Vivisection

RE*AC*TOR

A little background:- I'm a PhD student, studying diabetes. Part of this work involves mice. However, I am at a lost to justify using mice. Arguements like, "greater good" or "humans are more important" fall apart fairly readily without much effort. The only reason stopping me from actually not doing this work, is its convenient for my PhD (ie a selfish reason). Can any here suggest a reason to me why it is morally acceptable?

Note :- gonna post this in Philosophy and Personal Issues - apologies for the overlap, but I'm at a loss as to which might be more suitable...

simu

Well, it seems like you've decided it's not morally acceptable. You have to decide whether to continue with your work or not yourself.

As to why it's accepted practice in universities (I take it this is what you mean when you say that it is considered to be morally acceptable) - it's only pretty recently that people have started taking animal rights seriously and this movement is still in its infancy. It could happen that, at a future time, animal experimentation will be considered to be as barbaric as we consider, say, the burning of heretics to be today. Universities, for all their contributions to different areas of human life, reflect negative aspects of the societies they exist in too and given the current emphasis on universities providing results useful to industry and commerce, you might have a hard time trying to convince people to change these practices. Which isn't saying you shouldn't try to change things, of course.

Have you asked your supervisor, other lecturers and staff what their thoughts are on this matter?

RE*AC*TOR

oh I'm going to do it alright - for the selfish reason described above. I wasn't looking for a reason why it is considered acceptable - I actually was hoping someone might be able to present something new to me - an actual valid reason, not societies preconceptions.

Haven't spoken to anyone really about it. Don' tintend to bridge the subjest with my supervisor in any formal way. I may engineer it into a discussion. I'd love to be brave enough to actually put my foot down, but i've had enough problems in the last two years, and I can't really afford to introduce this one. As i said this is purely selfish, its my decision, and I'm deciding to **** over the animals for my own personal benefit. I can't justify it from a moral stance.

simu

Well, maybe you could argue that suffering is inevitable given how life has evolved on earth. I remember reading that some plants do show signs of suffering when damage is done to them. On the other hand, humans would become extinct if we decided that eating plants was unacceptable. Would that be the right choice?

And if we're causing plants to suffer, why not animals, indeed why not fellow human beings? Where do you draw the line?

RE*AC*TOR

I'd question the study regarding plant sufferring, however, there is a distinction between necessary and unnecessary sufferring.

simu

I only saw that thing about plants & pain in some newspaper so it way well have been hyped-up nonsense although it's an interesting idea.

How do you define necessary & unnecessary suffering?

RE*AC*TOR

Well, for example we could justify eating plants as a matter of survival. If we don't eat we WILL die. The same arguement cannot be made for animal research. Its possible the work could lead to saving peoples lives, but its by no means certain that the research will. Historically, we HAD to eat animals as the limited amount of vegeatbales available to us would not have fulfilled our dietary needs. Eskimo's have to eat seals - there's nothing else to eat. Nowadays (in the developed world) people could quite readily not eat animals and be healthy.

Fysh

RE*AC*TOR wrote:

Well, for example we could justify eating plants as a matter of survival. If we don't eat we WILL die. The same arguement cannot be made for animal research. Its possible the work could lead to saving peoples lives, but its by no means certain that the research will. Historically, we HAD to eat animals as the limited amount of vegeatbales available to us would not have fulfilled our dietary needs. Eskimo's have to eat seals - there's nothing else to eat. Nowadays (in the developed world) people could quite readily not eat animals and be healthy.

But why is eating plants any more acceptable than eating animals (moving away from the not-often-voiced "because they don't have a face" idea that lies behind more than one teenage vegetarian's conversion)?

The nature of our world is such that only plants can sustain themselves without directly killing something else (because they can photosynthesise), and even then they compete for things like sunlight etc - although not by making a conscious decision. Pretty much every animal around kills something as part of its survival - barring some sort of evolution through which we gain the ability to photosynthesise, we're stuck. We have to either accept this or voluntarily choose to die through starvation.

Regarding the moral justification for animal research, i expect it depends what school of morality you approach it from . Were you to approach it from Aleister Crowley's definition of Satanist morality, for example, you could succesfully argue that the animal research is of benefit to you and is therefore morally sound. Both negative & positive utilitarianism would also probably justify this research in the long run, since it is likely that in some way it will contribute to saving lives (either directly by discovering some new treatment/cure, or indirectly by identifying cures/treatments that are inadequate, thus allowing other researchers to focus on other more promising research). Admittedly you might have to expand the scope over which you are considering the situation (as in, over a period of several years and viewing your research as a component part of diabetes research worldwide). Not so sure about other schools of ethics though, as I'm somewhat rusty on the topic...

chewy

can the work not be done without mice?

RE*AC*TOR

Fysh - using the utilitarianism arguement - then surely we should use humans - the results would be more valid. But we have a moral problem experimenting on humans. Not so animals... why?

Chewy - no.

Fysh

RE*AC*TOR wrote:

Fysh - using the utilitarianism arguement - then surely we should use humans - the results would be more valid. But we have a moral problem experimenting on humans. Not so animals... why?

The utilitarian example would work with humans as well, if you adhere rigorously to the tenets of whichever flavour of utilitarianism you follow. Although in the case of negative utilitarianism you would have to weigh up the suffering caused by using human tests versus the ramifications of less valid research (meaning the overall research takes longer before reaching its final conclusion, whatever that might be) due to using mice.

The "moral problem" of experimenting on humans stems from a general perception in contemporary society that human life is invaluable and should not be willingly sacrificed. I think this mostly has roots in the ethics of certain pervasive religions, but there may be other contributing factors.

RE*AC*TOR

Fysh wrote:

The "moral problem" of experimenting on humans stems from a general perception in contemporary society that human life is invaluable and should not be willingly sacrificed. I think this mostly has roots in the ethics of certain pervasive religions, but there may be other contributing factors.

Maybe in a theological discussion the religion issue might be valid. It doesn't hold any weight with me - but I acknowledge it has contributed to societies ready acceptance of using animals. Putting religion aside, can anyone say why it is better to use animals (other animals - because we are animals) than humans?

Fysh

RE*AC*TOR wrote:

Maybe in a theological discussion the religion issue might be valid. It doesn't hold any weight with me - but I acknowledge it has contributed to societies ready acceptance of using animals. Putting religion aside, can anyone say why it is better to use animals (other animals - because we are animals) than humans?

Having looked at the equivalent thread in Humanities (which is getting more discussion than this one), I have realised the main problem with people answering your question :

You haven't specified what moral/ethical system you personally adhere to. You've used the term "morally wrong" in your post, but have not explained the exact grounds on which you base this. As I posted previously, there are some ethical systems which can justify this, but I presume from your response that you do not adhere to either of them.

I realise this can get somewhat technical, but I would be genuinely interested in your answer, since this is a great topic for discussion.

RE*AC*TOR

I suppose i was a bit vague using the term "moral", and actually I might have difficulty anwering it (perhaps you can help me on this). But here's a go anyway... We possess the power to do both good and evil. If we achieve great good by perpitrating harm, then it is not justified in my view, as I said many times, I beleive in the importance of the individual (human, mouse, rat, whatever). I also beleive we have a responsibility with our power not to mistreat and take advantage of weaker creatures.

I don't subscribe to any belief system actively, maybe someone else can label me. How's about Christian Atheist? Probably humanist would be most accurate.

Fysh

I'm no authority on ethics, although I do know something about it.

Personally, I'm a negative utilitarianist - the guiding ideal of which is to minimise suffering or "unhappiness" over the total system. The reason I'm not merely a utilitarianist is because the guiding ideal there is subtly different : to maximise happiness or pleasure - since this conceivably accepts perpetrating evil for the "greater good", I can't support it.

I'm not sure exactly how you would be classified, although I will do some reading tonight to try and figure it out. It would help if you clarified what exactly you consider to be "harm" (eg do you consider only the intention, only the outcome, or a combination of the two? Does the awareness of the victim affect the severity of this harm - ie is killing a person worse than killing a fly? Are certain actions/intents "evil" or wrong and others "good" or right regardless of circumstances, or is the righteousness of any action a relative factor? Do considerations of an afterlife or some sort of soul come into your deliberations regarding right and wrong? Do considerations of a deity & associated coda come into your deliberations regarding right and wrong?)

RE*AC*TOR

Fysh wrote:

I'm not sure exactly how you would be classified, although I will do some reading tonight to try and figure it out. It would help if you clarified what exactly you consider to be "harm" (eg do you consider only the intention, only the outcome, or a combination of the two? Does the awareness of the victim affect the severity of this harm - ie is killing a person worse than killing a fly? Are certain actions/intents "evil" or wrong and others "good" or right regardless of circumstances, or is the righteousness of any action a relative factor? Do considerations of an afterlife or some sort of soul come into your deliberations regarding right and wrong? Do considerations of a deity & associated coda come into your deliberations regarding right and wrong?)

Harm - i guess i'd define fairly simply as adversely affecting intentionally. So - intent. By "outcome" do you mean harm unintentionally? That wouldn't enter my reckoning, at least not on this topic.

The human fly question is quite insightful. My brain is screaming out its obviously worse to kill a human. but this arises from a percevied warm-fuzzy feeling we have towards higher species and less so towards insects. That I suppose is a predjudice. Having said that I would be dishonest if I answered killing a fly was as bad as killing a human.

I do believe certain action/ intents to be wrong despite the consequences (such as the topic in question) - this is fundamental to me.

Afterlife - no.

Soul - not as such, well maybe, but I wouldn't necessarily call it that. We all have to justify our actions to ourselves at the end of the day. If I cannot reconcile an action I perform, and I continue to do this despite my conscience, I think this introduces as certain callousness to my being (whihc I don't want to happen).

Deity - no.

ecksor

Probably not very useful to you but I noticed yesterday that there's a public lecture at the University of Reading in a few days on the subject "Is there a viable alternative to animal testing for medical research" or similar in a few days.

Hydrosylator

You're not giving us a lot to work with in this instance. Is your work fgoing to find out anything new about the disease? Are the animals required to die, be operated on, or what? Has the same work been done before by somebody else?

I don't like animal testing at all, but sometimes it's necessary for the benefit of us, which while selfish, is how we do things. Unnecessary research is quite sickening, what with the whole "lets see what happens if we feed it this" approach, where scientists study pointless reactions simply to satisfy academic curiosity. "The Plage dogs" by Richard Adams is a good book for explaining what goes on sometimes (the book is a work of fiction and the author is biased against animal research, but the experiments featured are all documented in real life).

What's the official purpose of your research, anyway?

GuanYin

Hydrosylator wrote:

You're not giving us a lot to work with in this instance. Is your work fgoing to find out anything new about the disease? Are the animals required to die, be operated on, or what? Has the same work been done before by somebody else?

I don't like animal testing at all, but sometimes it's necessary for the benefit of us, which while selfish, is how we do things. Unnecessary research is quite sickening, what with the whole "lets see what happens if we feed it this" approach, where scientists study pointless reactions simply to satisfy academic curiosity. "The Plage dogs" by Richard Adams is a good book for explaining what goes on sometimes (the book is a work of fiction and the author is biased against animal research, but the experiments featured are all documented in real life).

What's the official purpose of your research, anyway?

There is more detail/discussion on the humanities version of this thread.

I still believe that it is the nature of all creatures to survive in any way required. Medical research has allowed our species to prosper and flourish when as little as 100 years ago disease ravished us.

All animal experiments in this country, are, as I said on the other thread, examined and approved at a local (institutional) and national (review body) level and all researchers must apply for an animal handling licence which includes a basic exam. This ensures that no needless animal research is carried out and the animals are treated as humanely as possible at all times.

I would argue that if one has an issue with animal research, then the way to make the point it is to campaign with PETA and buycott all actions/items that result in or stem from animal research (which is just about every processed food stuff, including pesticide treated fruit and veg).

Continuing with the research doesn't really put you in much of a position to make an argument.

RE*AC*TOR

syke wrote:

I would argue that if one has an issue with animal research, then the way to make the point it is to campaign with PETA and buycott all actions/items that result in or stem from animal research (which is just about every processed food stuff, including pesticide treated fruit and veg).

Continuing with the research doesn't really put you in much of a position to make an argument.

Hi syke, nice to see you haven't dropped the ball on this topic. I explained why I'm continuing to research, and I explained why I think its wrong. I think I'm in a perfect position to make the arguement. Consider a pioneer and an alcoholic (thanks Christy ), who's in a better position to discuss the harm of alcohol?

Hydrosylator - my arguement maintains that the nature of the research is irrelevant to thsi topic. I beleive the sufferring is wrong, despite any benefits to man.
If you want specifics the mice (which are transgenic) will be injected with streptozocin (to induce diabetes), glucose levels will be maintained within moderate-high levels with insulin pellets, eventually they will be killed.

Fysh

RE*AC*TOR wrote:

Hi syke, nice to see you haven't dropped the ball on this topic. I explained why I'm continuing to research, and I explained why I think its wrong. I think I'm in a perfect position to make the arguement. Consider a pioneer and an alcoholic (thanks Christy ), who's in a better position to discuss the harm of alcohol?

Hydrosylator - my arguement maintains that the nature of the research is irrelevant to thsi topic. I beleive the sufferring is wrong, despite any benefits to man.

So far, what I have seen is that while you appear to be personally convinced that this research is morally wrong, you are willing to be involved with it anyway for personal gain - your arguments as to why you've done this amount to little more than "it's going to happen anyway, and it might as well be me who benefits in that case", which contradicts your belief that suffering is wrong no matter what the cause, suggesting instead that your own benefit is the primary concern.

If nothing else, this should be sufficient cause for you to reconsider either your actions or your moral convictions. And I would agree with syke that the above contradiction has removed your ability to maintain a sincere moral objection to this research.

RE*AC*TOR

I think you've either misinterpreted my arguement as to why I'm doing the research, or you've decided to misrepresent it. I made it clear from the beginning that I beleive what I'm going to do is wrong. Its not necessarily an easy thing to come to terms with. Therefore I sought a little discusion on the matter. Can a thief know that stealing is wrong, but do it anyway? Of course he can. I can hold a set of beliefs but act in a contrary manner. I don't, however, criticise others involved in the same actvity. Its merely a personal conflict.

GuanYin

RE*AC*TOR wrote:

I think you've either misinterpreted my arguement as to why I'm doing the research, or you've decided to misrepresent it. I made it clear from the beginning that I beleive what I'm going to do is wrong. Its not necessarily an easy thing to come to terms with. Therefore I sought a little discusion on the matter. Can a thief know that stealing is wrong, but do it anyway? Of course he can. I can hold a set of beliefs but act in a contrary manner. I don't, however, criticise others involved in the same actvity. Its merely a personal conflict.

But its a futile one on your behalf, seeing as you reject offhand every reasonable rationale for the work and the benefits there of.

You already stated you would let a child die rather than commit 100 mice to procuring a drug so you would seem to hold a high moral conviction, yet you say you will continue for selfish reasons, therefore, by direct implication you place your work over the life of another human being.

This, I'm afraid, is not a logical progression in the argument that "every life is sacred" which seems to be the basis of your dilemma.

Incidently, I was talking to DB about your project and I think the rationale behind it is of a sligter broader and more applied scope than you indicate here.

RE*AC*TOR

What i said was,
"Of course I would In that circumstance, i'd kill all the mice in Dublin to save this hypothetical child of mine. I'd also kill you though, and most of the people in Dublin to that aim. You are the one bringing emotion into this, with a blatantly emotive hypothetical question. What I'd do under such a circumstance, does not justify it."

You bring up emotive questions to argue against a moral, reasonable arguement. You fail to acknowledge any of the points i make. Furthermore, the scope of my project is irrelevant, completely irrelevant. If you had really read what I had posted previously, you would understand my position, which was argued logically - not saying you'd agree with it, merely understand it.

GuanYin

RE*AC*TOR wrote:

What i said was,
"Of course I would In that circumstance, i'd kill all the mice in Dublin to save this hypothetical child of mine. I'd also kill you though, and most of the people in Dublin to that aim. You are the one bringing emotion into this, with a blatantly emotive hypothetical question. What I'd do under such a circumstance, does not justify it."

You bring up emotive questions to argue against a moral, reasonable arguement. You fail to acknowledge any of the points i make. Furthermore, the scope of my project is irrelevant, completely irrelevant. If you had really read what I had posted previously, you would understand my position, which was argued logically - not saying you'd agree with it, merely understand it.

Thats not quite the full story. I never anywhere said "child of yours" those are your words and I still have no idea how you took them from my post. But we clarified the matter:

syke wrote:

I never said a child of yours. I said a 5 year old child. I ask because this is the age group (3-7) most likely to die from malaria at present. I would estimate roughly 100 mice die in malaria research every year per child in this age group. At present malaria work is progressing slowly (because noone will invest) but thats not to say that they aren't making progress. So its a simple question of worth not emotion. I'll rephrase the question, would you, given the choice, stop the malaria research on mice in favour of re-starting all the research projects on a different trial system, even though it would most likely set the current research back several years. And again I ask why.

RE*AC*TOR wrote:

To answer your question - yes I would stop the research on mice. For a number of reasons - primarily... Its wrong. Also it is a flawed model, there are many agruements for this, the animals are sufficiently different so the results don't carry over is the major one.

Again, I say, if you hold all life in such high regard, so much so that you would hold animals lives over humans, then how can you hold your work over animals lives (and thus humans) and still claim its a matter of "respecting all life". The implication is that your work takes precident over the importance of life, which is a paradox to your argument.

RE*AC*TOR

syke wrote:

Again, I say, if you hold all life in such high regard, so much so that you would hold animals lives over humans, then how can you hold your work over animals lives (and thus humans) and still claim its a matter of "respecting all life". The implication is that your work takes precident over the importance of life, which is a paradox to your argument.

as i said previously, because I'm a selfish bastard. It is in my interest to continue this research for my career development etc. Take that how you will. YOu do realise syke that this arguement ISN'T a challenge to your manhood!

GuanYin

RE*AC*TOR wrote:

as i said previously, because I'm a selfish bastard. It is in my interest to continue this research for my career development etc. Take that how you will. YOu do realise syke that this arguement ISN'T a challenge to your manhood!

No need to get personal, I'm just highlighting the inherent flaw in your "morality".

Here's another one. You hold all life in high esteem, yet have obvious mis-givings about using animals for research into life saving therapies.

You claim that your mis-givings allow you to place the lives of these animals over human life but not over your career prospects, all of which is an inconsistancy in itself.

However, you are taking a PhD studentship from someone who would and could in future use the skills learnt and position to really do some work that benefits man and save or impacts other slives in a positive way.

Even one paper published as a post-doc in animal research that inspires another research to do work that makes a breakthrough in any fatal medical condition, is a major contribution to the the lives of others on behalf of that post-doc.

However, for your own selfish reasons, not only are you killing the animals you have such a strong moral sense to guard, even so over human life, but if I am correct in assuming you will avoid animal research in your post-doctoral future, you are also wasting 3-4 years of funding and taking the place of someone who may care about the work and bettering the lives of others.

With so many people in the world hating their job and unsatisfied, you would be surprised how many are envious at a job where, even as indirectly as I described above, someone can make an actual contribution to society.

Yet, your morals, which don't extend past your own career prospects, allow you to blindly miss this aswell?

Fysh

RE*AC*TOR wrote:

as i said previously, because I'm a selfish bastard. It is in my interest to continue this research for my career development etc.

I take that to confirm the point I made previously - you lay claim to a certain moral stance (specifically, "all life is inherently valuable and should not be sacrificed for our own purposes") and then betray that for your own personal gain. No matter how you try to argue it, the fact that you have made this conscious decision negates your ability to claim that you truly hold this moral belief.

Nobody's saying that rejecting either the choice you made (following the research through) or your moral ideals will be easy - I for one am simply saying that at the moment, your stated position is contradictory. The only way to resolve this contradiction is to change one or the other, something you appear reluctant to do. But you can't expect to have your claims to a moral belief taken seriously when you freely admit that your selfish motivations will take precedence over them.

RE*AC*TOR

Ok, so might I say that the arguement now against my point has been reduced down to me being a hypocrite. Could I take it then, that logic and reason have failed and my hypocrisy is the final arguement. If so, then I feel at least I am right in my misgivings, I can't defend my hypocrisy and you both (syke and Fysh) make good points in that regard.

I wasn't interested in a "lets compare dick sizes" contest when I started this thread(s). So let me thank all who contributed, you have certainly challenged my thinking over the duration of this discussion. All contributions, both poitive and negative, greatly appreciated. I don't feel at this point there is much more to say, beyond the scope of repitition.



*edit* actually one more point. My beliefs aren't quite so rigid, or black and white as I made out, they're all clouded by the various pros and cons. However, I did deem it necessary to argue my point as best I could for the benefit of actually trying to reach a conclusion.

phlebas

I've been following this debate (across it's various forum appearances) and it's been rather interesting and entertaining. I'm somewhat ignorant in regards the scientific factor of the matter so i'll stay quiet on that side lest the scientific colossus that is syke crush me into dust.

Just based upon your posts RE*AC*TOR it comes to mind that maybe in a roundabout manner your taking part in this study would be of benefit to focusing your moral/ethical beliefs in practise and forcing you to actually test their strength outside of theory.

As numerous people have noted the life you lead no doubt indirectly benefits from or contributes to animal testing/harm, the lives of the the animals you consume undoubtedly amounting to a tortuous existence followed by an early death worse in many cases to the fate of your average lab animal, the use of products extensively tested upon animals etc etc. I don't believe it's valid to argue that in the society we are born into it is impossible to avoid such passive participation, it is merely far more convenient and comfortable to go along with it (as I and the vast majority do). Up until now this doesn't seem to have overly troubled you, the moral dilemma only seems to have surfaced when you have been forced to deal with it on a closer and more personal level, to actively participate in animal testing rather than passively support it.

This rather diminishes the argument that this is a genuine moral quandry, more a question of uncomfortableness at the proximity and personal involvement with the issue. Perhaps this "trial by fire" so to speak would be beneficial in forcing you out of complacency and spurring you to either re-appraise your moral code or more actively look at the way you live your life in light of your beliefs.


edit: It seems with impeccable timing i've stuck my oar in just as the debate came to a close

RE*AC*TOR

phlebas - I don't disagree with anything you've said.