Argument: Some groups of people have less capacity for suffering than most animals

It is possible to conceive of human persons almost totally lacking in a capacity for suffering, or indeed a capacity to develop and possess interests. Take for example a person in a persistent vegetative state, or a person born with the most severe of cognitive impairments.

We can take three possible stances toward such persons within this debate. Firstly we could experiment on animals, but not such persons. This would be a morally inconsistent and specieist stance to adopt, and as such unsatisfactory. We could be morally consistent, and experiment on both animals and such persons. Common morality suggests that it would be abhorrent to conduct potentially painful medical research on the severely disabled, and so this stance seems equally unsatisfactory. Finally we could maintain moral consistency and avoid experimenting on the disabled, by adopting the stance of experimenting on neither group, thus prohibiting experimentation upon animals. [1]

[1] Fox, M. A., “The Moral Community”, in La Follette (ed.), Ethics in Practice, (Malden, Mass; Oxford : Blackwell Pub, 2007)

Candidate 1: "People would die and suffer needlessly under such a policy

23 new drugs are introduced each year in the United Kingdom alone . [1] . While almost all of these drugs will have been brought to the market after extensive animal testing, the number of animals used to check their safety only seems to be a high cost when the benefits that each drug brings to its users are inadequately considered.

New drugs that are approved for medical use have the potential to relieve human pain and suffering not only for the first group of patients given access to them, but also for future generations of sick and suffering individuals too. Consider all the lives, all over the world, that have benefitted from penicillin since its discovery in 1928. If drugs cost more to research and develop, then that reduces potential profit margins, and some drugs that would have otherwise been discovered and released will fall below the new threshold of likely profits necessary to fund the research. Adopting this proposition will lead to more people suffering and dying in the future than would have otherwise been the case.

[1] BBC News. 2013. Falling drug breakthroughs 'a myth'. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21519901"
Candidate 2: "Firstly, due to our larger and more sophisticated brains, one would expect the average human to have a great many more interests than any animal, for those interests to be more complex and interconnected, and for there to be a greater capacity for reflection and comprehension of the satisfaction gleaned from the realisation of such interests. Thus, we can ascribe greater value to the life of a human than an animal, and thus conclude there to be less harm in painlessly killing an animal than a human. Secondly, to the extent that research on animals is of benefit to humans, it is thus permissible to conduct experiments requiring euthanasia of the animal subjects. [1]

[1] Frey, R. G., “Moral Standing: The Value of Life and Specieism”, in La Follette (ed.), Ethics in Practice, (Malden, Mass; Oxford : Blackwell Pub, 2007)"
Candidate 3: "We do not have to justify cock fighting and other acts of animal cruelty as morally permissible. These are different acts to animal research in an important respect. It is not the intention of the researchers to harm the animals, but rather to produce high quality research for the betterment of human lives. Whilst it is true that in some cases harm to the animals is a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the research, this is minimised wherever possible, with pain killers, anaesthesia, and attempts to use other research means. There are many exceptions in law which maintain moral consistency due to the intention behind the act. For example, killing someone for money would be murder and illegal, whilst an exception might be made if you were killing in war, or self-defence, as the intention behind the act is held to be both different and morally just."
Candidate 4: "Animals involved in animal research are mostly well treated.

The vast majority of animals used in research are not subjected to suffering. Where there may be pain, they are given painkillers, and when they are euthanized it is done humanely. [1] They are looked after well, as the health of the animals is usually not only required by law and good practice, but beneficial for the experimental results. Many of these animals live better lives than they might have done had they been born into the wild. Many animals, and indeed humans, die untimely deaths that are due to reasons other than old age, animal experimentation may increase these numbers slightly but so long as the animals are treated well there should be no moral objection to animal research. If the foundation of the argument for banning animal experimentation is therefore based upon the cruel treatment and pain suffered by animals then this is a reason for regulation to make sure there is very little suffering rather than an outright ban.

[1] Herzog, H., “Dealing With the Animal Research Controversy”, in Akins, C. Panicker, S. &amp; Cunningham, C. L (eds.), Laboratory animals in research and teaching: Ethics, care and methods, (Washington, DC, US: American Psychological Association, 2005, Ch. 1."
Candidate 5: "Animals' rights are of less moral worth than human rights

Humans are complex beings with large well developed brains, that form sizeable social groups, have significant ability to communicate with one another, possess interconnected desires, preferences and interests about the world, have an awareness of their own existence and mortality, and as such are beings worthy of moral consideration. Animals too express some of these characteristics to some degree and thus animals too are worthy of moral consideration. However, animal lives and human lives are of unequal value. This is due to the fact that no animal possesses all of these characteristics to the same degree as the average human, or even comes particularly close. Thus any rights ascribed to animals should be truncated relative to the rights we ascribe to humans. [1] Therefore animals should not rightly possess the same rights to not be experimented upon as humans might. To the extent to which causing some harm to animals brings great benefit to humans, we are morally justified in creating some moral harm, to achieve a far greater moral good.

[1] Frey, R. G., “Moral Standing: The Value of Life and Speciesism”, in La Follette (ed.), Ethics in Practice, (Malden, Mass; Oxford : Blackwell Pub, 2007)"
Candidate 6: "Most developed countries, including the United States and the member-states of the European Union, have regulations and laws which require the research methods that do not involve animal models should be used wherever they would produce equally accurate results. In other words, scientists are barred from using animals in research where non-animal methods would be just as effective.

Further, research animals are extremely expensive to breed, house and care for. Developed countries have very strict laws governing the welfare of animals used in research; obtaining the training and expert advice required to comply with these laws is costly. As a result, academic institutions and medical or pharmaceutical businesses function under constant pressure to find viable alternatives to using animals in research. Researchers have a strong motive to use alternatives to animal models wherever possible.

If we ban animal research even if research advances continue we will never know how much further and faster that research could have gone with the aid of experiments on animals. Animal research conducted today produces higher quality results than alternative research methodologies, and is thus it is likely necessary for it to remain in order for us to enjoy the rate of scientific advancement we have become used to in recent years. [1] Precisely because we never know where the next big breakthrough is going to come, we do not want to be narrowing research options. Instead, all options - computer models, tissue cultures, microdosing and animal experiments - should be explored, making it more likely that there will be a breakthrough.

[1] Ator, N. A., “Conducting Behavioural Research”, in Akins, C. Panicker, S. &amp; Cunningham, C. L (eds.), Laboratory animals in research and teaching: Ethics, care and methods, (Washington, DC, US: American Psychological Association, 2005, Ch. 3."
Candidate 7: "Animal research is only used where other research methods are not suitable

Developed countries, including the US and all members of the EU (since EU Directive 2010/63/EU) have created laws and professional regulations that prevent scientists from using animals for research if other, non-animal research methods would produce equally clear and detailed results.

The principle described above is also enshrined in the "3Rs" doctrine, which states that researchers and their employers have a duty to identify ways to refine experiments conducted on animals, so that yield better results and cause less suffering; replace animals used in research the non-animal alternatives where possible; and reduce the number of animals used in research. Not only does the 3Rs doctrine represent a practical way to reconcile the necessity of animal research with the universal human desire not to cause suffering, it also drives scientists to increase the overall quality of the research that they conduct. Governments and academic institutions take the 3Rs doctrine very seriously. In EU countries scientists are required to show that they have considered other methods of research before being granted a license for an animal experiment.

There are a huge number of ways of learning about our physiology and the pathologies which affect it, including to computer models, cell cultures, animal models, human microdosing and population studies. These methods are used to complement one another, for example animal models may well produce data that creates a computer model. Nonetheless, there is some research which cannot be done any other way. It is difficult to understand the interaction of specific sets of genes without being able to change only these genes – something possible through genetically modified animals.

Finally, as noted above, given the high cost of conducting animal research relative to other methods, there is a financial incentive for institutions to adopt non-animal methods where they produce as useful and accurate results."
Candidate 8: "Animals do not have such a right not to be harmed; even if they are similar to humans in terms of their feelings (that opposition does not concede) this right is impossible to argue for. The right of a human not to be harmed is a part of a quid pro quo that we will also not do harm to others. Animals are unable to engage in such a contract either to us or to other animals. Animals are not about to stop hunting other animals because the animal that is hunted feel’s pain when it is caught and it even if animal experimentation was to be ended it is unlikely that humanity would stop killing animals either for food, to prevent overpopulation or by accident all of which would have to be the case if animals feeling of pleasure and pain and resulting rights had to be taken into account."
Candidate 9: "Animal research is necessary for the development of truly novel substances

Undoubtedly then, the most beneficial research to mankind is the development of truly novel drugs. Even according to the proposition this represents about a quarter of all new drugs released, which could be seen as significant given the great potential to relieve the suffering beyond our current capacity that such drugs promise.

After the effects, side effects and more complex interactions of a drug have been confirmed using animal and non-animal testing, it will usually pass to what is called a phase I clinical trial - tests on human volunteers to confirm how the drug will interact with human physiology and what dosages it should be administered in. The risk of a human volunteer involved in a phase I trial being harmed is extremely small, but only because animal tests, along with non-animal screening methods are a highly effective way of ensuring that dangerous novel drugs are not administered to humans. In the United Kingdom, over the past twenty years or more, there have been no human deaths as a result of phase I clinical trials.

Novel compounds (as opposed to so-called "me-too" drugs, that make slight changes to an existing treatment) are the substances that hold the most promise for improving human lives and treating previously incurable conditions. However, their novelty is also the reason why it is difficult for scientists to predict whether they may cause harm to humans.

Research into novel compounds would not be possible without either animal testing, or tremendous risk to human subjects, with inevitable suffering and death on the part of the trial volunteers on some occasions. It is difficult to believe that in such circumstances anyone would volunteer, and that even if they did, pharmaceutical companies would be willing to risk the potential legal consequences of administering a substance to them they knew relatively little about. In short, development of novel drugs requires animal experimentation, and would be impossible under the proposition's policy."
Candidate 10: "We do not need to justify the moral value of severely cognitively disabled persons, although if we wanted to, we could invoke notions of kinship, and family as providing a justification for acting in an apparently specieist manner. [1] Rather, it is sufficient to highlight the point, that experimenting on humans of any cognitive function, carries with it certain negative externalities. Such persons are likely to have relatives who would be harmed by the knowledge that their loved ones are being used in medical experiments for example. Even in the case of such a person who lacks any relatives, broader society and disabled rights groups could be harmed by a policy that allows treating some disabled persons differently to the rest of our moral community.

Such externalities would make experimenting on animals, rather than such persons, both preferable and morally consistent.

[1] Fox, M. A., “The Moral Community”, in La Follette (ed.), Ethics in Practice, (Malden, Mass; Oxford : Blackwell Pub, 2007)"

We do not need to justify the moral value of severely cognitively disabled persons, although if we wanted to, we could invoke notions of kinship, and family as providing a justification for acting in an apparently specieist manner. [1] Rather, it is sufficient to highlight the point, that experimenting on humans of any cognitive function, carries with it certain negative externalities. Such persons are likely to have relatives who would be harmed by the knowledge that their loved ones are being used in medical experiments for example. Even in the case of such a person who lacks any relatives, broader society and disabled rights groups could be harmed by a policy that allows treating some disabled persons differently to the rest of our moral community.

Such externalities would make experimenting on animals, rather than such persons, both preferable and morally consistent.

[1] Fox, M. A., “The Moral Community”, in La Follette (ed.), Ethics in Practice, (Malden, Mass; Oxford : Blackwell Pub, 2007)
