It is that time of the year when animal rights activists, will show up at our workplaces dressed in their favorite animal costumes to spread more nonsense and misinformation about the nature of biomedical research.
One of their favorite claims is that the scientific community treats animals like any other piece of disposable, laboratory equipment — such as a Petri dish or a test tube.
Has anyone wondered where do they come up with such an idea?
The notion comes straight from the animal rights books that provide the theoretical foundation for animal rights theory while rejecting more nuanced positions.
A living being is said to have moral status if we are morally obliged to give weight to its interest independent of their utility to us. But what exactly is the moral status of non-human animals? Among the various positions one can take the two extremes are the easiest to describe.
At one end of the spectrum, we find the argument that animals do not truly experience pain, do not have emotions, they do not have interests of their own, and thus they lack moral status. According to this view humans can do with animals as we please. Given what is known presently about animal cognition and behavior, it would be difficult to find anyone who would seriously defend the Cartesian position.
At the other end of the spectrum, we find those who hold that the moral status of some animals must equal to that of humans. These theories posit that if a living being has some basic properties (such as a minimum level of sentience according Gary Francione, or being the “subject-of-life criterion” according to Tom Regan) they attain the same moral status as that of a normal human: our moral consideration for a mouse, or a dog, or a child, ought to be exactly the same.
And let me assure you — when they say exactly the same, they mean it.
It is evident that most members of the public, including scientists that work with animals in medical research, prefer to position themselves somewhere between the two extremes. These more nuanced positions can be considered to represent different versions of “animal welfarism” which are based on the notion of graded moral status. In these theories animals would certainly have higher moral status than inanimate laboratory equipment, but not that of humans. Animal anti-cruelty laws, the Animal Welfare Act, and the NIH guidelines as examples of how rules and regulations were established to acknowledge the moral standing of animals (establishing the “forbidden zone” in the spectrum of positions above).
Prominent animal rights philosophers, however, are not happy with shades of gray in moral decision making and attempt to rob others of adopting nuanced positions.
For example, Elizabeth Harman writes:
We have no reason to posit such degrees of moral status, so we can conclude that moral status is not a matter of degree but is rather on/off: a being has moral status or lacks it.
The idea is to reject the concept of graded moral status.
Gary Francione, agrees:
We have two choices – and only two – when it comes to the moral status of animals.
Tom Regan also concurs writing terms of the “inherent value” of animals:
Two options present themselves concerning the possession by moral agents of inherent value. First, moral agents might be viewed as having this value to varying degrees, so that some may have more of it than others. Second, moral agents might be viewed as having this value equally. The latter view is rationally preferable. […] We must reject the view that moral agents have inherent value in varying degrees. All moral agents are equal in inherent value, if moral agents have inherent value.
These philosophers want to force everyone to choose among the two extreme positions — either we accept the animal rights view or we must be cartesians that assign no moral status to the animals.
Thus the activists claim “If you disagree with us then you must be treating the animals as you treat a Petri dish”.
Nonsense. It is the extreme views that must be rejected instead.
And the above also explains the need for the costumes, the scary masks, the blood-stained coats, the screams and insults, the misinformation and the lies. For these animal rights activists have neither solid philosophical nor scientific arguments to enter into a serious and civil debate on the role of animals in research and how the work has benefited mankind generation after generation.
It’s cruel. It’s insane. And its folly that retards medical progress. Vivisection is not about animal rights, it’s about the lack of logic and the defiance of scientific truth in the provivisectionist arguments
It is not about animal rights? Do you mean you are an animal welfarist?
You’re wrong. All of you. The purpose of your research is to benefit humans and no one else. Why? Why are you inventing vaccines for humans? The World is scarce in resources and space as it is, and you all are creating medicine so there can be even MORE humans?
Don’t you idiots see the self-destructiveness of your actions? By saving lives, you’re killing everyone else. Most people who have aids – it was their own fault. As for Cancer tobacco use, lack of physical activity, poor diet and obesity, and environmental pollutants – once again; entirely your own fault. Animals shouldn’t have to be slaughtered year after year because you refused to wear a condom, or decided to be a fat lazy slob, or the government allowing companies to pollute already scarce clean water.
“Animal Testing Saves Lives!” you claim, but it also takes them. Animal and Human lives alike. You must not be too proud of what you do as none of you have the gall the place “Animal Tested for your safety!” on any finished product hmm? Wanna know why you dont do that? Because no one would buy your crap if you did. In my 7 years on the net, ive done many polls and most people would prefer to buy something knowing a helples creature wasn’t tortured in some lab by a bunch of Selfish Monkeys in white coats.
Us Animal Rights/Wellfare activist are not insane and irrational. We are experiancing an emotion called compassion, which you all obviously seem to lack for anything other than the human race. What race is more destructive and evil than the human race? No one, and who cares if not everyone is like that? Exceptions dont make the rule. I am confident in saying most if not all scientific brake-throughs have been stained with the blood of innocents.
Animals can feel emotions, basic as they are, with no instinct attached just as they can learn things they would’ve never learned in nature. Fear, Love, Content, Excitement, Curiousity, Concern, Anger, Sadness, Desire, Annoyance. They have personalities, differing temperments — they aren’t just meat puppets for you to pump full of chemicals.
The bottom line is that the human race is a race of selfish and pompous creatures. It is an inarguable fact that had we not become sentient the world would be a much better place that it is now. That is indisputable.
Animal Testing and Serial Killing could be compared – Its good in the beginning but will fuck up oneway or another at or before the end. Either in the deaths of millions of people via a “safe” released drug or the excess humans breakthroughs are going to allow to exists which will create scrabbles for already scarce resource. Scrapes and Scrabbles will result in war eventually, and seeing as the deaths of millions isn’t enough to convince you’ll wrong i suppose i can sit and wait til you make another blood stained “Breakthrough”.
For the human population to skyrocket and the resourced needed to support everyone to plummet. Maybe after whatever blood and violent attempt to cull the herd transpires you’ll truly see we were right all along.
At the end of the day, you’re killers. Killers to creatures who dont judge, love unconditionally, and cannot be pegged as evil. To creatures many regaurd as family members.
It is untrue that the work has not benefited animals too. Some of the first vaccines were for animals — e.g. anthrax.
Overall, it sounds to me you hate humans more than you love animals.
The debate is tricky and I don’t profess to know the answers. But in all my years studying the debate on animal experimentation, one constant finding keeps coming up. I have never met anyone or read anything from someone involved on the animal rights sides who supports animal testing while I’ve come across many scientists and biomedical researchers who criticize animal testing on both moral and scientific grounds. To me, that pretty much tells me all I need to know.
You are correct. The wide range of ethical position across scientists is not fully appreciated. Indeed, there is not a clear consensus across all scientists on exactly what experiments would be morally permissible and which would not. This reflects in part the inherent uncertainty about the outcome of scientific research, in part our evolving knowledge of animal cognition, and in part the fact that we are dealing with difficult ethical dilemmas. In contrast, animal rights activists tend to see matters as either black or white, making reasoned debate impossible.