Animal rights and animal experiments: An interest-based approach

Res Publica

Volumn 13, Issue 3, 2007, Pages 293-318

  Cochrane, Alasdair ^a  

^a LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Animals; Autonomy; Continued life; Experiments; Freedom; Interests; Prudential value; Rights; Sentience; Suffering; Well being

Indexed keywords

EID: 34548137303     PISSN: 13564765     EISSN: 15728692     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/s11158-007-9037-8     Document Type: Article

References (46)

1. I say 'at least two camps', because there are in fact various philosophical resources with which to oppose animal experimentation. I focus on Peter Singer's utilitarian and Tom Regan's rights-based accounts, because they have been the most influential and garnered the greatest response (justifiably, in my view). For a good recent review of the literature on animal ethics within a broadly analytic approach see, Robert Garner, Animal Ethics (Cambridge: Polity, 2005).
2. For approaches to animal ethics within the continental tradition, see Matthew Calarco and Peter Atterton, (eds.), Animal Philosophy: Essential Readings in Continental Thought (New York: Continuum, 2004).
3. Joseph Raz, The Morality of Freedom (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), p. 166.
4. Of course, adopting a rights-based account is by no means the only means of tackling these types of ethical problems. For a taxonomy and critical evaluation of different approaches to tackling interest conflicts within animal ethics see Elisa Aaltola, 'Animal Ethics and Interest Conflicts', Ethics and the Environment 10/1 (2005) 19-48.
5. For a useful debate on the merits of the interest-based approach, to rights, including Raz's framework and the choice-based alternative, see Matthew H. Kramer, Nigel E. Simmonds and Hillel Steiner, A Debate Over Rights, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998).
6. For one view that animals cannot possess rights, see H. J. McCloskey, 'Rights', The Philosophical Quarterly 15/59 (1965) 115-127.
7. For an alternative view claiming that animals can possess rights, see Joel Feinberg, 'The Rights of Animals and Unborn Generations', in William T. Blackstone (ed.), Philosophy and Environmental Crisis, (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1974) 43-68.
8. Joel Feinberg, The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law: Vol. 1 Harm to Others, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 34.
9. Roger Crisp, 'Well-Being' in Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer, 2003), http://plato.stanford.edu/ archives/sum2003/entries/ well-being,
10. and L. W. Sumner, Welfare, Happiness and Ethics, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), p. 20.
11. This account of the strength of an interest is greatly influenced, by Jeff McMahan's account of the strength of what he calls 'time-relative interests'. However, as I make clear later in the paper, my account differs in one important regard. See Jeff McMahan, The Ethics of Killing (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 80.
12. Ibid., p. 233.
13. Ibid., p. 39.
14. See for example, Peter Singer, Animal Liberation, 2nd edn (London: Pimlico, 1995), pp. 7-17.
15. McMahan, The Ethics of Killing, p. 198.
16. For a philosophical argument calling into question the benefits of animal experiments, see Hugh LaFollette and Niall Shanks, Brute Science: Dilemmas of Animal Experimentation (London: Routledge, 1996).
17. Rights have been referred to as 'limits', 'trumps', and 'side-constraints' on aggregative policies. For examples, see: Jeremy Waldron, 'Rights in Conflict', Ethics, 99/3 (1989) 503-519;
18. Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia, (New York: Basic Books, 1974);
19. and Ronald Dworkin Taking Rights Seriously, (London: Duckworth, 1977).
20. Another important advocate of this relationship-based approach is Mary Midgley; see her Animals and Why they Matter, (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1984).
21. Lewis Petrinovich, Darwinian Dominion: Animal Welfare and Human Interests, (London: MIT Press, 1999), pp. 217-222.
22. Ibid., p. 238.
23. See LaFollette and Shanks, Brute Science, p. 229.
24. The idea that humans are simply worth more than animals is so entrenched in the history of Western moral thought that I do not have the space to reference all who have said it. Such claims were initially based on the fact that humans have souls and animals do not, and then on the fact that humans have reason and animals do not. Since these claims are now controversial, current arguments usually relate to something like Steinbock's notion of 'moral autonomy': something that humans possess, but animals do not. For other examples in this latter camp see, Carl Cohen, 'The Case for the Use of Animals in Biomedical Research', The New England Journal of Medicine 315/14 (October 2, 1986) 865-870,
25. and Michael Fox, 'Animal Liberation: a Critique', Ethics 88/2 (January, 1978) 106-118.
26. Bonnie Steinbock, 'Speciesism and the Idea of Equality', Philosophy 53 (1978) 247-256, pp. 253-254.
27. This type of claim - that we should treat non-humans how we treat humans with similar capacities - is often called, 'the argument from marginal cases'. See Daniel Dombrowski, Babies and Beasts: The Argument from Marginal Cases (Urbana: Illinois University Press, 1997).
28. For an attack on this type of reasoning, see Elizabeth Anderson, 'Animal Rights and the Values of Nonhuman Life', in Cass R. Sunstein and Martha C. Nussbaum (eds), Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). Anderson's argument essentially rests on the premise that species membership is morally significant, and thus is open to the same criticisms levelled in the previous section.
29. Steinbock, op. cit., p. 255.
30. Angus Taylor, Animals and Ethics (Ontario: Broadview Press, 2003), p. 127.
31. Steinbock, op. cit., p. 255.
32. I say 'ordinarily' because of course an animal might have a disease that means it will necessarily have painful experiences for the rest of its life. In such cases, there seems little reason to attribute to the animal an interest in continued life.
33. This view is put forward by David DeGrazia, Animal Rights: a Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 59-64,
34. Bernard E. Rollin, Animal Rights and Human Morality, rev. edn. (New York: Prometheus Books, 1992), p. 86
35. and Steve F. Sapontzis, Morals, Reason and Animals, (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987), p. 169.
36. Again, I say 'ordinarily' because in some cases individuals will have no prospect for future valuable experiences or projects: consider individuals with debilitating illnesses that cause severe and relentless pain, for example. Under my account, such individuals will naturally have a much weaker interest in continued life. This is a conclusion I am willing to accept.
37. Some philosophers claim that granting rights to animals on the basis of the capacities they share with humans is anthropocentric and speciesist. Since moral reasoning has to start somewhere, and that somewhere must be with humans and human experience, I am not persuaded by such claims. For a useful discussion of these points see, Elisa Aaltola, '"Other animal ethics" and the demand for difference', Environmental Values 11/2 (2002) 193-209.
38. R. G. Frey has faced up to the possibility of using human (and animal) nonpersons in medical experiments based on the potential benefits to human persons. See his contribution in R.G. Frey and Sir William Paton, 'Vivisection, Morals and Medicine: An Exchange', in Helga Kushe and Peter Singer (eds), Bioethics: An Anthology, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2002).
39. However, he categorically rejects the use of humans in R. G. Frey, 'Animals', in Hugh LaFollette (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Practical Ethics, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) 161-187.
40. McMahan, The Ethics of Killing, p. 233.
41. I say almost certain because it is conceivable that an 'experiment' could be conducted that simply involved observing the animal in its natural environment without interference. Whether such field work should properly be referred to as an experiment, I do not know.
42. For the classic exposition of the distinction between negative and positive liberty see, Isaiah Berlin, 'Two Concepts of Liberty', in Anthony Quinton (ed.), Political Philosophy, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967), pp. 141-152.
43. I say 'most animals' to leave open the possibility that some animals are in fact autonomous creatures with capacities to reflect on, choose and pursue their own goals. Potential candidates for such animals are great apes and cetaceans. On this matter, I have no firm belief either way, and leave it to those more knowledgeable on animal minds than myself to determine.
44. Paul W. Taylor, Respect for Nature, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. 106-109.
45. Of course such policies are pursued in many zoos and wildlife parks around the world. Rare species are taken into captivity and bred, in the hope that the resulting offspring will have a better chance of survival.
46. Thanks to Cécile Fabre for pointing this out to me.