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The rights and wrongs of experiments on animals

  
  

Page: 12(3)4

 
 
PlanetNiles
21:27 / 25.02.06
I have a very simplistic attitude to this whole question. It doesn't tackle any of the nuances of the topic nor does it attempt to approach the aspects of ethics and morals. However it does ask what I feel to be a very important question, which is as follows. (Some people might want to look away now.)

Given that some forms of medication, which will save human lives, do need to be tested I'd like to ask those who are opposed to animal testing if they would themselves be willing to replace the animal on the vivisectionist's table.
 
 
Lurid Archive
21:45 / 25.02.06
Much as someone who opposes slavery would need to be prepared to work with no pay. You *have* to exploit someone, after all.
 
 
Saltation
12:55 / 26.02.06
LuridArchive vs PlanetNiles: LA: you have a valid point. PN: you have a valid point. the two points are NOT mutually exclusive.
 
 
nyarlathotep's shoe horn
19:21 / 26.02.06
so typed PlanetNiles:
Given that some forms of medication, which will save human lives, do need to be tested I'd like to ask those who are opposed to animal testing if they would themselves be willing to replace the animal on the vivisectionist's table.

I'm opposed to animal testing, organ transplantation, xenotransplantation, vivisection, dissection, factory farming, and a whole host of other cruel exercises that we practice (reasons nonwithstanding, these are still our collective actions)...

as such, I wouldn't put any living thing in the test chair or the vivisectionist's table. I accept that at some point, my body's going to die, my heart, liver, lungs and brain with it, and don't need huge industries to develop medications.

at some point in our history, we used to observe animals to discover what plants contained medicines (bears in parts North America are considered healers for this very reason). When did such violent, cruel interference become de riguer?

I don't feel that my death is so terrible that I need to expose any other living thing to unnecessary cruelty during the course of my life.

some things just kill you, and we all die. let's get used to it and make life together a little more bearable, instead of a lot less.

--not jack
 
 
Evil Scientist
07:42 / 27.02.06
at some point in our history, we used to observe animals to discover what plants contained medicines (bears in parts North America are considered healers for this very reason).

Why bother even doing this if, as you then say...

some things just kill you, and we all die. let's get used to it

A nice way of looking at the world, everyone calmly accepting their fate and dying with peace and dignity.

Of course some of those "things" that "just kill you" don't allow for a quiet graceful death. In fact most of them involve a great deal of pain and suffering before the end comes.

Why should we have to get used to it? At no point in our species development (including those oh so romantic pre-technological times) have we ever shown a desire to accept random messy death as something not to be avoided.

I'm glad that you're accepting of your death, and I agree that people should mentally come to terms with their mortality. But to suggest that medical treatment should be refused on the grounds that we all die eventually seems rather ridiculous to me.
 
 
PlanetNiles
11:30 / 27.02.06
Lurid Archive posted:
Much as someone who opposes slavery would need to be prepared to work with no pay. You *have* to exploit someone, after all.

Not at all. This is much as a pacifist living in a period of Total War must use their skills to ensure victory or risk, at the very least, their way of life.

For example during the second world war British pacifists defused bombs, deciphered codes, spied on the enemy, organised logistics and invented the devices that evolved into the machines we're currently using to debate this topic; pretty much the whole of the Political Warfare Executive were pacifists of one stripe or another.

I use the term total war unresevably because disease and, its master, poverty take no prisoners and obey no conventions or moratoriums.

In response to not jack:
My life partner is kept alive by medications that have been tested on animals. Her quality of life is good, however without her medications it would quickly degrade and she would die.

Are you going to be the person explaining to our children that mummy wouldn't be coming home any more "but at least no animals will have to die to keep her alive..."
 
 
Lurid Archive
12:05 / 27.02.06
I use the term total war unresevably because disease and, its master, poverty take no prisoners and obey no conventions or moratoriums.

And I'm saying that this is a silly argument. For a start, there are lots of things we could do to alleviate poverty, in terms of wealth redistribution. Comparing, as is often done, the Swedish and US systems of health care, it is hard to escape the conclusion that a nationalised health system available to all without reservation is vastly superior in terms of saving lives and improving the quality of life. I suspect this far outstrips the gains made by cutting edge medical tech, especially if we were to extend it to the third world. However, your "total war" makes no mention of the absolute necessity of these kinds of wealth redistribution.

Thats why it appears likely to me that this analogy is ultimately pretty dishonest. Moreover, I think it is also clear that medical experimentation on humans *would* almost certainly be of benefit to medical research. Why don't we do it? Because of ethical concerns. So to dismiss as invalid ethical concerns with regards to animals (with a war analogy) is really begging the question. We already accept that some procedures, even with animals, are not acceptable. The argument that nothing must stand in our way in fighting this eternal enemy doesn't seem very robust.

Having said that, for the record, I would certainly consider opposing medical research on animals. And yes, that would mean that I would have to accept the potential cost of the slowing down of cutting edge medical research into drugs - like Viagra, for example. Much as a slave abolitionist would have had to accept the cost of the loss of a large, disposable work force and risk a possibly huge hit to the economy.
 
 
Lurid Archive
12:37 / 27.02.06
I should probably back up some of the things I'm claiming here. If you look at the WHO site, you can get a country comparison. Summaries for the US and Sweden follow:


US

Statistics:

Total population: 294,043,000

GDP per capita (Intl $, 2002): 36,056

Life expectancy at birth m/f (years): 75.0/80.0

Healthy life expectancy at birth m/f (years, 2002): 67.2/71.3

Child mortality m/f (per 1000): 9/7

Adult mortality m/f (per 1000): 139/82

Total health expenditure per capita (Intl $, 2002): 5,274

Total health expenditure as % of GDP (2002): 14.6,

and then,


Sweden

Total population: 8,876,000

GDP per capita (Intl $, 2002): 27,271

Life expectancy at birth m/f (years): 78.0/83.0

Healthy life expectancy at birth m/f (years, 2002): 71.9/74.8

Child mortality m/f (per 1000): 5/3

Adult mortality m/f (per 1000): 79/50

Total health expenditure per capita (Intl $, 2002): 2,512

Total health expenditure as % of GDP (2002): 9.2


So the US spends about twice as much per person on health as Sweden (one might argue GDP per capita is more appropriate...the point remains), has double the child mortality rate and life expectancy that is 3 years less than Sweden's. OK, it is hard to explain all this data, but defenders of the US system usually point to the great amount of research that the US does, thereby producing a great many drugs. One can have a back and forth at this point as to whether Europe is a free rider. My reading of the situation is that the US is focused on top quality high end health care, and isn't so worried about bottom end low cost provision. As a result, their stats suffer with respect to these kinds of general measures, although if you want the latest treatment you should probably go to the US.

(You could take other european countries instead of Sweden, though I think that Sweden usually does best. The UK, for instance, while widely caricatured as having a dilapidated health system, still does better by these measure than the US.)

The upshot for me, however, is that you can't use a form of moral blackmail against animal rights people and be at all consistent. If saving as many lives as possible really is a goal, then there are measures that can be taken that will benefit a great many people, yet somehow these don't come under the same scrutiny. Improving rates of child mortality and providing basic preventative health care have little to do with cutting edge research. I think it is clear that saving lives is not a goal that is pursued as singlemindedly by the health industry as one might assume - this is abudently clear, of course, if one considers the drug patenting battles conducted by pharm giants via governments against poorer nations.

(Which is not to say that health professionals are all in it for the money - although doctors are probably overpaid - but there are institutional factors at work here, which are nonetheless under government control.)
 
 
Evil Scientist
13:21 / 27.02.06
The upshot for me, however, is that you can't use a form of moral blackmail against animal rights people and be at all consistent.

You're right there. But it's more due to basic differences in philosphy. Most of the pro-animal rights people I have spoken with are of the opinion that harming an animal and harming a human essentially equates to the same thing. Where as the pro-testing people believe that human life is more valuable.


If saving as many lives as possible really is a goal, then there are measures that can be taken that will benefit a great many people

You make a good point here, especially with regards to increasing basic preventative health. I'm genuinely curious to know what the measures for preventing childhood mortality involve, have you got any links?

But the measures you suggest don't have to be implemented at the cost of medical research when they could easily be implemented to supplement them. Funding could easily come from defense rather than medical testing.

I think it is clear that saving lives is not a goal that is pursued as singlemindedly by the health industry as one might assume - this is abudently clear, of course, if one considers the drug patenting battles conducted by pharm giants via governments against poorer nations.

Very true. It would be the height of naivety to believe the drugs companies had anything more than profit as the guiding principle of their existance. However they are the ones who do and fund the majority of the valuable work, the upshot of which is that diseases are cured.

So evil shits to be sure (and I've had some massive arguments with a friend of mine who believed Glaxo etc are right to stop governments producing cheap versions of their life-saving drugs), but the medicines they're making are saving lives.
 
 
nyarlathotep's shoe horn
15:12 / 27.02.06
weevil client list wrote:
Of course some of those "things" that "just kill you" don't allow for a quiet graceful death. In fact most of them involve a great deal of pain and suffering before the end comes.

Pain and suffering are qualities of life, not death. What we fear is the suffering, which we equate with death. Death is the end of suffering.

Why should we have to get used to it?

why should you have to get used to the notion of people dying??? um, because of its inevitability. Do you hold such strong views on the weather as well?

At no point in our species development (including those oh so romantic pre-technological times) have we ever shown a desire to accept random messy death as something not to be avoided.

some source material might be of use here. (also, I would refute the notion of random if you wish to start another thread).

also, the romantic times came well after the pre-technological times.

But to suggest that medical treatment should be refused on the grounds that we all die eventually seems rather ridiculous to me.

I never suggested such a thing. My argument is that medical treatment can be found that doesn't require the cruel treatment of test subjects (call them animals or people).

PlanetNiles:
In response to not jack:
My life partner is kept alive by medications that have been tested on animals. Her quality of life is good, however without her medications it would quickly degrade and she would die.

Are you going to be the person explaining to our children that mummy would be coming home any more "but at least no animals will have to die to keep her alive..."

this isn't a personal argument about who should live or die. I'm glad your life partner is alive and her quality of life good. Quite sincerely. I don't think existing medicines should be eschewed where alternatives aren't available.

but why not share that "good quality of living" beyond your own lives? would you not prefer to spread that to the other things that have lives of their own around you?

I have yet to hear a compelling argument for cruelty.

--not jack
 
 
PlanetNiles
15:14 / 27.02.06
Lurid Archive, none of that has anything to do with my question. You're avoiding it so much you're wandering all over the place. The topic is the rights and wrongs of animal testing.

Its a simple question and requires only a yes or no answer.

If you're against the testing of pharmaceuticals on animals would you be prepared to under go that very same testing knowing that it would save lives but risk your own?

Oh and if you're interested Oxfam have literally just contacted me looking for donations to help with the East African food crisis. Gordon Brown has apparently received 1.7 billion from Nigeria as part of its debts settlement and there's a nice new line of fair-trade footballs. None of which has anything to do with the testing of pharmaceuticals on animals. I too can digress.
 
 
PlanetNiles
15:56 / 27.02.06
not jack posted
but why not share that "good quality of living" beyond your own lives? would you not prefer to spread that to the other things that have lives of their own around you?

I have yet to hear a compelling argument for cruelty.

There are many diseases still uncured and new ones evolving all the time. All over the world there are people watching a loved one die from an illness as yet uncured; be it from virus, retro-virus, resistant bacteria, genetic condition or other illness.

Yet on the horizon there lies the promise of salvation, one profit hungry company or another is testing or about to test a possible cure. If animal testing was to stop tomorrow these people would die and cures for their conditions probably never found.

You say you've yet to hear a good argument for cruelty; how is letting these people suffer not cruel?

You expressed the opinion that we should just accept death and its inevitability. Many of these animals have been bred for generations specifically for the purpose of being tested upon. They're going to die any way so why should you care how; their deaths are inevitable.
 
 
Lurid Archive
16:47 / 27.02.06
Lurid Archive, none of that has anything to do with my question. You're avoiding it so much you're wandering all over the place. The topic is the rights and wrongs of animal testing.

No, I'm not avoiding it. You said that "Given that some forms of medication, which will save human lives, do need to be tested I'd like to ask those who are opposed to animal testing if they would themselves be willing to replace the animal on the vivisectionist's table." You essentially repeat this, by asking

"If you're against the testing of pharmaceuticals on animals would you be prepared to under go that very same testing knowing that it would save lives but risk your own?".

So the point of your dichotomy is that someone or something absolutely has to be tested upon. You aren't allowing any other option. When I pointed out that this form of argument doesn't work in other contexts - I can oppose child labour without having to volunteer my own child to work, say - you
proceeded to make an analogy with respect to being in a "total war" situation.

OK. So my response is that there are lots and lots of other things we could be doing to save thousands of lives. But we aren't. In particular, we see no obligation to do so, even though the benefit of such actions potentially far outweighs the cost to us to stop animal testing.

This is very relevant with regards to your point. If we are morally obligated to test on animals because of the benefits, how much more morally obligated are we to introduce universal health care? Get rid of drug patenting? Etc. If your response to the latter questions is that we aren't at all obligated - and I think thats what you are saying - then I see no reason to take you at all seriously when you make the initial moral exhortation.

Clear enough?

And to answer your question, no. I wouldn't be willing to have my genitals mutilated in order to develop Viagra, and yet I still opppose the testing on animals. I fail to see that these are in any sense the only two options, however. Your insistence that they are seems pretty absurd to me.
 
 
nyarlathotep's shoe horn
18:22 / 27.02.06
more deep space objects from PlanetNiles:

You say you've yet to hear a good argument for cruelty; how is letting these people suffer not cruel?

I'm beginning to wonder what, in fact, you are reading in my posts.

please quote back to me my assertions that people should be left to suffer.

suffering is inevitable, why wouldn't you want to reduce the amount of it where it is completely and utterly unnecessary?

You expressed the opinion that we should just accept death and its inevitability. Many of these animals have been bred for generations specifically for the purpose of being tested upon. They're going to die any way so why should you care how; their deaths are inevitable.

death is inevitable, the cruelty that we consciously decide to perpetrate on medical animals is entirely avoidable. I don't understand how our interference and intention (ie breeding mice with a predisposition to cancer for research purposes) makes their lives forfeit.

are you suggesting that because we breed them specifically for our use that we can use them as we please?

I care how they die because I feel compassion and sympathy beyond my own myopic self-interest.

--not jack
 
 
sdv (non-human)
19:10 / 27.02.06
The economic argument against testing on animals is simply more interesting - currently we have a range of drugs that cannot be supplied to the people who need them - surely it makes more sense to spend the money used to test new drugs (that increasingly won't be available for people anyway) on supplying the current drugs to those who couild use them.

Or is it that medical testing on animals has no moral intention but to supply jobs to mediacal scientists ?
 
 
sdv (non-human)
19:32 / 27.02.06
oh and just to be clear - no moral and ethical argument can be made to justify testing medical procedures on animals, (humans included of course).

Arguments which start or end with emotional statements about 'my partner...' are unacceptable in what is after all an ethical argument for what I hope obvious philosophical reasons. (....Actually just in case they aren't....) Just as a persons friend or partner may well be alive because of animal testing, so equally they may be alive because of medical tests carried out on sub-humans - either in fascist camps or perhaps on blacks in the USA, working classes in the UK and Sweden.. and so on. I trust it's obvious that the moral justification for carrying out these tests on humans were made on the basis of the delusions of supremacy.

Supremacy, as that idiot Chomsky once pointed out is not an acceptable basis to make decisions about how a human or a non-human being should be treated, anymore than the colour of their eyes. If you choose to try and justify the unjustifiable on the basis of human supremacy then beware the social and political implications of how the majority of humanity has been treated on precisely that rationale.
 
 
Evil Scientist
07:47 / 28.02.06
Pain and suffering are qualities of life, not death. What we fear is the suffering, which we equate with death. Death is the end of suffering

Nice semantic wriggling there. However, you'll notice that what I wrote was...

In fact most of them involve a great deal of pain and suffering before the end comes.

I'll direct your attention to the second part of the sentence.

You seem to be suggesting that, because death comes to us all in the end, that we should blithly accept it in whatever form it comes in? However I argue that just because someone has contracted a potentially fatal illness it doesn't mean it's "their time".

Death comes to us all, sure. Does that mean we shouldn't want to live long full lives? Of course not.

It should also be remembered that there are plenty of illnesses which, whilst they don't kill, can be crippling if allowed to run their course.

also, the romantic times came well after the pre-technological times.

Well done. However, the term "romantic" is also commonly used to refer to someone having an idealised view of something or someone. I was suggesting that certain people tend to see pre-technological societies as a rosey, wonderful paradise where humans followed bears to healing plants and were never, ever, brutally mauled to death by them. I'm sorry if you didn't understand that, and will try to be a little clearer in future.

also, I would refute the notion of random if you wish to start another thread

Not a believer in pre-destination myself (which is what you're talking about here, yes?) although if I did I might argue then that an animal's death in a lab is as pre-destined as my own death three weeks from now in a bitterly ironic case of mistaken vivisection.
 
 
nyarlathotep's shoe horn
14:42 / 28.02.06
Weevil Client List:
You seem to be suggesting that, because death comes to us all in the end, that we should blithly accept it in whatever form it comes in?

you can choose to accept it blithely or any other way you like. There's a difference between realising that you're inevitably going to die, and accepting it.

or is that more semantic wriggling? =)

more Weevilism:
However I argue that just because someone has contracted a potentially fatal illness it doesn't mean it's "their time".

no, just that it's potentially "their time." No way to know, but you have to accept that this might be the one. At what point do you stop the struggle and accept it? At what point do the means become insupportable?

grave-robbing? vivisection?

Weevil responded to "romantic pre-technological times"
I was suggesting that certain people tend to see pre-technological societies as a rosey,

and others see them as brutally competitive, without any redeeming qualities, which makes our own current environment seem so much less - ugly.
I never waxed idealistic about pre-technological anything...

I wrote:
I would refute the notion of random if you wish to start another thread
weevil wrote:
Not a believer in pre-destination myself (which is what you're talking about here, yes?)

no. not talking about pre-destination. more about chaos. still, another thread, if you like.

--
the basic question is this:
what measures are "morally/ethically" unacceptable to entertain in order to develop a more effective health/medical system?

health does not equal medicine, wherein lies the problem.

--not jack
 
 
Evil Scientist
07:07 / 01.03.06
grave-robbing?

I wouldn't know about that...you could ask the ALF though. ;-)
 
 
Evil Scientist
10:58 / 02.03.06
oh and just to be clear - no moral and ethical argument can be made to justify testing medical procedures on animals, (humans included of course).

There quite clearly can SDV, I and others have been making them on this and related threads across Barbelith.

They just happen to be ethical and moral arguments you don't agree with. Different from there being no arguments.

not jack.

There's a difference between realising that you're inevitably going to die, and accepting it.

and

no, just that it's potentially "their time." No way to know, but you have to accept that this might be the one. At what point do you stop the struggle and accept it? At what point do the means become insupportable?

But equally it's potentially "not their time". Of course people should prepare for the moment of their death, not every medical treatment or procedure works, people will still die. In my personal opinion the point at which you stop the struggle and accept it is the point where treatment becomes impossible. Which, obviously, varies greatly from case to case.

I don't consider it to be running from death to want to live a long, healthy life. As far as I'm concerned, this is all there is. When my death comes, I want to be satisfied with my contribution to the world. Plus, if it can happen in a relatively painless and mess-free way, then cool (actually quick and messy's good too).

no. not talking about pre-destination. more about chaos. still, another thread, if you like.

I'm quite interested in this line of discussion. Fancy talking about it PM?
 
 
nyarlathotep's shoe horn
03:03 / 04.03.06
weevil client list:
When my death comes, I want to be satisfied with my contribution to the world. Plus, if it can happen in a relatively painless and mess-free way, then cool (actually quick and messy's good too).

but at what price? If you live to a ripe old age, having contributed to the world, how will you feel about the thousands upon thousands of sentient beings that have been treated atrociously to allow you to do so? Was it all worth it, in the end? What contribution is worth that reckoning?

--not jack
 
 
PlanetNiles
09:33 / 04.03.06
Lurid Archive posted:
So the point of your dichotomy is that someone or something absolutely has to be tested upon. You aren't allowing any other option.

Well yes, naturally. These things have to be tested if not on someone or something then on the first patients to use it. While in vitro testing of tissue cultures is becoming more common I'm informed that its yet to properly mature or be fully trusted. In short despite in vitro testing being available animal testing continues, usually along side it as a form of control.

So in vitro asside my question still stands, and I did say that it ignored the nuances of the topic. You see it was your queue to bring up the alternatives and progress the arguement rather than debating the debate.

The general thrust of my question is that you can't argue to get rid of something without offering an alternative. Since medicines and pharmaceuticals do have a requirement to be tested, irrespective if you want them to be or feel that they are worthwhile or not.

Ibid
This is very relevant with regards to your point. If we are morally obligated to test on animals because of the benefits, how much more morally obligated are we to introduce universal health care? Get rid of drug patenting? Etc. If your response to the latter questions is that we aren't at all obligated - and I think thats what you are saying - then I see no reason to take you at all seriously when you make the initial moral exhortation.

You're very much mistaken. My great grandfather laid the foundations of the NHS (along with others), my grandfather co-drafted the original bill of human rights with H.G. Wells , was involved in the creation of the W.H.O. and was the director of operations and planning for the P.W.E. despite being an evowed pacifist (amongst many other things; one day I might regale you with the tale of how Agatha Christie saved my life an generation before my birth).

So yes I've been brought up as, and remain, a left-leaning liberal who is pro-universal health care and anti-pharmaceutical patenting. However, in the latter case I also acknowledge that, literally, without the patenting (which IIRC only lasts five years after testing begins) there would be no pharmaceutical research. Hmmm.... Cure for malaria/cancer/AIDS and a five year patent or no cure. Tough choice.
 
 
Lurid Archive
11:35 / 04.03.06
Well yes, naturally. These things have to be tested if not on someone or something then on the first patients to use it.

Well, no. You can continue to see it as illegitimate to question the need for testing on animals, I suppose, and thus try to frame the debate in the way you want. But it really isn't at all unreasonable to ask whether - at a minimum - drug testing on animals is necessary in all circumstances. I gave Viagra as an example.

The general thrust of my question is that you can't argue to get rid of something without offering an alternative.

Given that you seem to want to exclude any alternative, like in vitro testing, from the debate it is quite hard to take this seriously. And I'm not sure that I do need to offer an alternative to animal testing on Viagra, for instance. Or the testing of cosmetics.

Will it be impossible to produce life saving drugs without animal testing? Or just more expensive? Your questions assume the former, more or less, without much justification.

So yes I've been brought up as, and remain, a left-leaning liberal who is pro-universal health care and anti-pharmaceutical patenting.

Good for you. But this is like a toal war situation, right? So, if saving lives is paramount then as sdv says, it makes rather more sense to supply existing drugs and health care to people who need them than to spend lots of money researching into drugs that may or may not produce cures. Of course, the point is that it isn't a total war situation. There are compromises made all the time for various reasons and ethical concerns are not automatically disqualified. (eg, human testing.)

You seem to want to argue that giving up animal testing would have an unacceptable impact on the health of many people, due to the effect it would have on the production of new drugs. But, since you don't care about any of the details, you aren't actually making that argument which is both hard to establish and probably rather subjective.

Cure for malaria/cancer/AIDS and a five year patent or no cure. Tough choice.

Sorry? Which cure for cancer? I have to choose between the system you simply declare is unavoidable, or I don't get my cure for cancer? Even if the system you favour doesn't actually give me a cure for cancer? Uh huh. TINA, I think thats called. There Is No Alternative. Its a classic Thatcherite piece of rhetoric.
 
 
sdv (non-human)
17:31 / 04.03.06
I was much entertained by the interview in the Guardian today in which the pro-animal tester Tipu Aziz defends animal testing in the cosmetics industry. His argument is that if animal testing on cosmetics is proven to reduce human suffering then it is not wrong to use them... The object of research is completely irrelevant. The justification for this is that Human beings are of greater value because they are superior to all other animals. Logically this means that those who are superior have the right to torture and enslave others...

So then PlanetNiles and perhaps Lurid as well - do you agree with Tipu or do you believe that there is a difference between medical experimentation or experimentation for new cosmetics ?

(Personally i can't wait for the aliens to arrive, as I'd like to be the fly on the wall when the green blob from Rigel 5 - interviews him for Rigellian TV...)

s
 
 
sdv (non-human)
17:53 / 04.03.06
WeeEvil,

You said "... I and others have been making them on this and related threads across Barbelith...."

The problem with the arguments that you make is that on the one hand they all require an acceptance of a concept of humanity that is fundamentally selfish. That is to say it always founded on statements such as the statement that your approval of medical animal testing is based on the desire for "...to want to live a long, healthy life..." where others endlessly refer to dying aunts or partners. And on the other hand it necessarily requires an understanding of the human as superior to the non-human.

What other justification for experiments on bodies can be made ? ...Of course this is an improvement over the earlier justifications for experiments on other humans, but not by much. (In fact the justifications seem related to the cultural relativisms used to justify the inscription (though torture) of the society on the bodies of human children - so similarly what is happening with animal experimentation is the writing on the bodies of animals human supremacy...)

It does show the precise limits of the various humanisms on offer to us, a variant of which is your justification for supporting experiments on animals... (And please no spurious medical justifications...)
 
 
sdv (non-human)
18:36 / 04.03.06
My latent and never supressed liking for the philosophical and poltics of Deleuze - brings me to this quote from Rosi Braidotti ... which i think admirably states and extends the ethical reasosn why there can be no 'right'

"Deleuze expands the notion of universalism to be more inclusive. He does this in two ways. First by affirming biocentred and transspecies egalitarianism as an etical principle, he opens up the possibility of conceptualsing a post-humanity. Second a new sense of global interconnection is established as an ethics for non-unitary subjects, emphasizing a commitment to others (including the no-human, the non-organic, and 'earth' others...." (nicely put...)

does this extend the 'wrongs' reasons - i think it does for the implication is surely that ethics has to expand beyond the pitiful notion of the human into something broader. To do so requires that we cease merely thinking of others as objects that merely exist for exploitation or stewardship....
 
 
Lurid Archive
23:55 / 04.03.06
So then PlanetNiles and perhaps Lurid as well - do you agree with Tipu or do you believe that there is a difference between medical experimentation or experimentation for new cosmetics ?

Sorry? You are asking me if I agree with Tipu that animal experimentation for the purpose of developing cosmetics is acceptable? Have you read any of my posts?

Maybe you are just asking me whether there is a difference between medical research and cosmetic research with regards to animal testing? To which the answer is surely yes, though quanitifying that difference and placing it within the debate is probably quite tricky.
 
 
Evil Scientist
11:14 / 05.03.06
If you live to a ripe old age, having contributed to the world, how will you feel about the thousands upon thousands of sentient beings that have been treated atrociously to allow you to do so?

As has been pointed out before sentience is not sapience. Sentience, at it's most basic, merely means that something has the capacity to percieve and feel. It does not have to include the capacity for higher thinking and self-awareness. By this standard plants and micro-organisms also count as sentient. How do you feel about the exploitation of plant organisms by humans? I'm given to understand that plants register injury and can experience stress.

You may feel I'm taking this to ridiculous extremes, and I am to some extent. But by SDV's arguments we cannot consider plant-based life to have any less right to life than any other. The Malarial plasmodium is in every way the equal of a human.

As I said in posts both here, and in other threads, I have never argued that experimentation on animals should be unrestricted or that efforts to reduce both the quantities of animals used and their discomfort should be both researched and implemented. A few pages ago I gave various examples of ways in which the industry is trying to achieve these ends.

His argument is that if animal testing on cosmetics is proven to reduce human suffering then it is not wrong to use them...

Which is patently ridiculous isn't it? Cosmetics are profoundly unessential. Meaningless consumer items. That is what I would consider to be pointless cruelty.

So, if saving lives is paramount then as sdv says, it makes rather more sense to supply existing drugs and health care to people who need them than to spend lots of money researching into drugs that may or may not produce cures.

We have the capacity to follow both methods though. There are plenty of incurable diseases, or treatments whose effectiveness could be improved. It would be foolish not to follow all available lines of inquiry.

The problem with the arguments that you make is that on the one hand they all require an acceptance of a concept of humanity that is fundamentally selfish.

No, I don't. As I point out, humans are the only species on the planet that currently attempt to save species other than our own. If I took the view that animals were nothing more than objects for us to utilise then I wouldn't be an opponent of animal testing for cosmetics and non-essential medical treatments, I wouldn't be anti-hunting.
 
 
sdv (non-human)
12:18 / 05.03.06
Lurid,

of course i've read your posts i just wanted to see how you'd respond to the idea that for a scientist there is no actual difference.... between testing for cosmetic purposes and medical purposes.

(I think he's right, except that philosophically i recognize that there is no longer any possible justification. Whereas he thinks the fact of his humanity justifies it...)

But sorry Lurid - i did not mean to imply that I was ignorent of what you have been saying. I was interested in your response to his world view.
 
 
sdv (non-human)
12:38 / 05.03.06
WeeEvil,

Tipo made the perfectly valid point that testing cosmetics on animals could show that particular cosmetics/chemical mixtures sould be dangerous to human beings. And as such this type of testing could equally be said to save human lives. So whilst i accept your view that testing on animals for the purposes of a better lipstick is not acceptable it's also (I think) evidence of an ethical inconsistency in that it's ok to test if the purpose is medical but not if it is non-medical. The inconsistency is that even though the justification for medical testing is that it is in human (medical) interest, the same argument can also be made for non-medical testing.


This is incorrect "...humans are the only species on the planet that currently attempt to save species other than our own..." how ever it's a trivial issue.

The one that matters is that we humans are carrying out the 6th big mass-extinction event, no human ethics has ever, at least to date had to address the actuality of the present human situation.

I remember you are interested in the post-human, so the following thought experiment is relevant: Are not the post-humans justified in carrying out experiments on human beings by Tipo's logic ? Humans will be inferior, but much more similar to the post-human than beagles, rats or chimps and consequently I can't see any reason why humans could not be experimented on by the post-human. Or is there some reason why such experimentation would be wrong ?
 
 
Evil Scientist
14:47 / 05.03.06
Tipo made the perfectly valid point that testing cosmetics on animals could show that particular cosmetics/chemical mixtures sould be dangerous to human beings.

SDV, could you link to the article please? I had a hunt round the Guardian site today but have been unable to find it.

So whilst i accept your view that testing on animals for the purposes of a better lipstick is not acceptable it's also (I think) evidence of an ethical inconsistency in that it's ok to test if the purpose is medical but not if it is non-medical. The inconsistency is that even though the justification for medical testing is that it is in human (medical) interest, the same argument can also be made for non-medical testing.

See the thing is that I don't feel it to be ethically inconsistent to be pro-testing for medical research but not for cosmetic research. Aziz may well argue that it would save lives to test cosmetics on animals, however I argue that cosmetics are not essential to human existance, or rather the absence of cosmetics would not result in people falling sick or suffering. Which the absence of medicine would.

This is incorrect "...humans are the only species on the planet that currently attempt to save species other than our own..." how ever it's a trivial issue.

I'm curious, PM me about this if you like.

Are not the post-humans justified in carrying out experiments on human beings by Tipo's logic ? Humans will be inferior, but much more similar to the post-human than beagles, rats or chimps and consequently I can't see any reason why humans could not be experimented on by the post-human. Or is there some reason why such experimentation would be wrong ?

Without reading the article in question it's difficult to say whether or not his argument would back this statement up.

However, most posthuman schools of thought assume that part of the development of posthumanity from current human stock would involve either abandoning biological forms completely or, at least, have developed their medical technology to such a point that rendered all forms of illness irrelevant (a popular current belief is that this would be achieved utilising nanotechnology).

Posthuman ethics are difficult to postulate, through lack of posthumans available to ask.
 
 
Axolotl
15:22 / 05.03.06
Isn't sapience considered the cut off point where experimentation becomes wrong by most in the scientific community? Which is why restrictions on experimentation on the "higher" primates such as chimps are much stricter, if allowed at all, because they can be considered to be truly self-aware.
If so by that reasoning post-humans would have no more ethical grounds to experiment on humans than we do. It's not the species of an organism that determines this, it's the capacity of the creature to think and feel.
 
 
Evil Scientist
07:40 / 06.03.06
Very good point Mr Phox.
 
 
sdv (non-human)
11:16 / 06.03.06
Mr Phox/all

Interesting points...

Sapience is often considered the cut-off point for those who are pro-testing. But the problem is that the definition of 'sapience' has been carefully restricted to the human species. And critically even those human individuals who are non-sapient inherit the notion of sapience. Similarly with 'feeling' in both senses of the word as until fairly recently western philosophy and science did not recognize that animals (fish,insects included) even felt pain let alone had emotions.

Consequently then it's logical to assume that a post-human could deny the concept of sapience to all or the majority of human beings alive today. Certainly if they inherited the worldview of their inventors.

Philosophically speaking the concept is evidence of the explicit humanism in the debate, as incidentally is the ultitarian concept of 'painism' - which they constructed to avoid more coherent concept of equality.
 
 
sdv (non-human)
11:19 / 06.03.06
Testing Link

not sure if it's all of the story...

s
 
  

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