Showing papers on "Animal rights published in 1986"

The Case for Animal Experimentation: An Evolutionary and Ethical Perspective

Abstract: Alternatives to Animal Use in Research, Testing, and Education, by the Office of Technology Assessment, 441 pp, with illus, $16, Washington, DC, Office of Technology Assessment, 1986. In considering books on animal rights, it is wise to remember several things. First, if there were no evidence that using animals for research, testing, and educational purposes was helpful, current practices of animal use would soon disappear. Second, if, for example, we could be assured of curing cancer by sacrificing another 100 laboratory rats, those who lead the battle against the use of animals in laboratories would search in vain for followers. Third, we all agree to, and contribute to, inflicting death and pain on animals, eg, centipedes, disease-carrying mosquitos, rabid dogs, and rats in our pantries. And fourth, if the purposes or certain forms of education could be served by technological devices rather than animals, current practices (eg, surgical training using

Ethical issues in animal experimentation: view of the animal rightist.

Abstract: The basic stand-point of the animal rightist is that other animals than man are living beings also capable of feeling pain and distress, pleasure and joy. The capacity for suffering we have in common with other animals. This is quite obvious from the biological point of view and, in point of fact, a prerequisite for a lot of animal experimentation, the results of which would be invalid if the likeness was false. There would be no need for ethics of any kind, if man was not sentient. However, since sentience is a characteristic of other animals as well as man, logically the ethics applied to mankind must be extended to encompass all animals. For the animal rightist it is apparent that not only man, but other animals, too, must be attributed an intrinsic value. Consequently, using animals in procedures to which they would not consent, if they were able to speak for themselves, and which are carried out solely because of the means of power man possesses and the other animals lack, and are used to exploit those who are less powerful, is not good ethics. It is the dirty reality of oppression, based on prejudice, which is of the same brand as racism or sexism, but was given its own name, symptomatically, only 15 years ago, namely speciesism. Power is the key to animal experimentation, on the industrial, university, legislative and individual level. There is a growing public concern about animals being used in experiments, which must be taken into account by animal experimenters, regulation authorities and politicians alike. The question of animal rights is a political issue with wide-reaching implications for man and other animals, if animal experiments were reduced, replaced or totally abolished. The great number of animal experiments do not benefit mankind, only various groups of people, who for different reasons have an interest in experiments on animals being carried out. Would there be a bigger benefit to society as a whole, including man, other animals and nature--thus adopting an ecological view of the world--if experiments on animals were to cease? It is a fallacy to believe that the gains for medical treatment of people (or other animals) have been so great that it would in any way support the common argument from animal experimenters about the "necessity" of animal experimentation.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

The rights of humans and other animals.

Abstract: Animals have occupied a precarious, often changing position in the major moral traditions of Western thought. Viewed as reincarnations of human souls in Eastern thought, they have been denied not only souls but awareness in others. And while some theories argue that we have duties directly to sentient animals, others maintain that all our duties involving these animals are indirect duties to humanity. The implications of these approaches for animal experimentation will be explained, as will the fundamental difference between the philosophy of animal rights, on the one hand, and these traditional approaches, on the other. That philosophy is categorically abolitionist in its implications concerning the harmful use of animals in science, whereas the traditional approaches are reformist at best.

Moral community and the responsibility of scientists.

Abstract: There is a quaint term in English for describing the science of the care and production of domestic animals--animal husbandry. While not particularly useful as a description of the scientific methods by which such production is achieved, the term does capture what I believe is the moral ethos which ought to govern the scientific treatment of animals in the context of scientific experimentation. While great attention has been given to the claims of some philosophers and animal welfare advocates that animals have rights, less attention has been paid either to alternative foundations for conferring moral standing on animals, or, on the nature of the duties and responsibilities that would arise if it were true that animals could be said to have moral rights. I will argue that animals, or most animals, cannot reasonably be said to have moral rights. And even if one decides to stretch this term to include all animals, it cannot be done without conflating what I believe to be important differences in the moral standing of humans and animals. Rather than attempt to motivate humane treatment and reduction in animal use on the basis of animal rights I argue that scientists have an obligation, based upon their duty to care for the helpless and the powerless who can nonetheless be wronged, to act as stewards toward animals. Husbandry carries the connotation of care for a household and I believe this is the ethos that should pervade the animal laboratory or storage facility.

Creating a private cause of action against abusive animal research.

Abstract: Animals have been the subject of scientific research and experimentation since the third century BC1 Although painful experiments are no longer justified by resorting to the Cartesian view that animals are simply machines,2 research on animals continues in the hope of discovering answers to medical and biological questions With the development of an active movement for the recognition of animal rights, however, both the use of animals in research and the pain that is inflicted on them in the name of science are coming under increasing scrutiny3 Scientists have exercised almost exclusive control over the use of animals to further scientific knowledge As a number of commentators have shown, however, the scientific community often fails to account adequately for animals' interests in research projects4 Examples of questionable research include the mutilation of cats to observe the effects of physical changes on their sex lives,5 subjecting baboons to simulated car accidents to test the safety of automobiles,6 and administering doses of radiation to monkeys to test the effect on their ability to turn a wheel7

'His Heart Exposed to Prying Eyes, To Pity Has No Claim': Reflections on Hogarth and the Nature of Cruelty

Abstract: In his famous discussion of the source of our duties concerning anirrals, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant approvingly mentions a series of engravings ( \"The Four Stages of Cruelty\") by the English artist William Hogarth as exemplifying one of his central contentions. [2] The approach to our duties regarding anirrals advocated by Kant holds that avoiding cruelty is the most fUndamental duty we can have to nonhuman animals. For convenience, I shall refer to this view as the \"No-Cruelty\" j:X)sition. It is not surprising that Kant cites Hogarth while explaining his own views; Hogarth's engravings provide a rich visual statement about the nature of cruelty and the moral status of its victims.

The physician's stake in animal research.

Abstract: To the Editor.— Dr Wyngaarden's recent editorial 1 regarding the use of animals in biomedical research is narrowly focused, does not take into account the broad-based nature of support in the United States of radical animal rights groups, and smacks of an arrogance unbecoming to the medical profession. The recommendations made for countering animal rights advocates will only galvanize them into greater activity. As a speaker for the American Cancer Society in California to numerous lay groups, I have been impressed by the skepticism of the general public toward medical "advances." They do not share the dream (or is it fantasy?) that increased knowledge of the human body will solve the problems of suffering and premature death. Indeed, there is a growing awareness that illness can only be understood within the broader context of the whole culture. Organ transplants, bypass surgery, and mood-controlling drugs are seen by many as mixed