The animal rights community is processing the rather stunning news that Peter Singer, the renowned Princeton bioethicist, has pulled a remarkable about face and offered an endorsement of limited use of animal experimentation:
Singer… is quoted, on camera, backing the research of Tipu Aziz at Oxford University, in which cruel experiments on monkeys are carried out to develop surgery for Parkinson’s’. Mr Singer admits on “Monkeys, Rats and Me: Animal Testing”, which will be screened on BBC2 tomorrow, “It is clear at least some animal research does have benefits.” He goes on to say “I would certainly not say that no animal research could be justified and the case you have given sounds like one that is justified.”
The National Review, hardly an organ sympathetic to vulnerable creatures (with the possible exception of unborn humans) is gleeful at the possibility that Singer’s stunning change of heart could lead to a fracturing in the broader animal rights world. The Center for Consumer Freedom, a front group for the tobacco and factory farming industries, is similarly ecstatic.
Peter Singer is an enormously important figure; his 1975 treatise, simply entitled Animal Liberation, more or less established an entire movement. He’s an ethicist and a philosopher, but he’s also — like many good teachers — a provocateur, prone to the outrageous statement designed to stimulate discussion. His remarks to the BBC this week, remarks that seemingly undercut the work of the entire anti-vivisection, animal rights community, need to be understood in that context.
After my father died of cancer in June, I inherited a little bit of money. Among the things my wife and I decided to do with a percentage of that money is give to charities in his name. We gave to the non-profit hospice that cared so well for him, and we gave to a variety of conventional animal charities. (He loved animals very much; in the last days of his life, he wept at the loss of our beautiful chin Matilde, who had adored him.) We gave also to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, the leading group in this country advocating for veganism and protection for all living things. PCRM doesn’t deny that there may be some benefits to animal research, but it denies that animal research is necessary for the discovery of cures; it further insists that no cure is worth the suffering inflicted on innocent research subjects who have not volunteered. That is a conviction I share. My wife and will not give money to medical foundations or to university programs unless we are absolutely certain that animals are not used for experiments. This has changed our giving pattern considerably.
I loved my father so very much. As we head towards Christmas, I can feel the grief at his passing flowering within me. I wanted my Dad to beat his cancer. I wanted him to live and recover, and I am still heartbroken that he didn’t. But I would not — not for a second — have supported animal research that could have saved his life. I hate cancer for what it did to our family; I hate cancer for robbing my future children of a relationship with their grandfather. But my hatred for cancer is trumped by my love for animals, for the rats and the monkeys and the dogs that share equally in the gift of creation and for which we humans are responsible. I will not support cancer research involving animals, and though the breakthroughs that have already come ought not be discarded, I am not willing to cause pain or death to any creature so that other families will not go through what my family went through this spring. I am not heartless or quixotic — I am honoring a commitment to creation, one that has led me to veganism, one that has reshaped how I spend my money, one that has transformed how I think about life itself.
I honor Peter Singer for what he has given to the cause of animal rights. If his off-the-cuff remark on television this week reflected a change in his views, then I am sorry for it. But the movement he did so much to create is not backing down, is not going away, and will continue to spread the good news of a plant-based diet and a cruelty-free lifestyle to all. And they are gonna get the lion’s share of my charitable giving.-
I haven’t studied Singer in depth, but he is a consequentialist. For those of you who aren’t philosophers, that means Singer (and consequentialists more generally) believes morally right and morally permissible actions are those that work to maximise the amount of pleasure or happiness in the world as a whole, and minimise the amount of suffering in the world as a whole. That `as a whole’ is emphasised because it’s important: for consequentialists, to determine right and permissible actions we (quite literally, in the case of consequentialists like Bentham) add up the total amount of (marginal) happiness in the world as a result of that action, and subtract the total amount of (marginal) suffering in the world as a result. The action is morally permissible if the result of this bookkeeping is in the black, morally prohibited if the result is in the red.
Understanding this is important to Singer’s argument for humane treatment for animals, and why I suspect these remarks most likely to not make for a change of heart in any way whatsoever. In its broad strokes, the argument is based on the same premise as Bentham’s argument for humane treatment of animals (Bentham was writing in the early and mid 19th century): non-human animal suffering (or happiness) counts just as much as the suffering (or happiness) of human beings for the purposes of the consequentialist moral bookkeeping. So, if the total suffering of dairy cows in factory farms outweighs the pleasure we get from drinking their milk, we conclude that factory farming is impermissible. On the other hand, if the benefit of saving lives gained by experimenting on non-human animals outweighs the harm done to those animals, then the experimentation is morally permissible. Similarly, Singer has notoriously given arguments elsewhere (though I’m afraid I can’t remember where off the top of my head) that infanticide of severely impaired infants is morally permissible.
The notions of consent and the dignity of individuals — quite deliberately — play no role whatsoever in consequentialism. This is one of the major reasons why many philosophers reject consequentialism. Among vegetarian philosophers (and there are quite a lot of us), Singer is probably not as influential as Tom Regan, who takes as his starting place a radically different ethical theory.
You’re about the tenth person to mention Regan to me, Noumena. What should I start with to learn more about him?
The Case for Animal Rights is the Regan classic.
As noumena’s post indicates, you may agree with Singer’s policy conclusions on animal rights, but you don’t share much with him at all philosophically. He’s a pretty hardcore utilitarian (see his infamous argument in Practical Ethics regarding the possibility of morally justified infanticide). Given his philosophical commitments, this doesn’t seem like a significant about-face to me.
You’ll prefer Regan, I except, as he’s a Kantian. As this post demonstrates, you’ve got a long more deontology in your ethical thinking than Singer provides.
The case for animal rights is Regan’s most well-known book, though he’s written things more recently.
Another, good and somewhat different, discussion I recommend is Martha Nussbaum’s chapter on non-human animals in Frontiers of justice, though you’ll have to read the rest of the book to understand what’s going on there. But since the book’s quite good, that’s not at all a bad thing.
Your position leads to interesting questions, Hugo.
Most people don’t feel the way you do; you probably perceive a trend in public opinion moving in your direction, but even if that’s the case it’s going to be a long time between today and the moment when the last animal experiment is released into the wild or whatever. You will most likely be very elderly or dead by the time that happens. In the meantime, the work done is going to generate a vast amount of biological knowledge, and any number of cures and therapies.
You say that the breakthroughs that we have now are not to be discarded. Fair enough. What about the breakthroughs that are to come? Will you at 50, 60, 90 years of age let the doctors save your life with them? Your wife’s life?
It seems to me that if you say yes - if you extend your existing acceptance of existing cures into the future - then your opposition to animal research is simply boutique activism - “I believe this strongly and dedicate my life to it, unless there’s a consequence, in which case give me the medicine, please.”
But I’d be interested in seeing what you actually say, rather than my projection. I’d also be interested in knowing your position on therapies and knowledge derived from experimentation or industrial processing on fetuses, embryonic stem cells, and so forth.
Okay, now I feel like an absolute nincompoop that I have never heard of Regan. Thanks, folks; I’m Amazoning it now.
When I understand you to say you place a higher priority on the comfort of rats than on the life of my little cousin who suffers from a disease that animal research could help cure… well, that’s when I realize you live in a privileged bubble. Outside the hothouse, we shoot rats. We trap them. We sic the cats on them. And we most certainly value the life of a child more than the lives of 10,000 rats.
How very strange.
Did you know that the Inuit could not practice their traditional lifestyle without killing and eating animals? Ethical Inuit who choose to eat in season and local have two choices: leave the land of their ancestors or starve.
Again, how very strange.
Henry, did you ignore the reference to my father’s cancer deliberately? I may be a WASP from Carmel, but you think I don’t know about disease and death? You think I haven’t held the hands of the dying?
We’ll worry aboiut the Inuit and other native peoples (who have no choice) after we end animal research, pelting, and factory farming. The Inuit are not a priority for me. Vivisectionists, pelters, the Bloomingdale’s fur salon and Tyson Foods are.
From what I understand, that view is pretty consistent with Singer’s utilitarianism. If X amount of animal research will result in treatments that save a larger number of people from suffering, on the whole, it’s a necessary evil. It’s sort of like how eating meat is wrong, but if you have to eat it to live, then it’s not wrong.
What’s frustrating to me is that while I think the infant euthanasia thing probably has to be avoided due to slippery slope issues, from a logical point of view, it makes perfect sense. But regardless of the real world applications, I think a lot of people would benefit from admitting that a full grown cat or dog or pig has more self-awareness and cognition than a human infant, at least a newborn.
Hugo, I don’t know what else you’ve read of Singer’s, but I highly, highly recommend an article from the NY Times Magazine that ran a couple of years ago Unspeakable Conversations about the experiences of a disability rights activist and her encounter with Singer. For someone who cares a great deal about animal life, Singer’s respect for human life is more than a little lacking for some of us.
PCRM doesn’t deny that there may be some benefits to animal research, but it denies that animal research is necessary for the discovery of cures; it further insists that no cure is worth the suffering inflicted on innocent research subjects who have not volunteered.
I think the latter part of that statement is a value judgment not worth quarreling with, but to claim that animal research is unnecessary for the discovery of cures borders on downright ignorant. (Also, abandoning animal studies would require massive changes in the FDA approval process and institutional standards on biomed research. Not that this is impossible, just a massive institutional hurdle to be considered.)
I will not support cancer research involving animals, and though the breakthroughs that have already come ought not be discarded, I am not willing to cause pain or death to any creature so that other families will not go through what my family went through this spring.
And I suppose we’ll just consider it lucky that you’ll have the benefit of those breakthroughs?
Look, every American is the beneficiary of some fairly awful things our government does and has done around the world. How do we renounce all of our unearned privileges? What we can do is work on the present and the future, and that’s what I am doing.
I still wear old leather belts and shoes, bought before my veganism. I am not willing to throw them out and be wasteful. I am willing to not buy any MORE leather. We work with what we’ve got; it’s progress, not perfection.
How do we renounce all of our unearned privileges?
You can’t. But deciding not to buy a leather jacket is (for most of us) a very different kind of privilege renouncing than declining to buy high test antibiotics or new forms of cancer treatments. If one regards the pharma industry’s treatment of animals as abhorrent as the fur industry’s, you’re setting yourself up for a serious dilemma the next time you need the benefits of modern western medicine. You might be buying a drug that’s one of those earlier breakthroughs, but its still financing the next round of animal research.
I would sacrifice animals to have my mom back. I guess I would kill them myself.
I strongly second what evil_fizz says about Unspeakable Conversations. It’s just a wonderful element, and it demonstrates how ethics is best understood as an intersubjective practice rather than a series of thought experiment an analytic arguments.
Noumena, the Nussbaum thing is interesting. I’ve read the disability and global justice sections, as they’re more in my area, but I haven’t yet read the animal rights section. It’s hard for me to imagine how to apply a capabilities approach to justice to animals. It strikes me as something that’ll involve far too much Aristotelianism to me, which is always her achilles heel. I’m confident we owe animals respect, but it seems inevitable it’ll be quite different than the respect we owe to humans. But I’m quite curious to see where she goes with it.
evil_fizz, I don’t see the moral dilemma you’re trying to force on Hugo. There’s no obvious ethical tension between something being both morally wrong and a great temptation — even if the temptation is really, really strong, the action is still morally wrong.
djw -
If Hugo will permit the rather shameless self-promotion, here is a review I wrote of Frontiers of justice for my ethics seminar.
There’s no obvious ethical tension between something being both morally wrong and a great temptation — even if the temptation is really, really strong, the action is still morally wrong.
Point well taken, but that temptation is practically problematic, even if its not an inherent ethical tension. There will be times where we need medicines or procedures developed through animal testing to save ourselves or loved ones. Hugo might not create the maltreatment he deplores, but I think being complicit in it is inevitable in the context of biomed research in ways that it is not inevitable in, say, pelting.
Good for Peter Singer, he’s not quote the moral midget he used to be. Promoting animal welfare is wonderful, and I support it wholeheartedly. Animal “rights,” by contrast, is pure insanity. We’re a lot smarter than the animals, and even they don’t think in those terms. Animal research, at least when it comes to potentially life-saving medicine, is a necessary evil.
Note that I said “not quite.” Animal rights aside, until he pulls an about face on his cheapened views on human life, he’s still a moral midget.
“I think a lot of people would benefit from admitting that a full grown cat or dog or pig has more self-awareness and cognition than a human infant, at least a newborn.”
How so? What would be the benefit of that admittance (assuming it’s true…)?
What of that of a kitten,puppy, or piglet? If the ’self-awareness’ of these younger animals is less than that of a newborn, or even an adult cat, dog or pig,does that mean something? I dont’ get your point….
What of the potential that a newborn is born with, incomparable with that of a cat or dog or pig…
evil_fizz, thanks, I’ll read that later this weekend.
FWIW this has always been Singer’s position; he’s never been categorically against animal testing. As others have pointed out this is consistent with his overall utilitarianism (as is his endorsement of the option to kill newborn babies, which I personally take as a reductio ad absurdum of his utilitarianism).
Hugo, you may also like Andrew Linzey, who’s written a number of books on animal rights and Christianity (he’s an Anglican priest). I’d suggest his books Animal Theology and Animal Gospel.
If there was one thing I learned in the process of earning a bachelor’s in biology, it’s how little we really know in the face of the amazingly complex thing called life. Until the day that computers can model things we don’t know about, there is no substitute for in vivo research.
Animals suffer. So do humans, plants, and insects. You can draw lines in the sand about whose suffering is worse than whose, or you can weigh them all equally. Either way, what I believe is that suffering and death should not be in vain. Making monkeys suffer for Parkinson’s research is adding to our knowledge. Making chins or foxes suffer for a fur coat is pointless - assuming you have access to other sources of warmth. Making chickens suffer for their meat is a trickier balancing act.
I you want to take a pass on medical research that involved animals, that’s your call. If animal research were to stop, though, I can guarantee you that medical progress will come to a screeching halt.
I wonder what you think about evil_fizz’s points, Hugo, and whether you see a distinction between pelting animals for fashion products, and research using animals to develop life-saving medicine for humans.
I also cannot understand how you could possibly put the lives of a couple of rats, or even thousands of rats, over the lives of thousands of people - infants or adults - who could be saved as the result of animal experiments.
And as somebody brought up the point about the sensitivity of some animal rights advocates lacking somewhat when it comes to humans — I live in Oxford, I am part of the university (not connected to medical research in any way), and I have to come to work every day conscious of the fact that the animal rights activist proclaimed me, and everyone else affiliated with the University, as “valid targets”, even for violent action. A lot of money is being spent on providing police protection to the medical labs, even the construction workers renovating the building had to disguise their identity, and thankfully no violent assaults have happened so far but that is due to the police presence and our avoidance of the city centre on animal rights march days. How exactly is that justifiable? (I am aware that you probably would disagree with threatening people, especially those not even associated with animal research, but this really makes me angry.)
Why do you consistently mention how fur is wrong, but not leather (until someone else brings it up)? Why not give away your leather goods (if they’re in reasonable condition) entirely? It’s not wasteful that way, and you can keep your ethical commitment.
Also, what’s your line for animal research? If you take a drug that was tested on animals, when did the testing have to occur for it to be acceptable? I mean, you’re a vegan now, so I figure, any drugs that come out in about a decade or two will have been tested on animals since you made this commitment — will you refuse them? Otherwise, is your commitment “well, I won’t fund it, but once it’s done, no harm?” Do you give money to research institutes that research pharmacology but not on animals?
Well, one good answer to the leather vs fur question is that leather is using parts of animals that were going to be killed otherwise, whereas fur is killing for the pelt primarily. Depending on the nature of your principles and commitments, forgoing leather may still be a requirement, but the difference doesn’t strike me as trivial.
It would seem that every person’s nature leaves them susceptible to certain errors. We should all examine our natures to try to avoid falling into those errors. If someone has a monk-like piety, they may want to keep pushing the line on displays of purity. Doing that is commendable when it expresses itself as uplifting the downtrodden and calling the powerful to examine their privilege. But following this drive for public expressions of piety to the point where one opposes life-saving research is at best a case of benign eccentricity and at worst a deep moral error that leads to unneeded suffering and death by innocents.
Yes, Hugo, I did read about your father. When I read that you valued the lives of rats over the life of your father, I took it to be clear that you would even more clearly value the life of rats of the life of my little cousin. And that position is so deeply repugnant and irresponsible to me, it is difficult for me to express.
I work in the biomedical field, and despite how cliche it sounds, I have a deep care for the sick and the needy. People who agree with you make it harder for me and my colleagues to better understand what causes diseases and find cures. People who agree with you make me and my colleagues live in fear. Have you gone to work to see police cordoning off your workplace because asshats planted bombs?
Last point, it is easy for you to assume that “we” includes just privileged Westerners and write off the situations of indigenous peoples as something you’ll tackle later. Don’t assume me into your groupings. I’m from peoples that live near the Arctic Circle, and your flippant, sanctimonious extremism is offensive to someone who has seen more than urban, Carmellite, WASPy privilege.
Folks, let me be clear that I don’t condone violence to advance the cause of animal rights. I am sympathetic to the ALF’s goals, but reject their tactics.
My wife and I have a handful of charities we regularly support as sustaining donors; one is indeed PCRM, which does work with doctors and research institutes to advance medicine that doesn’t use animal subjects. We put our money where our mouths are.
As for the leather, I’m rapidly replacing my shoes and belts with non-animal alternatives. As in so many other areas, I favor an incremental approach.
Henry, I don’t value rats over my father. But human life is not, for me, automatically more valuable than animal life. That’s where I break with most of my fellow Christians, who insist on the uniqueness of the human soul. I understand their theological arguments, but feel very differently. I lost my beloved chinchilla and my beloved father ten days apart this June; I grieved my father more because he had been part of my life since I was born. But was he inherently worth more? As his son, who carries his name and his genes and who adored him, as his son who washed his feet on his deathbed, I can say, with love and gratitude for all he gave me, that the answer is, in the end, no.
Henry, your mileage varies. There’s no need, is there, to be nasty in your attacks?
DJW, that’s not really a great argument, especially for a vegan. If you don’t support killing animals for meat, then why support the byproducts of it? There’s something incredibly sexist about always bringing up fur and never bringing up leather.
The incremental approach is great where it’s necessary. I don’t entirely understand why it’s necessary here, but it’s your choice. I, personally, have always tuned out anyone who was against killing animals at all ever but used them (leather seats in a car, belts, running shoes, winter boots), unless they start out by admitting their hypocrisy and explaining it.
What’s funny is that we start at much the same feeling about animal life: I think it’s very valuable. (All my volunteering and almost all my charity money go for animal based charities.) But I don’t think this means that we should never eat meat, or wear leather, etc. I think it means we need to be mindful of what we’re doing — but is wearing products that are oil-based more ethical? I certainly don’t think we need to stop ever testing on animals, I just think it needs to be done mindfully. (Dissections in high school, though totally fascinating, are not actually necessary.)
Like I said, whether it’s a relevant point depends on the nature of one’s commitment and principles. For many consequentialists, it’s a useful distinction.
Sorry to appear nasty, Hugo, but when you make me understand you value the lives of rats over the life of my little cousin, I will take that as incredibly nasty, even if you mean no harm. You are good-hearted, Hugo, but I will be forever grateful that your piety show is so far out of touch with the values of ordinary people. Debating the inherent worth of the life of a rat versus that of a human is a fun philosophic exercise, but when one wants to say that all research involving animals should be banned, you are saying that humans must become the research animals. A drug must be tested on something for the first time, and if not on animals, it will be on humans. I’d rather a remedy be tested on a few rats before it’s tested on humans.
Opposing all animal testing is for you what sitting on the pillar was for Simeon Stylites. It is a dramatic personal display of piety that makes you feel good inside. But when your personal display of piety comes at the cost of my little’s cousin’s life, you seem incredibly privileged. That is what bothers me so much.
Hugo, good for you re. replacing all your leather with synthetic substitutes. Now how are you going to deal with the fact that many of the non-leather clothes, shoes, etc., you’re wearing are made with a veritable witch’s brew of synthetics made in chemical plants where the by-products are carcinogenic, persistent in the environment, and require vast amounts of energy produced with greenhouse gas emitting power plants? Sure, you could wear clothes, boots, shoes, etc., made entirely of hemp, cotton, linen, and other plant fibres, but I don’t think that you probably do. My guess is that your high-tech running shoes and other gear has a lot of synthetics in them.
You really should look into what’s known in the environmental profession as life cycle analysis before you get too self-assured that what you’re doing is really good for the planet. After all, last I checked poisoning the planet with chemical pollutants, greenhouse gases, etc., isn’t in line with Green philosophies.
I lost my beloved chinchilla and my beloved father ten days apart this June; I grieved my father more because he had been part of my life since I was born. But was he inherently worth more? As his son, who carries his name and his genes and who adored him, as his son who washed his feet on his deathbed, I can say, with love and gratitude for all he gave me, that the answer is, in the end, no.
I’d try again, but I’m speechless now.
evil_fizz quoted Hugo saying: “I lost my beloved chinchilla and my beloved father ten days apart this June; I grieved my father more because he had been part of my life since I was born. But was he inherently worth more? As his son, who carries his name and his genes and who adored him, as his son who washed his feet on his deathbed, I can say, with love and gratitude for all he gave me, that the answer is, in the end, no.”
Wow, I missed this. Thanks e_f for pointing this out.
Hugo, all I can say is that if value your recently-departed chinchilla more than your father (or your mother) then you are in my sincerely humble opinion one severely fucked-up, seriously maladjusted child.
the answer is, in the end, no.
I’d be interested to know how you reconcile this view with pretty much the entire intellectual and philosophical history of the Christian faith.
As for the synthetics in non-leather shoes, I honor the absence of a perfect solution. One of the things that often happens when someone advocates living a cruelty-free or Green lifestyle is that those who aren’t interested in doing so point out that there will be inevitable compromises. It’s nearly impossible to be perfectly vegan, after all. But I won’t let the best be the enemy of the good — I’m taking baby steps as best I can.
Mr. Bad, I never ever said I valued Matilde more than my Dad. I said I wasn’t sure that I value human life more than animal life — that’s a different position. Having gone through the loss of a beloved parent and pet in the same month, I’m in a position to compare the dual griefs. My love for my father doesn’t require that I elevate human life above all other forms of existence.
Ah, here we are at another one of our epistemic gulfs. Mr. Bad, if you persist in labeling a theological and spiritual difference as fucked-up (on my blog), you really, really ought to consider not commenting here anymore.
Wow - I realized you were an animal rights advocate, but I didn’t realize you took it to the point that you believe a human life is no more valuable than an animal’s. I think Robert has a good question. Your earlier statement that you are, what was it, “out of step” with your fellow Christians may be the understatement of the century. You are not out of step, you are on a different planet, and I’m sorry, but it isn’t a Christian one. I know you have a sort of self-discovered, self-designed Christianity, butbyour relative equation of the human and animal souls is basically pagan.
Peter Singer’s views on animals (up to this point) aren’t what defined him as a screwball, but rather his viewpoint on HUMAN animals. Singer supports not only the destruction of unborn human beings, but even, in certain cases, NEWBORN human beings. His chief criterion for whether something is wrong or not is whether the entity you’re killing is suffering while you do it; presumably, if someone smothered Singer’s mother in her sleep, he’d have no real problem with it.
The problem with this view is that it only takes so-called “quality of life” into account. But what’s even more important than quality of life is the VALUE of life.
Those who oppose killing animals in medical research aren’t against cures; they simply disagree on the methodology used. It’s no different from those of us who oppose embryonic stem cell research and somatic cell nuclear transfer (i.e. cloning, which is what that Amendment 2 in Missouri was REALLY all about). We want to see medical progress and relief for those suffering without the killing of other human beings to do it.
His chief criterion for whether something is wrong or not is whether the entity you’re killing is suffering while you do it; presumably, if someone smothered Singer’s mother in her sleep, he’d have no real problem with it.
Nope. This is quite wrong, and an utterly untenable reading of Singer’s ethics. Suffering is at the core of his moral psychology, but it’s a broad view of suffering. Killing a newborn is a potentially morally acceptable for Singer under a precise set of circumstances when (he believes) such an act is likely to reduce aggregate suffering, taking into account the likely future life of the infant, parents, and more.
Look, I find Singer’s conclusions appalling, too, but if you follow his actual argument, rather than reduce it to a strawman, it’s serious, internally consistent and challenging. Per Harriet McBryde Johnson (linked above by evil fizz), there may be good reasons to not only to disagree with him, but to treat his worldview with distain and disgust. But there’s no need to but forth implausible misreadings to make it seem prima facie preposterous.
Sean H said:
I know you have a sort of self-discovered, self-designed Christianity, but your relative equation of the human and animal souls is basically pagan.
Sean H, it’s not even pagan. At the very best, it’s petty bourgeois self-righteousness, grounded in a bizarre Californian “if it feels good, do it” kind of hedonism. That it is presented here as some sort of enlightened spirituality is absurd. The philosophy Hugo is espousing is a crock, as are most of his asserted beliefs.
Insulin –> Developed by research on dogs by Banting and Best.
Polio Vaccine–> Developed in monkeys
Discovery of Prions, the causative agent of Mad Cow –> testing on chimpanzees
Imagine Hugo, if animal testing had been banned in 1920. Type one diabetes, Small pox, Polio… these would be killing millions of people today! They would be death sentences, if it weren’t for animal testing… Let alone the tremendous strides we’ve taken with the treatment of cancer and HIV…. We wouldn’t know half the things we do about our nervous systems, our immune systems, our cardiovascular systems..
The fact is, that at the level that science is now, we are still irrevocably to bound to the use of in vivo model systems… I think that in the future, with genomics and bioinformatics, this will change, but to forcibly prohibit it would cause a completely unnecessary amount of human suffering.
And animal suffering does factor into research ethics. Especially in the case of animals like monkeys and dogs, You have to prove that it is necessary, and that there is no way around it to an ethics commitee…
Besides, from what I remember, animal testing accounts for a fraction of the number of animal deaths caused by automobiles……
Jorge, Sean, I’m not familiar with this myself (not being a Christian), but there are a variety of groups of Christians who argue that vegan ideals are deeply Christian. I suspect many of them deliberately reject the notion that human life as such is more valuable than non-human animal life as such, and have deep theological reasons for doing so. A quick Google search for `christian vegan’ turned up a variety of results, including several pages that give explicitly Christian arguments for veganism. It may be the case that Hugo is far outside the mainstream of contemporary American Christianity, but that’s a far cry from claiming that veganism is intrinsically inconsistent with Christianity as such.
wedgeoli, only the most radical (and usually the most violent) of animal rights activists believe medical research on animals should end completely right now. Hugo may or may not take this position, but I — and many other vegetarians and vegans — believe the biomedical industry has a strong moral imperative to develop methods that would remove the need for all or almost all uses of non-human animals as test subjects. We can understand the need for using non-human animals as a necessary evil now, but believe it is just as important to develop cruelty-free testing methods as it is to continue the search for treatments for cancers, HIV, Pakinsons, and so on. We also believe that there’s lots of room for improvement in the way non-human animals are used to test subjects — as far as I know, highly intelligent, social animals like chimps used as test subjects are still kept physically isolated from each other, confined to small cages that don’t really give them room to move around, and completely deprived of any sort of intellectual stimulation. Does testing HIV drugs on chimps and other apes — creatures that really aren’t that far off from humans in terms of their need for social contact and stimulating experiences — really require treating them the same way we treat the worst criminal offenders?
We also believe that there’s lots of room for improvement in the way non-human animals are used to test subjects — as far as I know, highly intelligent, social animals like chimps used as test subjects are still kept physically isolated from each other, confined to small cages that don’t really give them room to move around, and completely deprived of any sort of intellectual stimulation.
Room for improvement in how test subjects are treated I’ll buy in some cases (though I don’t think the rats and mice are especially badly treated). But for me, that’s more like a factory farming vs. free range farming issue - the animals that you do use should be treated with as little unnecessary cruelty as possible. Actually getting rid of non-human test subjects isn’t even a long-term goal for me; I see far too much medical benefit to their use to be anti-vivisection.
Does testing HIV drugs on chimps and other apes — creatures that really aren’t that far off from humans in terms of their need for social contact and stimulating experiences — really require treating them the same way we treat the worst criminal offenders?
Require, no. But money is frequently tight in research protocols and merely acquiring a chimp or a rhesus monkey is a huge expenditure. Lab space frequently is inadequate to provide a better environment. Those things in combination frequently preclude having multiple animals in one space to better accommodate social needs.
I think that my problem with this is the same as the problem I’ve frequently had with Hugo’s abortion posts: I have no idea what he’s actually advocating here. Are you saying that at some nebulous future date, when we have achieved human perfection, all animal testing will stop, and that in the meantime you don’t want to donate your money in ways that support animal testing? Or do you think that all current medical research should be ended today, no matter what the consequences? Do you think that animal testing should be illegal? And if so, do you also think that meat-eating should be illegal? You’ve said in the past that you don’t think that meat-eating is a clear issue, and you can understand how some people would feel compelled to keep eating meat. Have you changed your stance on this, or do you see ending life-saving research as somehow simple and straightforward in a way that denying people their cheeseburgers isn’t?
I suspect that this is a viable position for you to take because, unlike in the case of abortion, you know that you’re not actually going to succeed on this one anytime soon. I guess I do think it would be harder to oppose medical research if there actually were a chance that your stance would prevent the saving of human lives. I could be wrong about that, but I’d like to think not.
I favor redirecting research funds towards the use of non-animal subjects. I favor changing hearts and minds to turn folks away from the meat industry, while simultaneously increasing regulation to protect animals. I do favor an immediate outright ban on fur production, with a waiver for indigenous communities.
It’s all about hearts and minds, as with abortion. And it’s also all about dollars.
How would that happen? And how would it work? Would it be the kind of back-door ban that we’ve seen with embryonic stem cells? And if so, why not have the courage to outlaw it altogether?
As with abortion, I don’t think hearts and minds is going to work, because the stakes are too high. For instance, in the past week or so, the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the UK found out that his infant son has cystic fibrosis. CF is an incurable, genetic condition. It’s always fatal, but thanks to medical intervention, people with CF are living into adulthood. The average lifespan of someone with CF is 31. That’s a lot of time to do the research necessary to find a cure, but it’s not the lifespan anyone would want for his or her kid. And there is frenzied research going on in the hopes of finding a cure, much of it involving animals. I don’t think very many fathers would deny their kids a chance to reach middle age in order to save some mice. You might, but I don’t think that would be typical. And the guy in charge of Britain’s finances, and the guy who will probably be the next prime minister, is one such father. I suspect there’s nothing you could ever say or do that would change his heart or mind. Given a real, not abstract, choice between his son and a mouse, I think he’d choose his son.
You aren’t going to convince most people to sacrifice themselves for your ideals. If you want to sacrifice people to your beliefs, you’re going to have to use coercion, I think.
with a waiver for indigenous communities
This I don’t get. Do you think the slaughtered animals care about the ethnicity of the people who kill them?
Look, I find Singer’s conclusions appalling, too, but if you follow his actual argument, rather than reduce it to a strawman, it’s serious, internally consistent and challenging.
His arguments tend to very artificial and limited so as to direct the reader to a pre-ordained conclusion.
mythago, I don’t get that sense from Singer at all. He strikes me as someone who takes his own philosophical principles far more seriously than moral intuition–his or anyone elses. I recall reading an interview somewhere that he only became a vegetarian after he had figured out that speciesism was an objectionable philosophical position.
Again, I don’t like his method (sound moral theorizing must take both principle and moral intuition into account, using them to trouble each other) or his conclusions, but on his own terms he’s a formidable and consistent thinker. By artificiality, I presume you mean his overreliance on (often fantastical) thought experiments. If this is the case, your beef is with contemporary analytic philosophy, not Peter Singer.
How so? What would be the benefit of that admittance (assuming it’s true…)?
The truth is reason enough, actually. It’s very telling that you think admitting the truth is only wise if it’s a truth you want to believe.
Sally, the great story of previous centuries has been the extension of rights to beings previously denied those rights — women, slaves, gays and lesbians, and so forth. That’s the glory of the Western narrative. And animals are in the queue. But I may not live long enough to see the happy day when we no longer conduct animal experiments. But I know where my money goes and where my very limited influence is expended.
We all know that certain injustices in the past were not recognized in the same way as they were years later. Society in Roman times didn’t recognize the evils of racism in the way we do today. Recognizing that there are evils in our society today that we as a people don’t see clearly, you seem to be trying to get out ahead of your time to recognize those evils today. That goal is admirable, but where does it end? Are you next going to equate the inherent value of my little cousin with that of the coliform in your fecal matter? Will your great-grandchildren?
Just saying that history shows a progression of expanding tolerance to ever-increasingly more of the oppressed does not mean that your cause of the moment is one of those oppressed categories. Your little piety shows are fine, but when they come at the cost of my little cousin, they say something about your sense of entitlement. My little cousin’s life is not yours to spend. Simeon Stylites didn’t force my little cousin to sit on the pillar with him, and I’d like to ask you to stop doing the same.
And the rats and mice and monkeys that will be given tumors are not yours to use for any cause, Henry, not even for your little cousin.
Look, let’s drop this before it gets unpleasant. The emotions run too high, I feel, and I sense that my position tempts you to incivility.
*Before* it gets unpleasant? Hugo, are you genuinely unaware of the fact that you position reads to many of us as insulting our loved ones? As devaluing them? And it is absolutely infuriating that you want to call for civility when it appears (emphasis on appears) that you are directly insulting at least some of your readers.
I am not sure how much more of this thread I can stand without being tempted into incivility myself, but I worry that you are misunderstanding how genuinely offensive this position is to many people.
Henry wrote:
Your little piety shows are fine, but when they come at the cost of my little cousin, they say something about your sense of entitlement.
Who is your little cousin and why do you keep mentioning him or her?
As for Hugo’s sense of entitlement, I agree. I suspect that for Hugo it’s really not about the life of animals who would be the subjects of medical experiments. It is probably much more about living a stereotypical left-wing California lifestyle and proclaiming his alleged righteousness to the world on this blog. Narcissists crave attention. That’s what I see here.
Whoever your cousin is, I wish him or her good health and happiness.
I’ve made my point in this discussion, so I’ll just answer the question from Jorge. My cousin is a little guy who has Type I diabetes. He wouldn’t be alive today without the fruits of animal research.
Even with the best technology we have today, he still needs to be hooked up to an insulin pump and very carefully monitor his blood sugar. He’s pretty cool about it: even as a little guy, he’s learned how to prick his finger and get the blood sugar reading. But I hope that one day, he won’t even need the pump and the finger pricking. That day will never come without animal testing.
Evil_fizz, there is a large movement of folks who oppose animal research. I am trying to represent that movement civilly; I am being called names (without doing so in return). Positions are not uncivil; rhetoric is.
Jorge, please don’t comment here further.
I really don’t get what’s so offensive about Hugo’s position here. I think his absolutist position on animal testing for medical research is misguided and mistaken. But he’s not doing anything more than articulating a prima facie plausible moral position, and he’s directing his own consumption, charitable giving, and persuasive rhetorical powers toward that position. As long as he’s not advocating a law banning all animal research immediately, or working to shut down research facilities by force, I don’t really get what’s upsetting people so much.
As someone who (like Hugo) thinks moral progress is possible, but (unlike Hugo) has little confidence about what the direction of that progress will be, I think it’s crucial that we have people living by different moral principles and codes, and articulating those principles and codes*. I suspect Hugo’s position isn’t correct, but I also expect that the ways in which it’s incorrect will perhaps guide us to better understand our moral duties toward non-human life (I’m convinced we’re very far from understanding what those are right now), as will other incorrect positions on how to live amongst animals. This is a serious moral challenge we face, and I welcome honest, serious, non-freedom reducing efforts to figure it out, even if they seem incorrect to me right now.
*as long as the way they do so doesn’t diminish the equal freedom of others to live by their own moral code. This caveat is pretty crucial, and explains why I think ALF-types belong in jail. But Hugo isn’t advocating or practicing their sort of freedom reducing behavior.
Positions are not uncivil; rhetoric is.
Quite frankly, I disagree. But I think this territory has been covered before with limited results.
As long as he’s not advocating a law banning all animal research immediately, or working to shut down research facilities by force, I don’t really get what’s upsetting people so much.
I think that would be the appearance that Hugo doesn’t care about human suffering. And the appearance of devaluing human life in favor of lab rats. It might be ethically coherent, but it’s still coming off as pretty objectionable. Against, emphasis on appearance.
My own conclusion is that people who oppose all animal research and I are starting from fundamentally different (and incompatible) first principles. Hugo’s position, to me, seems ignorant and misguided. I’m sure mine seems uncaring or something similar to him.
the appearance of devaluing human life in favor of lab rats
This is an unfair way to read his position. Would Hugo endorse laboratory tests on humans to reduce rat suffering? He can, of course, correct me if I’m wrong but it’s clear enough to me the answer is no. So he’s not devaluing human life, he’s raising lives currently devalued to a status either similar or identical to human life. The difference isn’t trivial. Did the idea that women’s lives ought to be worth as much as men’s “devalue” men’s lives?
Hugo doesn’t care about human suffering.
He thinks that certain means of relieving human suffering are morally impermissible. (So, I’m guessing, do you. You just have different items on your list.) That’s not at all the same thing as not caring about human suffering. If you read this blog, you see far more posts about the problems of human suffering than you do about the problems of animal suffering. Unless you think he’s a habitual liar, you *know* Hugo cares about human suffering.
Look, just about everyone I know believes that relieving human suffering is a good thing, and that there are moral limits on our treatment of animals. Until we figure out exactly what the nature of our moral limits and duties with regards to animals are, we’re going to disagree. As we disagree, we’ll end up drawing different lines about what to do when these imperatives come into conflict. I hope we all figure it out together some day, but until then I welcome challenging, public articulations of potentially misguided positions.
This is an unfair way to read his position.
Hence the emphasis on appears. It might not be the correct reading of Hugo’s position (I doubt that it is), but given the number of comments interpreting it this way, I think it’s disingenuous of Hugo to pretend that he doesn’t understand the name calling and level of agitation among some of his commenters.
That’s not at all the same thing as not caring about human suffering.
I realize, but it’s not doing Hugo any PR favors. Which is my point. The appearance of callousness and devaluation is the problem.
Of course, it’s sort of ironic. Under Hugo’s “not forgoing the advances we’ve already made” theory, Henry’s cousin makes out just fine.
I don’t think the point of this blog is PR. He’s articulating a moral position in clear, straightforward prose. Does his position “appear” to be something it’s not becuase of his wording/prose/tone? It’s perfectly clear to me what he’s saying. Simply because it’s possible, plausible, and even commonplace to engage in uncharitable and unfair readings doesn’t mean he’s responsible for them. I understand disagreement–strong disagreement–with his position.
I *do* happen to think it’s probably incorrect to elevate animal suffering to the same level of moral concern as human suffering, but “because it appears callous to humans” isn’t anywhere near close to a real justification for denying animals that level of moral consideration. If that’s the best we can do to respond to that position, the “all animals are equal” crowd would seem to be winning.
I *do* happen to think it’s probably incorrect to elevate animal suffering to the same level of moral concern as human suffering, but “because it appears callous to humans” isn’t anywhere near close to a real justification for denying animals that level of moral consideration.
It’s not a philosophical argument, to be sure. (Well, I suppose you might shoehorn it in into Kass’s Wisdom of Repugnance, but that’s not a theory I’d care to defend.) However, I think it’s absolutely critical that if your position prompts a strong visceral reaction from others, it’s worth understanding that, even if the response is from what the author might think is a misreading of their position.
Unrelatedly, I must admit, I am still curious to know what research the Physicians Committee on Responsible Medicine can actually fund.
Hugo claimed: “Mr. Bad, I never ever said I valued Matilde more than my Dad. I said I wasn’t sure that I value human life more than animal life — that’s a different position.” , however, his words were: “I lost my beloved chinchilla and my beloved father ten days apart this June; I grieved my father more because he had been part of my life since I was born. But was he inherently worth more? As his son, who carries his name and his genes and who adored him, as his son who washed his feet on his deathbed, I can say, with love and gratitude for all he gave me, that the answer is, in the end, no.”
Hugo, you’re trying to weasel out of this and I’m not buying it. Now if you want to redact what you said above, that’s fine, but don’t try to tell me that you were making a general case. Nowhere do you mention ‘human’ or ‘animal’ life, you specifically state that “as his son, who carries his name and his genes and who adored him, as his son who washed his feet on his deathbed, I can say, with love and gratitude for all he gave me, that the answer is, in the end, no.” The comment is specifically refers to your father, not humans in general. I understand that you take exception to the position that placing the life of a rodent above the life of your parent is IMHO (in lieu of my more colorful characterization and in hindsight regret making - sorry Hugo) severely dysfunctional, psychologically maladjusted - perhaps bordering on pathological - and approaches misathropy, but so be it. We disagree on a great many things, and as you correctly note on this matter we’re as far apart as we could possibly be. I don’t find your position “offensive,” and even if I did that would be a trivial reason to disagree with it; IMHO such a stance is, with all due respect, just plain sicko.
You also stated: “I do favor an immediate outright ban on fur production, with a waiver for indigenous communities.” Which indigenous communities? My ancestors are of Northern European descent and wore furs (and spun wool garments) long before they learned how to make clothes out of flax and later, cotton. Therefore I believe that I have every bit as much right to be included in your fur- and leather-wearing “indigenous” category as anyone else, however, I doubt you had people like me in mind for exclusion from bans on fur-wearing.
Also: ” But I may not live long enough to see the happy day when we no longer conduct animal experiments.” Heh, would you rather go back to early days of medical research where we experimented on wounded soldiers and prisoners, who for all practical purposes were exclusively men? People like you (i.e., feminists and pro-feminist men) seem to have no problem with the injustice of early medical research where the only ones to be sujected to primitive, dangerous, at times barbaric, experiments were men who much of the time had no choice re. consenting to such research. What would you offer as an alternative?
Don’t get me wrong, I abhor animal suffering, but realize that at times it’s the best option vis-a-vis progress in medical research.
By artificiality, I presume you mean his overreliance on (often fantastical) thought experiments. If this is the case, your beef is with contemporary analytic philosophy, not Peter Singer.
Hate the playa, not the game?
You can’t really give Singer credit for being a brillant and original thinker at the same time as you excuse his missteps by saying gee, it’s not his fault, it’s this darn contemporary analytic philosophy he’s stuck with.
I have serious reservations about that particular methodological choice made my virtually all ethical and political philosophers working in contemporary analytic philosophy, but I still think important, and yes, “brilliant and original” work can be done within that set of constraints.
Oops. Hugo, you’re correct, you never stated that the life of your father was worth less than that of a rodent, you said that it was not worth more. A fine distinction, but I suppose important to your position, which I think I understand now. That said, my opinion of that position has not changed; IMHO a parent’s life is worth more to their children than other human’s, and human life is worth more than other life forms, animal, plant and otherwise.
Call me hierarchical and cold. So be it.
but I still think important, and yes, “brilliant and original” work can be done within that set of constraints
But you can’t excuse flaws in the work by saying he’s stuck with the constraints. At best that means his work is just not quite brilliant and original enough to get outside the box.
I really don’t think it’s a matter of constraints, so much as Singer’s deliberate choice to conduct thought-experiments in a way to direct the listener to a pre-ordained conclusion. If it was good enough for Plato it’s certainly good enough for Peter Singer.
The flaws of the thought experiment method are many, but there are a lot of thinkers, and it’s my view that Singer is one of them, who actually treat thought experiments as exactly that. Singer–in both interviews and writings–strikes me as someone whose utmost commitment isn’t to animal rights or any other particular set of policy conclusions. It is his brand of utilitarian ethics, and he takes that whereever it leads him.
I don’t understand this, Hugo. At least, I don’t understand it if you think that “civility” is a virtue that counts for anything. To me, content matters more than form. To me, by far the most offensive thing that anyone on this thread has said is Amanda’s contention that Peter Singer’s call for the murder of disabled babies makes sense and is questionable only because of the slippery slope. Singer’s argument is that because disabled people are miserable and a burden on society, it is acceptable to kill disabled babies. It’s not, mind you, acceptable to kill any other babies. There’s something especially worthless about disabled people which makes their mass murder acceptable. I don’t care how civilly and rationally you frame that argument: it’s monstrous, it’s evil, and it’s outside the bounds of what decent people might think. I think I could have responded to Amanda using the worst, least civil language I could think of, and it still wouldn’t have been anywhere near as offensive as what she said, very politely and civilly.
The NY Times article that evilfizz linked above is a lot about this issue. Peter Singer just can’t understand why Harriet McBryde Johnson, who is clearly so accomplished and smart, takes the question of her value so personally. After all, he’s being perfectly polite and civil. Why can’t she politely and civilly explain to him why the world wouldn’t be better off without her? And Johnson is horrified at finding herself arguing against her own murder, as if that’s even something that should be on the table. To her, the civility of the discussion is the thing that makes it so disturbing, because it adds a veneer of legitimacy to positions that should only be greeted with outrage.
At any rate, I think you’re underestimating the personal stake that other people have in this issue. I know that you think you have a personal stake, too, because you lost your father. And obviously, we all have a personal stake, since most people will get sick one day. But I hope you’ll try to understand what this sounds like to those of us dealing with chronic illness and pinning hopes on the research that is currently being conducted. This is a little different from your father’s position, since you didn’t actually begrudge your father any treatment that was available to him. Your father got the best treatment that anyone could provide him. What you’re saying is that in your perfect world, I wouldn’t get the best possible treatment, that I wouldn’t have the opportunities afforded to your father. I know that you think you would have let your father suffer and die to save a mouse, but that’s awfully easy to say in the abstract, and this isn’t abstract for those of us who are still alive and who have hopes of living long enough to benefit from current and future research. Yours may be a valid philosophical position, but it’s one where I pay the price for your virtue, and it just seems like basic compassion and decency would compel you to try to think about why this sounds different to me than it does to you.
And I guess that you might also take into account that medical research has reflected our society’s biases and inequities, and that if we stop it now, we forgo the chance to correct that. That’s a big one for me, because for whatever reason, autoimmune diseases were really neglected in the past. It’s probably partly that they’re hard to study, but it’s also partly that they primarily affect women, and especially women of color, and therefore haven’t been high priorities. There’s recently been a big push to rectify that and to correct for decades of neglect by increasing Federal research funds, among other things. But there hasn’t been enough time for those efforts to bear fruit, so people with autoimmune conditions are stuck with pretty lousy options, such as long-term use of drugs with terrible side effects. In this debate, you cast yourself as the one on the side of the angels. You’re akin to the anti-racists, and I’m akin to the racists. You’re akin to the feminists, and I’m akin to the sexists. But you’re the one here who is condemning women and people of color to continued suffering. You’ve decided that forgoing a chance to rectify racism and sexism is an acceptable price to pay for what you’ve determined is a more-important goal. That may be true, but there’s a price to pay for it, and right now you’re not the one who’s going to have to pay it. So let’s not pretend that the social justice issues here are straightforward and only cut one way.
That’s only true if you think the current longterm outlook for people with type 1 diabetes qualifies as “just fine.” I don’t know much about this, but don’t a lot of people with diabetes still end up with very serious complications?
Sally,
You’re a good writer.
I have been suppressing all that I would be able to say to Hugo - curse words.
Excellent post, Sally.
I have to agree with all that Sally wrote except her characterizaton that past medical research discriminated against women. In fact, it did not, it spared women exposure to the primitive and often times barabaric, untested methods being studied and in fact was discriminatory against men, especially African American men. However, strictly by the numbers, in the Western world more white men sacrificed their lives and well-being for medical research than any other racial or ethnic group of men.
It has only been since medical research has become safe and strictly regulated and controlled that women were brought into it; before that researchers consider it too risky to conduct on women. Therefore, past medical research is yet another example of feminism turning reality completely on its head and characterizing female privilege as somehow ‘oppressive’ to women.
I would hesitate to say that medical research is now “safe and strictly regulated and controlled” on anyone.
Experiments on men: They left women out!!
Experiments on women: We’re just guinea pigs!!
I almost can’t even listen to it any more.
At the ultimate risk of being banned, I have to say that I really agree with the content of Jorge’s last post before he was banned by Hugo.
In these issues, motive or motivation plays a big role. I sometimes wonder why the concern for a rodent is almost greater than the concern for a human being.
By the way, for the vegetarians out there: Plants are also life. Maybe the next step is to give plants rights.
Hugo, riddle me this: if a vicious dog (or rat, or whatever) mauls a kid to death without provocation, is it OK to euthanize it?
Hugo, just friendly advice, but I’m not sure that I would personally post all of this stuff that you do if you are also involved in leading groups of kids.
If I was a parent in your district, I would immediately take measures to make sure that my kid got nowhere near you.
I can’t see this web site as being something good for you, although I suspect that most people will simply avoid you, or stay away from you, or keep their kids away from you, instead of telling you that face-to-face.
Poindexter, I teach junior college and have tenure. And several priests at All Saints Pasadena read my blog!
I don’t know much about this, but don’t a lot of people with diabetes still end up with very serious complications?
Sure: heart disease, kidney disease, blindness, nervous system damage, amputations, sexual dysfunction. Here’s an American Diabetes Association page on complications of diabetes.
And with that, Poindexter, you’ve earned a ban. All future comments by you will be deleted.
mythago said: “I would hesitate to say that medical research is now “safe and strictly regulated and controlled” on anyone.”
Well, you obviously have little to no experience in medical research. In fact, Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) are exremely thorough about the details - indeed, the minutiae - of any research dealing with humans, ranging from everything from e.g., experimental surgical techniques to studying how people feel about unsalted potato chips. In fact, IRBs also even review protocols for animal studies in order to make sure that the animals are treated with at least a basic level of humaneness.
It’s a far cry from the days of “Men, stand there in the open and watch that nuclear blast. It will look really cool and you can tell us what it was like when we come out of the lead- and concrete-lined bunker where we’ll be waiting until it’s safe, er, over.”
Mr. Bad, I have a lot of experience with human subjects research. It’s much improved, but it’s still far from safe in plenty of cases.
Perhaps e_f, but I have never seen a case of where the subjects were deliberately exposed to potential morbidity and mortality the way men were in the past, and I’ve been doing this kind of research for decades now.
“The truth is reason enough, actually. It’s very telling that you think admitting the truth is only wise if it’s a truth you want to believe.”
No dear, I was asking your opinion, as you didn’t elaborate…
“To me, by far the most offensive thing that anyone on this thread has said is Amanda’s contention that Peter Singer’s call for the murder of disabled babies makes sense and is questionable only because of the slippery slope.”
Thank you Sally…good to know I’m not the only one. Love the way my question to her….’how would it be beneficial for people to know this?’ was twisted into my only accepting something as truth if I want to believe it.
I wanted to know, in what circumstances, or how , does Ms. Marcotte believe it to be beneficial for people to admit to themselves that a newborn human is less cognizant than a full-grown dog cat or pig.
The reason I said ‘assuming it’s true’ is because you offered no proof of the assertion, Ms. Marcotte.
I’m not holding my breath, though…
By the way, the blog and responses are much easier to read, it looks very nice,Hugo.
Oh yes, the troll’s last resort, whining for proof. You said, “assuming it is true,” crella. Assuming it is true, then truth is all the justification we need to know it.
http://garyfrancione.blogspot.com/2006/11/peter-singer-supports-vivisection-why.html
FYI: Excellent commentary article, worth a look. I support Hugo’s reasoning all the way, having also had a father who died of cancer. Vivisectionists have a tidy little profiteering racket going, which is why there will be no “cure for cancer” (a TRILLION dollar business and it’s not news that people will kill for money, especially if they’ve devalued the lives they sacrifice in order to squelch public objection) anytime soon: http://www.matildesmission.org/Ranchies/CbC.htm#exposingvivi
IMO, the question isn’t really, “will animal sacrifices save humanity” but instead, “are there more relevant alternatives that don’t victimize animals?” Our resources should be put into actively pursuing those options, not wasting time and money torturing animals for results that are fundamentally inapplicable to humans.
The public only buys into the presumed usefulness of vivisection due to their ignorance of the intricacies of the subject at hand, they respond to the “us or them” fear propaganda because they naively trust what they’re told by those in positions of authority (the scientists, researchers, etc., getting fat from “necessary” animal research grants).
The truth is that vivisection kills people, not just animals, and there are pages of quotes from those in the scientific and medical communities that hav