Why Animal Experimentation Matters

This review takes its name from the title of a collection of essays published in 2001: Why Animal Experimentation Matters: The Use of Animals in Medical Research (Ellen Frankel Paul and Jeffrey Paul, editors; published by the Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation and by Transaction Publishers. Paperback edition.)

Why Animal Experimentation Matters: The Use of Animals in Medical Research includes three essays from scientists who experiment on animals and six essays, including the introduction, from philosophers who defend animal experimentation and other uses of animals as well. The essays present various justifications for using animals in medical research, product testing, and even recreational killing (i.e. bullfights, etc.). Discussions includes the moral value assigned to pain and suffering in humans and nonhuman animals, the moral value assigned to human and nonhuman lives, and the moral value assigned to human and nonhuman actions.

All of the essayists begin with the assumption that the current use of animals by humans is as it should be, or is overly regulated and constrained. In various ways, they all try to justify human domination over all other species. They do not agree as to why humans have a right to exploit animals, but they do agree that this is a right that humans possess.

Philosophical positions can be evaluated only by their results. In other words, if one develops a seemingly rational and self-consistent philosophy that results in a justification of widespread, institutionalized, industrialized, routine evil, then the premises on which the philosophy is based, or the arguments stemming from the premises, must be flawed.

As in mathematics, claimed solutions to philosophical problems must be checked. Consider the elementary logic problem of the traveler with a hen, a fox, and a bag of corn who tries to cross a river in a boat large enough to carry only herself and one of her possessions. A problem arises if she carries the corn across first. While she is gone, the fox will eat the chicken. If she carries the fox across first, then the chicken will eat the corn while she is in the boat with the fox. A similar problem occurs as hen, fox, and corn arrive and are left alone on the other side of the river.

The goal is to get the traveler, the corn, the hen, and the fox across the river safely. Solutions that fail to meet this requirement are incorrect. No degree of narrative, explanation, or justification will suffice to overcome this requirement. Discussions about the relative worth of the corn, the hen, and the fox may be able to contrive speculative value-laden hierarchies and explain why it would be justifiable to sacrifice the fox, the hen, or the corn, but they would be incorrect solutions to the problem.

The use of animals in medical research is generally accepted to be a problem. Proffered solutions have been varied. The federal government’s solution to the problem has been regulation. Solutions offered by the essays in Why Animal Experimentation Matters: The Use of Animals in Medical Research generally rest on speculative value-laden hierarchies or a denial that a problem exists. Like the fox, hen, and corn problem, it should be possible to check a proposed solution to the problem if we knew what condition a solution should produce. In the case of the fox, hen, and corn, a correct solution will get the traveler and her possessions safely across the river.

The solution to the problem of harming animals in medical research would include not harming them, no animals kept in labs, and continued progress in health care.

The current situation demonstrates that a solution to the problem has yet to be put into practice. The current solution, that offered by the regulatory effort of the federal government, has resulted in an industry that is responsible for widespread, institutionalized, industrialized, routine evil.

How widespread is the problem?

Federal regulations require that many products be tested on animals prior to being tested on humans or marketed for human use. All new drugs, all new food additives, and many household and commercial chemicals are applied to, force fed, or injected into animals. A single commercial testing laboratory can use five hundred animals a day.

Every major university in the country and many smaller universities and colleges receive funding from the federal government to engage in animal experimentation. For many schools, this funding has become a major source of income and an economic resource they defend vigorously.

Schools, from elementary to high school, dissect animals and use them in science classes in various ways including demonstration and experimentation.

It is unlikely that anyone living in the United States is more than a short distance from a facility that is related in some way to the consumption of animals for experimental purposes.

In what sense is the problem institutionalized?

The vivisection industry is promoted through direct federal support as mentioned above, but the industry has also become an institution within the government itself. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is comprised of many scientific bodies such as the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). All of the bodies fund vivisection directly through grants to researchers, private companies, and public institutions. The National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), yet another of the 27 Institutes and Centers called, collectively, the NIH, is dedicated to providing resources to the vivisection industry. NCRR funds the breeding of mice, rats, primates, invertebrates, and supports the infrastructure needed to accomplish this task.

Recently, NIH announced a name change for its eight flagship Regional Primate Research Centers. They are now billed as National Primate Research Centers.

Though the Department of Health and Human Service’s NIH is the best-known example of federal institutionalization and bureaucratization of the vivisection industry, it is not unique. The Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Department of Defense (DOD), and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (VA) all maintain large industrialized facilities dedicated to breeding and experimenting on animals. Most cabinet level agencies are involved in vivisection to some degree.

How industrialized is vivisection?

The precise number of animals consumed in scientific use in the U.S. is unknown. No reliable data exists on which to base an estimate, but bits and pieces can be analyzed. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) requires animal laboratories to report the number of certain animals they use each year. These reports include the number of dogs, cats, primates, hamsters, guinea pigs, rabbits, “farm” animals, and “other” animals. “Other” animals include all other mammals except purpose bred mice and rats.

The USDA does not count purpose-bred mice or rats. Neither does it count birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians, or invertebrates. According to a survey conducted by the National Association for Biomedical Research, 17 million mice were used in 1998. The number was expected to increase by 50% within five years. The 17 million mice used in 1998 represent a small percentage of the mice killed to support the demand for them. The escalating demand is due to the industry’s ability to produce mutants with known genetic profiles.

The Mouse Genetics Core (MGC) provides “a cost-effective method for generating and maintaining transgenic and chimeric mice for the Research Community at Washington University.” MGC explains what it takes to produce mutant mice:

In the case of transgenic mice, for each two to eight animals sent on to a scientist to experiment on, twenty to fifty mice must be produced and screened. Those not meeting the genetic criteria are killed. For chimeric mice, for each two to six that are sent on to a scientist to experiment on, twenty to forty will be born and tested.

Thus, in the best-case scenario, eight out of twenty animals born go on to be used. This means that the 1.7 million mutant mice produced and sold by NIH-commissioned Jackson Laboratory in 1997 actually represent between 4.25 million and 85 million animals. Production of such a large number of animals requires much mechanization. Laboratory supply catalogs and journals increasing tout entirely automated robotic systems.

The total number of rats used annually is estimated by the industry to about a third to a quarter of the number of mice actually used. No estimate for the number of other unregulated animals is available, but it must be immense. Production of many of these animals, especially the smaller species such fruit flies and worms, is highly mechanized. Animal production facilities have become animal factories.

Though far fewer primates are used than mice, the large primate production and vivisection facilities are now inspected and judged according to industry standards. The injections and blood draws of thousands of animals daily has necessitated a factory-like ability to manipulate animals on an assembly-line basis.

In what ways has evil become routine?

Here, evil is defined as the causing of injury, pain, or misery. The infliction of injury is essentially synonymous with vivisection. Essentially all laboratory research using animals inflicts injury. These injuries come in many varieties. Many animal models of human disease are based on the chemical or surgical creation of infirmities. Other models are based on the infection of animals with diseases claimed to resemble human diseases. Other models are based on illnesses caused by inadequate nutrition. Other models are based on the psychological wounding of animals through unnatural rearing conditions. Animal models are created by addicting animals to narcotics or through chronic infusions of drugs, hormones, or other chemicals. Some animals are used to judge the toxicity of a chemical by determining the amount needed to kill the animal. Here are few, if any, animal models that do not entail the infliction of injury in some form.

Pain is acknowledged by the industry to be difficult to gauge in an animal. As a result, the degree of pain experienced by animals as a result of the U.S. vivisection industry’s activities is under-reported. Under-reporting of pain is beneficial to the institution and to the scientists, as doing so reduces their paper work burden. Scientists using covered species are required to explain ahead of time how they propose to mitigate the pain they plan to, or inadvertently will, cause. Researchers in non-registered laboratories, using non-covered species, are not required to do this. Research on pain begins with the object of causing pain in the animals being studied.

Misery in animal laboratories is ubiquitous. Stereotypical behavior in animals held in labs is a common topic during laboratory animal conferences. Such lab-induced behaviors include over-grooming, odd postures, odd movements, and self-mutilation. Over-grooming can result in nearly complete hair or feather loss. Odd postures can include chronic shaking, chronic submissive or aggressive postures, or standing in a particular spot for hours on end. Odd movements can include endless pacing, spinning, looping, side-to-side swaying, head shaking, and combinations of such behaviors. Self-mutilation is more common in primates than other species. The industry estimates that 10% of the monkeys in U.S. labs mutilate themselves to such a degree that veterinary intervention is required. Such mutilations include gnawing fingertips, arms, and tail to such a degree that chronic wounds result. Chronic diarrhea of no known cause is chronic in U.S. monkey labs.

The industry acknowledges the evil inherent in animal experimentation. It is common to hear this acknowledgement in the statement that animal research is a “necessary evil.”

This evil is routine in animal labs. It is the nature of such labs that evil will be common.

The authors of the essays included in Why Animal Experimentation Matters: The Use of Animals in Medical Research present moral theories that support and promote this evil. This simple fact exposes the authors’ philosophies as failed solutions to the problem of evil inherent in these labs. In the remainder of this essay I will examine the claims made by these authors and point out where their moral theories may have gone wrong. I repeat my claim: If one can develop a seemingly rational and self-consistent philosophy that results in a justification of widespread, institutionalized, industrialized, routine evil, then the premises on which the philosophy is based, or the arguments stemming from the premises, must be flawed. Let us look for those flaws.

“Experimental Animals in Medical History” by Kenneth F. Kiple and Kriemhild Coneé Ornelas (pg 23-48).

Kiple and Ornelas base their support of animal research on two claims – the first one is questionable and the second, speculative. Their first claim is that most, if not all, medical progress is a direct result of animal experimentation. This is an old claim, made by many defenders of the status quo. The authors cite a litany of conditions, diseases and knowledge that they imply would have been impossible to prevent, cure, or gain, without the use of animals. Their propensity to link all advancements in human knowledge of biology with the use of animals is explicit early in their essay when they claim that prehistoric humans must have learned about basic anatomy while butchering animals.

Undoubtedly, humans learned about the appearance, shape, and location of human organs from seeing them in humans who had been injured, wounded, or killed. The authors extend their logic to encompass the claim that every scientist who happened to use animals had to have used animals in order to have made their discoveries. They studiously avoid discussion of the pervasive evidence that animal models have been at least as misleading and deadly as they have been productive.

The second claim on which the authors base their defense of animal experimentation is that future medical progress will require the use of animals. They state that animals will be “absolutely indispensable” for conquering new viruses as they emerge. They claim that “even hindering” the use of animals in biomedical or biotechnological research is “suicidal.” At best, these claim are speculative. At worse, they dismiss the leading-edge technologies that are proving to be much faster and reliable tools for the development of drugs and therapies.

[For an in-depth examination of both of the claims made by Kiple and Ornelas, see Jean Swingle Greek and C. Ray Greek, Specious Science: How Genetics and Evolution Reveal Why Medical Research on Animals Harms Humans. Continuum Publishing, May 2002. Throughout the essays in Why Animal Experimentation Matters: The Use of Animals in Medical Research, the authors claim that animal experimentation saves human lives. This claim is made repetitively. See Greek and Greek for a refutation of this myth.]

Kiple and Ornelas fail to present much of a moral theory. Their theory is simple self-interest. The interests of the animals being consumed by the widespread, institutionalized, industrialized, routine evil are not addressed.

“Making Choices in the Laboratory” by Adrian R. Morrison (pg 49-77).

Adrian Morrison’s moral theory is one of default. He believes that those who experiment on animals do so with God’s blessing. Not surprisingly, he feels that those who oppose animal experimentation are evil. This is rationally unassailable. Once one is convinced that one stands on the side of God, those who criticize you must be on the side of evil.

Such faith leaves little room for rational thought. Morrison’s irrationality allows him to claim that he is protecting the weak and the helpless from those who consider themselves competent to decide the fate of others. He believes that he knows better than the evil animal rights activists, presumably because he and the vivisection industry are on the side of God.

Morrison’s essay is generally unremarkable except for the fact that he himself is a vivisector. He spent years experimenting on the brains of cats, and says that now he is relieved to be able to experiment on rats instead. There is one part of his essay that stands out, and that is his justification, or lack thereof, for the line of research he chose to make his life’s work.

Morrison says that he can imagine nothing worse than to suffer traumatic brain or spinal chord injury. He uses such injury as the ultimate example of a need for animal research three times in his essay. But Morrison’s research area is sleep and wakefulness. Further, he says that he chose not to perform certain experiments on his cats because they would have been very painful, but that in hindsight, he now thinks that those experiments would have been ethically acceptable after all even though newer methods have made the methods he would have used obsolete.

Morrison’s reliance on a faith that God condones animal experimentation has resulted in confused and meaningless claims. His moral theory produces more questions than answers, and he fails to plumb the depths of his God-created pain- and misery-filled world. Most importantly, he does not address the motivations of a deity who would countenance His creation being consumed by the widespread, institutionalized, industrialized, routine evil called vivisection.

“Basic Research, Applied Research, Animal Ethics, and an Animal Model of Human Amnesia” by Stuart Zola (aka Stuart Zola-Morgan) (pg 79-92).

Stuart Zola presents no moral theory for why animal experimentation should be condoned. One section of his essay, titled: “The Moral Issue Regarding Animals” turns out to be only a weak justification of his own basic research on monkeys’ brains.

Zola’s justification for his experiments comes down to the claim that knowledge alone is an adequate reason to harm animals. His experiments fall within the general category of “basic research.” That is, he is not trying to cure a disease, he is not trying to develop a new treatment, and he is not trying to alleviate suffering. He is simply trying to determine how to induce amnesia in monkeys through brain injury. Zola has demonstrated that the greater the area of a monkey’s brain that is damaged, the greater is his or her memory deficit.

Zola’s proffered justification has three parts: 1. Experiments should be allowed if they utilize “good science.” 2. New knowledge is just cause to experiment on animals. 3. There is no way to tell in advance whether something discovered might someday, somehow, be of some benefit to someone.

Zola sums up his position this way: “Therefore, it might not be reasonable to preclude the possibility of carrying out a study simply because it has no obvious immediate relevance, either potential or real.” He repeats this assertion on three separate occasions in his short essay.

In answer to those who have presented cogent theories explaining why animals should not be harmed in biomedical research, Zola says: “For some individuals, animal research is simply not a debatable topic. From their perspective, animals should not be used in biomedical research under any circumstances. There is presumably no argument or discussion that could alter this viewpoint, and this viewpoint will not be considered further here.” Zola’s position of authority suggests that presumptions of correctness and dismissals of cogent argument contrary to beliefs held by him and his peers are devices that protect some within the vivisection industry from meaningful self-reflection. His unwillingness to think may be based on an awareness of where thoughtful and careful analysis will lead.

Stuart Zola is the current director of the NIH Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory University in Atlanta. He is responsible for much that occurs there. Yerkes is a well-known cog in the widespread, institutionalized, industrialized, routine evil of animal experimentation. His assertion that animal experimentation requires only the weak justification of providing new knowledge is a clear statement about the true nature of the industry’s concern for those they vivisect.

Zola’s errors are rooted in the fact that he confuses his wish to learn about the workings of monkeys’ brains with the right to do so. Zola has renamed Morrison’s God, Knowledge.

“The Paradigm Shift toward Animal Happiness: What It Is, Why It Is Happening, and What It Portends for Medical Research” by Jerrold Tannenbaum (pg 93-130).

Jerrold Tannenbaum writes about his concern for what he perceives to be a shifting of the traditional paradigm concerning human uses of other animals. He says that in the “traditional approach” that “there is no ethical import in killing animals per se,” [his emphasis.] He says that: “Our primary ethical obligation when we use animals (in research or agriculture, for example) is to avoid causing them ‘pain’ or more ‘pain’ than is necessary or justifiable.” He defines ‘pain’ broadly as “unpleasant mental states” such as physical pain, suffering, stress, distress, and discomfort.

Tannenbaum goes on at length to describe the regulations that appear to assure that the traditional approach is adhered to in laboratories. He worries though, that effort to assure animals’ welfare is leading to the belief that the animals have a right to be happy when they are not being actively used. He says that: “if research animals come to be viewed as our friends – and as worthy of happiness and happy lives as we are – animal research will stop.” His concerns appear to be rooted in a faith that animal experimentation is the only avenue available for biomedical research. [Again, see Greek and Greek for a complete refutation of this myth.]

Tannenbaum appears to be lost in an inconsistent worldview, due at least in part to an ignorance of animals that, ironically, he feels may be part of the cause of the paradigm shift that he claims to see. He admits that there are animals (pets) about whom we know enough to say that they can have happy lives and enjoyments. He also admits that it may be ethically obligatory for us to seek their happiness. But he claims that it is not irrational to care deeply about some animals and count them as family members, while simultaneously consigning others, even of the same species, to experimentation. He says that this is similar to caring about one’s immediate family while ignoring the needs of strangers. Since biomedical research is intended to benefit strangers, his comparison is strained.

But Tannenbaum’s faith in the status quo, or the traditional approach, is misplaced and, as mentioned above, rests firmly on an ignorance of animals. This is especially ironic because Tannenbaum is a veterinarian, though this might explain his odd recognition of the interests of pets even as he discounts those of other animals en masse. Tannenbaum says:

Most animals in the wild spend most of their waking hours engaged in the difficult tasks of obtaining food or avoiding predators. It does not seem even remotely plausible to postulate that most animals in the wild, or bred for use in research laboratories have a need or drive to be happy or to lead a generally happy life in the same way in which they have physiological needs to eat, drink or eliminate.

Many species of wild animals engage in play and other social interactions such as mutual grooming. The traditional vision of “nature, red in tooth and claw” was formulated long before scientists had begun making detailed observations of animals living their lives over time. It is now recognized that many animals have recurring and significant amounts of leisure time and engage in activities that appear to be pursued simply for fun. This is the case for river otters, dolphins, parrots, many primates, dogs, cats, and rats, to name only some of the more obvious examples. Tannenbaum’s claim that “animals in the wild spend most of their waking hours engaged in the difficult tasks of obtaining food or avoiding predators” is simply false.

That Tannenbaum’s “traditional approach” moral theory is based on an ignorance of animals is further demonstrated by his citation of work performed by his colleague at the University of California, Davis, John Capitanio. Tannenbaum writes:

One question that has received very little attention in the animal research literature, but is becoming a concern for some scientists, is how providing enjoyments and satisfactions to research animals might affect the scientific results of important experiments. Primatologist John Capitanio has found that the survival of monkeys infected with simian immunodeficiency virus is significantly decreased when they are exposed to social change (for example, by being moved into paired housing with other monkeys) either after infection or in a ninety-day period proceeding infection.

Tannenbaum assumes, for the monkeys in question, that being moved into paired-housing is an enjoyment or satisfaction. But it is well recognized that pairing monkeys who have been isolated is problematic and prone to difficulty. Injury due to aggression is common when such pairing is done ad hoc. In such situations, enjoyment or satisfaction do not appear to be the typical reaction of the monkeys. Capitanio himself has been much interested in the effects of isolation rearing in monkeys and has demonstrated a clear distain for their psychological well-being. Tannenbaum’s citation of Capitanio’s “important” experiments is simply an example of citing one person’s cruelty as a justification for the cruelty of an entire industry.

Tannenbaum wonders why people are beginning to change their opinions about the importance of the experiences of animals being held and experimented on. He is apparently unfamiliar with, or confused about, current knowledge and literature regarding animals’ minds. He seems locked in an archaic ethos and confused by the changes he sees occurring around him. Tannenbaum’s ethical theories are erroneous because they are based on confusion and ignorance.

“Defending Animal Research: An International Perspective” by Baruch A. Brody (pg 131-147).

Baruch A. Brody’s essay is one of only two in the book (the other is Frey’s) to present a thoughtful examination of the ethics underlying the use of animals in research. This is likely due to the fact that Brody is a professor of biomedical ethics.

But moral theories can largely be placed into one of two categories: prescriptions and apologies. Apologies attempt to justify some status quo. Societal behaviors, or norms, develop over time, and often do so in a relative absence of moral self-reflection. Societal norms have emerged from traditions that are often rooted in ancient history, and in some cases, such as the use of animals, in prehistory. Such tradition-driven societal behaviors are unlikely to have been molded and established through a self-reflective process. Moral theories that present an ethical rationale for the status quo must always be looked at with great caution and skepticism.

The belief that society has luckily developed a particularly moral behavior involving animals is counter to the historical record of our behavior involving other people. But this is Brody’s implicit claim and is why he presents an apology for the current state of affairs rather than a prescription leading to a solution to the problem of widespread, institutionalized, industrialized, routine evil.

In Brody’s defense though, he does admit that the U.S. regulatory position is morally and rationally less defensible than many of the regulatory practices in European nations. Brody classifies the underlying moral beliefs that appear to be acting to formulate these regulations as “lexical priority” – the U.S. position, and “discounting” – the European position.

Brody says that animals have interests, and that their interests are morally relevant to the degree that the potential harm caused to them must be acknowledged and weighed against the benefit to humans that their use might provide. Brody acknowledges that, in the U.S., in any weighing of interests, that animals’ interests, no matter how great, will always lose to humans’ interests, no matter how small. The European system, though weighing human interests generally greater, does not allow a trumping of any human interests over all animal interests. The European systems “discount” animals’ interests, but do not zero them out. Brody believes that the European system comes closer to being a “reasonable” system, and that the U.S. system is extreme.

As mentioned above, however, Brody does not seek to suggest a more humane system than that already in place in some European countries. He seeks merely to justify the general status quo and bemoans the lack of a clear moral justification for animal experimentation within the industry. Brody is particularly troubled by the lack of a rational and moral principle or position explaining humans’ greater significance. He says that this is the crucial question that must be answered before any reasonable pro-research position can be adequately expounded. The absence of this explanation, however, has been insufficient for Brody to reverse his pro-vivisection position. To this degree, like Morrison and Zola, Brody maintains his position through faith.

Brody does raise an important point that bears further consideration. He notes that the discounting of the interests of others is a human society-wide morally accepted behavior. He notes that we discount the interests of strangers when weighing them against the interests of our family. Likewise, we discount the interests of other nations when weighing them against our own nation’s interests. To Brody, this explains why we can morally discount the interests of animals – they are not humans, they are others.

Brody points out that there are limits to these priorities, and that cases could be imagined wherein the interests of strangers might actually carry more weight than our own interests. To the degree, however, that we generally do give greater weight to the interests of our self, immediate family, kin, or nation, Brody asks what the difference is between such priority and other discriminations such as racism, sexism, or, in the case of other species, speciesism.

Brody says that further philosophical study and thought is needed to clarify this controversy. Hopefully, if human minorities were being subjected to experimentation, Brody would speak out and perhaps otherwise protest against such bigotry. The fact that he does not do so now, having admitted that he cannot easily differentiate between speciesism and other forms of immoral discrimination, makes his position extremely weak and his conclusions and support of animal experimentation suspect.

Baruch A. Brody is the Leon Jaworski Professor of Biomedical Ethics and the Director of the Center of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the Baylor College of Medicine and Professor of Philosophy at Rice University. Readers could assume that when he speaks and writes regarding the opinions and positions of other philosophers that he would be accurate. But consider this comment:

"…we have an obligation to human beings, as part of our special obligations to members of our species, to discount animal interests in comparison to human interests by testing new drugs on animals first.

This defense of animal research on the ground of species solidarity has been developed elsewhere by the British philosopher Mary Midgley, although her emphasis seems to me to be more on psychological bonds and less on the logical structure of the consideration of interests in moral thought."

From this passage, a reader must infer that Mary Midgley supports animal research. On this point Brody is wrong to a degree that would embarrass even an aspiring scholar. One of Brody’s anti-animal allies, Daniel C. Dennett, comes much closer to accurately portraying Midgley’s position when he says:

"I am not known for my spirited defenses of René Descartes, but I find I have to sympathize with an honest scientist who was apparently the first victim of the wild misrepresentations of the lunatic fringe of the animal rights movement. Animal rights activists such as Peter Singer and Mary Midgley have recently helped spread the myth that Descartes was a callous vivisector, completely indifferent to animal suffering because of his view that animals (unlike people) were mere automata." (“Animal Consciousness: What Matters and Why,” in D. Dennett, Brainchildren, Essays on Designing Minds, MIT Press and Penguin, 1998.)

Midgley is the author of sixteen books and innumerable essays and articles. She is among the most respected of contemporary philosophers. The odd and radically disjoint claims concerning her position made by the anti-animalists are indicative of their struggle to grasp the reality of other animals as intrinsically important beings. Baruch A. Brody’s comment concerning Midgley is far off the mark. Brody’s citation for Midgley is her Animals and Why They Matter. I was unfamiliar with this particular Midgley work, so took the opportunity to read it upon being told by Brody that I had misunderstood Midgley’s position. For that, I owe Brody a debt of gratitude; Midgley’s argument for the need to reassess our traditional view of animals is razor sharp. Claiming that Midgley supports vivisection, based on the position presented in Animals and Why They Matter would be just cause to fail an introductory philosophy class. This point, as his reluctance to apply the results of his own reasoning to the matter of harming animals in experimentation, suggests, again, that Brody’s analysis and position is woefully misinformed or contrived.

Brody’s clear misrepresentation of Midgley suggests that the editors were less than thoughtful as they put this collection of essays together. Apparently, the criterion was simply that a writer proclaimed that harming animals is just and reasonable. This intellectual laziness by the editors, or perhaps bald-faced prejudice, is evident throughout the text.

“A Darwinian View of the Issues Associated with the Use of Animals in Biomedical Research” by Charles S. Nicoll and Sharon M. Russell (pg 149-173.)

Charles Nicoll and Sharon Russell are cofounders of the Coalition For Animals and Animal Research (CFAAR), which they claim is a nonprofit educational organization. On the single-page website, http://www.swaebr.org/CFAAR/, CFAAR says that the organization’s two goals are (1) “To educate the public about the true nature of animal research and animal researchers,” and (2) “To support the responsible and humane use of animals in biomedical research.”

This is confusing. In the cofounders’ current essay, they write that, “moral theorizing about human duties to animals is a pointless enterprise.” Exactly why treating animals humanely is not a moral duty to them is not addressed. Nicoll and Russell claim that their belief is founded on Darwinian evolution. They say: “The relationships that develop between or among different species (e.g. symbiotic or parasitic) are a result of evolution. Since these relationships are based in biology, it is nonsensical to moralize about them and to advance ‘rights’ for animals or even equality among species.”

To the degree that Nicoll and Russell attempt to present a moral theory about the human use of animals it boils down to the claim that if any other species acts in ways that seem less than compassionate or even cruel, then it is natural that we do so as well. The authors attempt to root this claim in Darwinian evolution, claiming that the exploitation of other species is natural, and therefore right. This is the same justification used by a little boy caught doing something wrong: Johnny did it.

Nicoll’s and Russell’s confusion is likely due to their unholy marriage of Darwin, who they seem to misunderstand, and two of the leading anti-animal philosophers, Carl Cohen and Peter Carruthers. Perhaps the authors’ deference to Cohen and Carruthers is understandable since the authors are not themselves philosophers and Cohen and Caruthers are among the few modern philosophers and ethicists willing to discount the interests of animals willy-nilly. But the authors are biologists, and their confusion about Darwinian evolution has the ring of self-interest to it. Consider the quote from above.

They are correct that symbiotic and parasitic relationships are a result of evolution and based in biology, but so what? Everything we do is a result of our biology. We can read these words because our brain has learned their meaning. Nothing we do is divorced from our biology. What this means is that our decisions – arising from the organic processes of our brains – on how we should treat those different or weaker than ourselves, say, persons of different ethnicity or children or people with physical impairments, are based in our biology. It is absurd, and obviously so, to suggest that these matters do not warrant “moralizing.” Likewise, human relationships with other species can and do warrant moral consideration. The authors’ claim to the contrary is simple self-interest and self-defense speaking in place of rationality.

This warped perspective is evident throughout the essay and should be an embarrassment to university professors professing to be biologists. Nicoll currently vivisects animals and teaches others to vivisect at the University of California, Berkeley, and Russell did as well for a number of years. Neither are ethologists however, so maybe this is why they are so confused about animal behavior. Unfortunately, their confused notions of animals, coupled with Cohen’s and Caruthers’ own confused notions of animal behavior, form the foundation for a philosophical position that is little more than a failed search for a justification of the widespread, institutionalized, industrialized, routine evil that the authors have contributed to in their own laboratories.

One of Nicoll’s and Russell’s claims is that there is a propensity toward childlessness among animal rights activists. They base this on a survey of activists who were in Washington D.C. on June 10, 1990 for the “March for the Animals.” Whether or not the demographic represented by the people with the resources to travel to Washington for the occasion is typical of those who are concerned about cruelty toward animals remains to be seen, but 80% were reported to have had no children. The authors suggest that this is because activists have little fondness for children and that this lack of fondness is maladaptive in a Darwinian sense.

The claim of maladaption is surprising in light of our burgeoning human population. To the authors, apparently, six billion people consuming the planet’s resources at an ever increasing rate seems a good strategy for our long-term survival as a species. Frankly, the authors’ naked hatred of animal rights activists has clouded their limited ability to think.

It is hard to find a page of their essay on which their claims do not collapse due to faulty thinking or a misstatement of fact (Such as their claim that 25 million animals are used in biomedical laboratories annually in the U.S. This is the industry’s current estimate for the number of mice and rats alone.) The authors’ weaving of Caruthers and Cohen with their erroneous understanding of animal behavior results in a confused view of nature. They write:

"As applied by Carruthers, contractualism refers to entering into a moral understanding with another being in which both parties agree not to harm each other or other members of their kind. In effect then they agree to abide by moral behavior that would be in accord with the ‘Golden Rule.’ Only rational beings (i.e., those with the capacity to reason) who have an understanding of the concepts of morals and rights could enter into such a contractual agreement. …we [can]not establish such an agreement with any nonhuman species on our planet, even those that are the most intelligent."

Contractualism has been challenged by modern philosophers for being too contrived. But from a behavioral point of view it is at least understandable why such a theory emerged. When we check out at the grocery store, we do not push to the head of the line. We act as if there was a contract in place to which we have all agreed to abide. But to the degree that this is natural behavior (as opposed to behavior motivated by the fear of going to jail for assault) it is behavior that is common throughout many animal societies. Quite simply, animals are not constantly fighting with each other. Many act as if they have agreed to get along.

And it is not just members of the same species that act as if they have entered into this contract. Many mixed species groups graze together, flock together, swim together, and socialize with each other. Either these animals have some semblance of a concept of moral behavior, or else, such a concept is not needed in order for us to get along with each other. Nicoll and Russell must be nervous when a dog walks into a room with them since they believe he or she is unable to understand that they are not going to attack each other.

The authors claim that the development of weapons is what led to our ‘contractualist’ behavior. But, as mentioned above, many animals get along with each other. They claim that this “Golden Rule” of behavior is almost universal in human culture, but they fail to acknowledge the internecine tribal warfare seen in many traditional settings or the larger worldwide conflicts, or people imprisoned for assault, rape, or murder. To the degree that we do get along with each other, this behavior appears to be much older than our species. It is not a human invention.

Nicoll and Russell make many errors. They state that 99.9 percent of all the species that have existed are now extinct. (They make this point to frighten readers into thinking that we must fight tooth and nail to survive.) But as biologists they should know that this is not simply because these species suddenly succumbed to some attack. To some degree, they evolved into the species we see today. Just as wooly mammoths are now extinct, ten million years ago there were no American robins.

Many species have died out during cataclysmic events. Profound climate changes, meteor impacts, and massive volcanic events have led to many episodes of mass extinctions. The authors acknowledge this, and admit that there is little to nothing we can do about it at the present time short of colonizing other planets. But they claim that there are threats to the human species that we can fight such as insect infestations and disease. But the claim that these problems are responsible for past extinctions is far fetched and based on nothing other than a wish to justify animal experimentation.

The authors claim that advanced human behaviors like fire-making and human language led to monogamy and extended childcare. But monogamy is seen in other species as well such as geese and gibbons. Extended childcare is seen in elephants and whales and gorillas, to name but a few examples. The authors should know this. The authors struggle unsuccessfully throughout their essay to paint us as saintly and all other animal species as devilish. The claim that humans are historically monogamous is, at best, speculative. Modern human societies are certainly not uniformly monogamous as a visit to many parts of Africa or Asia will disclose.

This review is too brief to catalog the myriad errors and inconsistencies within this essay, but one point cannot be passed by. The authors frequently defer to their moral helmsmen Carruthers and Cohen. [Cohen demonstrated conclusively in The Animal Rights Debate (C. Cohen and T. Regan, 2001) that he is not in possession of the basic facts regarding animal experimentation in the U.S.] Using him as their guide to defending speciesism, the authors state:

"Sexism and racism are not justifiable because normal men and women of all racial and ethnic groups are, on average, intellectually and morally equal, and their behavior can be judged against the same moral standards. Animals do not have such equivalence with humans. To deny rights or equal consideration on the basis of sex or race is immoral because all normal humans, regardless of sex, ethnicity, or race, can claim the rights and considerations that they deserve, and they know what it means to be unjustly denied them. No animals have these abilities. Speciesism…is a normal kind of discrimination displayed by all social animals, but racism and sexism are widely considered to be morally indefensible practices."

This passage is a good example of the reasoning being employed by Nicoll and Russell throughout their essay. First, we do not judge only “normal” men and women as morally equal. Second, the behavior of humans from different cultures cannot always be judged against the same moral standards, so the authors’ premise is false. Third, if not all humans are judged against the moral standards of “normal” men and women (whatever that might mean), why should animals be so judged? Fourth, rights are not dependent upon the ability to claim them. Children, many elderly people, even the poor, are often unable to claim the right of equal consideration, yet they are entitled to it. Why should animals be held to a higher standard? Fifth, if one kicks a dog for no apparent reason, the dog acts as if he or she has been wronged, thus they behave as if they do know what it means to have a basic right such as the “Golden Rule” unjustly denied to them. Sixth, though speciesism may be “normal” today, this makes it no less wrong than the “normal” discriminations of the past. Seventh, not all social animals display speciesism – as common instances of mixed species grazing, schooling, flocking, and socializing clearly demonstrate.

As mentioned above, and as this single passage so readily demonstrates, the errors in the current essay are extensive and relentless. This is the level of false justification required to defend the status quo.

“Animals: Their Right to Be Used” by H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. (pg 175-195)

H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. explains in his essay’s first footnote that he is an Orthodox Christian and that his real moral guidance concerning the human use of animals comes from the covenant between God and Noah:

"And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things."

Engalhardt believes that every animal fears and dreads humans because God has made it so. His essay is remarkable for its demonstration of what can happen when a person with this foundational belief attempts to build a moral theory concerning animal use, divorced from the moral guidance of (even) a cruel deity. This moral freefall results in an absurd and rudderless reveling in any and all uses of animals.

In Engelhardt’s opinion, the most trivial of human interests are more than adequate justification for any and all uses of animals. This leads to his moral theory’s endorsement of such enjoyments as watching animals kill each other in staged fights or animals being tormented and killed slowly in public spectacles.

Englehardt says that the “full moral significance of animals can be understood only with reference to their contributions to human contemplation, delight, amusement, welfare, and culture.” This leads to his absurd claims that animals have the “right” to be hunted, eaten, domesticated, bred, genetically modified, skinned, harvested, to be used as beasts of burden, to be used in circuses, bullfights, cockfights, rodeos, to be dissected, experimented on, used to test cosmetics, and used in any other imaginable way.

Englehardt is a member of the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine. He is a professor of philosophy at Rice University. Can it be any wonder that an industry that is responsible for widespread, institutionalized, industrialized, routine evil has taken root with such leadership? With moral leaders such as Englehardt deciding what can and cannot be allowed to occur in U.S. laboratories, is there any limit to what could be allowed? The evidence from the labs themselves demonstrates that there is not.

“Justifying Animal Experimentation: The Starting Point” by R.G. Frey (pg 197-214)

It seems safe to assume that the editors gave some thought to the placement of the essays within Why Animal Experimentation Matters: The Use of Animals in Medical Research. R. G. Frey’s essay is the final comment.

Frey points out rightly that the common premise in every defense of vivisection is the “argument from benefit.” This is the simple recurring justification that animal experimentation saves human lives. Frey, himself, accepts this as a premise for his own position. He then notes that this justification cannot stand on its own merits, but requires a clear explanation of why it would be wrong to experiment on any humans but acceptable to experiment on animals.

To the degree that Frey writes as a reasonable man, he methodically and convincingly dismantles the answers presented to this problem by the volume’s preceding authors. This leads him to adopt what he calls the “quality of life view.” This view is rational and internally consistent. He notes that any attempt to explain or define a criteria that can be used to differentiate humans and other animals, with respect to a rational explanation for why we can vivisect one but not the other, will lead to an overlap between humans and animals. In other words, there will be humans with such low quality lives – however defined – that we will have to include them in our pool of experimental subjects. Most vivisectionists will be alarmed by Frey’s clear and compelling reasoning.

But Frey’s support for animal experimentation is built on a questionable foundation and weakened further by something akin to simple bigotry. First, Frey writes: “If the use of animals is scientific and medical research is justified, it seems reasonably clear that it is justified by the benefits that this research confers on humans.” Then:

"The argument from benefit is a consequentialist argument: it maintains that the consequences of engaging in animal research provide clear benefits to humans that offset the costs to animals involved in the research. This is an empirical argument and so could be refuted by showing that the benefits to research are not all that we take them to be. This is not the place to undertake an examination of the costs and benefits of the myriad uses that we make of animals in science and medicine, nor am I the person to undertake such an examination."

Apparently, if it could be shown that research using animals provided less than a “clear benefit to humans,” much of Frey’s subsequent argument would be false.

Based on his faith, Frey makes the claim that: “It is ironic, to say the least, that abolitionism has received so much attention in the media of late at the very time that scientific and medical research seems on the threshold of revolutionary discoveries that will greatly alleviate human suffering.” He goes on to list the discoveries that are just over the horizon: an AIDS breakthrough, genetically engineered animal organs for transplant, and cloning. It is obvious that someone who acknowledges that he is unsuited to examine “the costs and benefits of the myriad uses that we make of animals in science and medicine” is unlikely to be able to predict whether current research using animals is likely to lead to “revolutionary discoveries.”

And where does Frey get his information on which to base his faith that animal research is clearly beneficial to humans? He cites no specific source; he says only that science and medicine wish us to believe that there is benefit, and that the media tells us that this research is what the public wants. This seems a weak justification for an entire industry undeniably hurting animals on an almost unimaginable scale.

Frey frankly ignores the evidence that animal research is less than clearly beneficial, and is frequently even harmful to human health. There is now ample evidence to suggest that the benefits on which Frey bases his thesis are suspect. If, as he claims, this essay was not the place to make a cost benefit analysis of animal research, he should have at least cited what literature is available on which to make such a determination. If he has not reviewed this literature, then his thesis is little more than an unreasoned faith-based defense of cruelty.

But Frey might indeed be willing to make claims in the absence of evidence, as have done many bigots in the past. That Frey is a bigot, slips through a few times in his essay, but no where more clearly than in this statement:

It should be obvious by now why the search for distinguishing characteristics that are very strongly cognitive, such that their use would exclude all animals from the class of protected beings, is doomed to failure. If such criteria were identified, the number of humans who would fall outside the protected class seems certain to increase, depending upon how sophisticated a set of cognitive tasks one selects as the screening characteristics. Making the cognitive task less sophisticated, in order to protect as many humans as possible, creates the risk that some animals will be included within the protected class, even as some humans fall outside it. (My emphasis.)

So, we have to assume that including any animals within the “protected class” is simply unthinkable to Frey, no matter what moral argument might be proffered to justify such a categorization. Frey is more worried about placing any species of animal out of bounds for experimentation than he is about including some humans within such boundaries.

Frey sums up his stance:

"Some will conclude that my position vis-à-vis impaired humans is so objectionable that my argument is tantamount to a rejection of animal experimentation. I don’t see it that way. For me, the crucial question is: will we decide to forego the benefits that scientific and medical research promise? It is hard to imagine that we will. Hence, we are faced with the problem over humans."

Sadly, Frey has completely missed the fact that medical breakthroughs and progress have been the result of human-based research and investigation. This leads him into an alley with only two exits: experiments on animals or no research at all. His solution appears to be based on a profound, and perhaps willful ignorance of medical history.

Frey’s theory remains problematic, however. Even if he finally realizes that the benefits he imagines arising from animal experimentation are an always distant glimmer, like a mirage of cool water beckoning on the horizon, he will still be left with the unassailable logic that, to the degree that we have to sacrifice someone – now humans – that it must be those with a lower quality of life. One thing is certain: Frey will always draw the line so that he is among the protected class.

In Summary….

The essays in Why Animal Experimentation Matters: The Use of Animals in Medical Research have uniformly failed to answer the problem presented by vivisection, an industry that is responsible for widespread, institutionalized, industrialized, routine evil. A few of the essays are worth reading, nevertheless.

First and foremost, we are given some insight into the minds of the vivisectors. Adrian R. Morrison, Stuart Zola-Morgan, Charles S. Nicoll, and Sharon M. Russell have all spent years systematically hurting animals. Their attempted justifications (or lack thereof) make this volume worthwhile reading.

The essays by Baruch A. Brody and R.G. Frey give us a good idea of the current effort to defend vivisection philosophically. These essays demonstrate that solid resilient arguments have yet to be presented.

The two remaining essays, by Jerrold Tannenbaum and H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr., are so outlandish and mean that one wonders whether the editors included them in an effort to shift the center further toward the cruelty end of some spectrum. They are intellectually suspect and written by apologists with little real understanding of the issue; they can be dismissed as filler.

Rick Bogle.

September, 2002

Home Page | Our Mission | News
What Are Primate Freedom Tags | Order Tag
Primate Research Centers | Resources

Copyright © 2005 Primate Freedom Project. Web Design by Griffin Web Design.