue University Press. West Lafayette, Indiana: 2002.
Singer, Peter. Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals. New York: New York Review: 1975
Varner, Gary E. “A Lecture on Animal Rights v. Animal Welfare.” http://www-phil.tamu.edu/~gary/awvar/lecture/index.html c. 1998-1999.
Varner, Gary E. “The Prospects for Consensus and Convergence in the Animal Rights Debate”. The Hastings Center Report; Jan 1994; 24, 1; Research Library Core pg. 24.
Warren, Mary Anne. “Difficulties with the Strong Animal Rights Position.”
"2004-2008 Strategic Plan: Challenges and Critical Choices", National Center for Research Resources, National Institutes of Health.