At the turn of the new century, activists begun to protest the morality of animal experimentation: “… such methodology is far too cruel on beast, it cannot better mankind, but its lead to it demise…” Despite the rising concern for animal safety in laboratory research, federal legislations approved the practice. According to the federal bureaucrats, it is an essential tool to improve our current medical knowledge. Hence, most of the tested animals have a relatively shorter life span than human. Thus, it allows to test long-term disease in a smaller timeframe. Nonetheless, animal enthusiast request the banishment of animal experimentation in laboratory. Ergo, with our current technology, researchers are capable to reproduce the same result
Unlike in the past century, both views have finally reached an agreement in this debate: as of now, a limited amount of rodents, or primates, such as white mice and rhesus monkeys can be tested in the laboratory. Which begs the question, why are these selected fews continue to be subject in gruesome experiment unlike their brethren? Additionally, is their moral status is lesser than others fauna, and shouldn’t they instead receives the same respect as well ? In contrast, does the respect is mutual toward non-animal being, such as bacteria, or virus? Subsequently, these particular question acknowledges the weaknesses in the new conclusion of the debate. From the vast species of the animal kingdom, few primates and rodents species are chosen because these creatures are not domesticated by human. Evidently, it means that society does not have any cultural attachment to them, unlike others animal. As such, there isn’t any incentive to protect their rights. Likewise, microscopic organism, such as bacteria or virus are demonized as a pest, thus their moral rights are not values as well. However, it is far from the truth. Knowing the ongoing directions of the debate, it is imperative to better define the moral status of not only animal, but any living being altogether in order to establish a general code of conduct for future
In her essay “A Question of Ethics,” Jane Goodall, a scientist who has studied chimpanzees for years, tries to resolve a heavily debated ethical dilemma: Under what circumstances is it acceptable to cause animal suffering to prevent human suffering? Her answer, however, remains uncertain. Although Goodall challenges scientists to avoid conducting unnecessary tests on animals, she does not explain the criteria by which scientists should determine necessity.
The information that animals have provided scientists over the past decades has changed society, and is still changing society for the better. Millions of lives have been saved with the use of animal testing and many more will be saved with continued research. However, there are many who dismiss this monumental achievement completely and oppose the use of animals in laboratory research. Though many find this practice to be
The practice of using animals for testing has been a controversial issue over the past thirty years. Animal testing is a morally debated practice. The question is whether animal testing is morally right or wrong. This paper will present both sides of this issue as well as my own opinion.
Both in and out of philosophical circle, animals have traditionally been seen as significantly different from, and inferior to, humans because they lacked a certain intangible quality – reason, moral agency, or consciousness – that made them moral agents. Recently however, society has patently begun to move beyond this strong anthropocentric notion and has begun to reach for a more adequate set of moral categories for guiding, assessing and constraining our treatment of other animals. As a growing proportion of the populations in western countries adopts the general position of animal liberation, more and more philosophers are beginning to agree that sentient creatures are of a direct moral concern to humans, though the degree of this concern is still subject to much disagreement. The political, cultural and philosophical animal liberation movement demands for a fundamental transformation of humans’ present relations to all sentient animals. They reject the idea that animals are merely human resources, and instead claim that they have value and worth in themselves. Animals are used, among other things, in basic biomedical research whose purpose is to increase knowledge about the basic processes of human anatomy. The fundamental wrong with this type of research is that it allows humans to see animals as here for them, to be surgically manipulated and exploited for money. The use of animals as subjects in biomedical research brings forth two main underlying ethical issues: firstly, the imposition of avoidable suffering on creatures capable of both sensation and consciousness, and secondly the uncertainty pertaining to the notion of animal rights.
An article written by an animal researcher and psychology professor discusses the lack of ethical treatment towards primates in research labs. The author of Second Thoughts of an Animal Researcher, John P. Gluck, justified the unethical treatment of primates by believing that scientific advancements are superior to the harm the primates experienced. One day a student of his presented a dissertation about a female rhesus monkey who unexpectedly passed away. The dissertation caused Gluck to feel that the animals he caused much harm to were more than objects used to create data. Although he tried to continually justify his actions, he eventually felt guilty and decided that the primates deserve to be handled ethically. Throughout the article,
Animal testing is a subject appalled by many people. It is considered to be unethical, inhumane, and downright cruel. One of these reasons for the opposition of animal experimentation is due to the belief shared by many animal activist groups, such as PETA, that animals are kept in appalling living conditions in research facilities. Reasons to believe this are caused by minor instances of laboratories not abiding the law. However, despite these instances the welfare of test animals are preserved by many laws and regulatio...
(Intro)Nonhuman Animal Experimentation is defined as the use of nonhuman animals in research and development projected for the sole purpose of determining the safety of substances such as foods or drugs. According to The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), scientific experiments have required animals to “inhale toxic fumes,... remain immobilized in restraint devices for hours,... suffer through the drilling of holes into their skulls,... withstand the burning of their skin,... and endure the agony caused from the crushing of their spinal cord”(“Animal experiments: overview,” n.d.). Testing harmful products on animals everyday creates a long lasting effect on the animals. That is to say, numbers of animals have been diagnosed with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and have become so afraid of humans that they crawl into a corner everytime they see a person.
Expanding this thought process, the moral thinking that animal suffering should be included in rational decision making, past the realm of simply whether or not eating animals is ethically wrong leads us to other places where animal suffering may prove helpful to human life. This such place being examined is the medical experimentation field. Animals are being bred and created just to usually live short, painful lives. The animals are treated with varying degrees of concern for their well being. The mass suffering of the animals, not just for a short time remember usually the suffering lasts for years, in some eyes are seen is seen as a necessary evil on the road to medical and scientific development. This thought process falling from the hierarchy of species that has ingrained itself in human minds, the idea that humans are the most important and worthy, and thus any suffering of “inferior creatures” should not be considered when there is the possibility for advancement. This idea however is a flaw in moral
The first pro to animal testing is that it has helped us create lifesaving cures and treatments. The California Biomedical Research Association released a statement saying almost every single medical breakthrough has resulted in the direct use of animals in the last 100 years. Can you believe this? Taking out dogs pancreases helped us discover insulin, chimpanzees helped us get a vaccine for Hepatitis B, and even the polio vaccine was tested on animals. Animal testing has also helped us treat and understand conditions like brain injury, breast cancer, cystic fibrosis, childhood leukemia, tuberculosis, multiple sclerosis, malaria, and many others. It even helped us develop anesthetics, pacemakers, and cardiac value substitutes. Almost every cure for any condition is due to animal testing. Without animal testing, we may not have been able to find many of these cures and find cures for other conditions in the future.
One word comes to mind when I think of animal testing: cruel. Animal testing has been a subject of debate for many years. While most people think that using animals to test products is a reasonable approach, in reality the outcome does not always show how the products will react on humans, and the animals suffer unnecessarily. The United States needs to ban all animal testing like the European Union did because testing on animals is cruel and animals should not be dying from it.
Animal experimentation is not as good as it may seem to humans because we are not feeling it. It is cruel to animals to experience this. Many experts say is the only way to make new medicine, but you have to think about the animal. Many people don't even know what happens during experimentation on animals.
In modern society, animal experimentation has triggered a controversy; consequently, vast amount of protests have been initiated by the animal rights community. Although these organizations have successfully broadcast their concerns toward animal experimentation, its application continues to survive. Sally Driscoll and Laura Finley inform that there remain fifty million to one-hundred million animals that experience testing or experimentation throughout the world on a yearly basis. But despite opposition, animal experimentation, the use of experiments on animals in order to observe the effects an unknown substance has on living creatures, serves multiple purposes. Those particular purposes are: research of the living body, the testing of products, and the advancement of medicine.
Although not as strictly addressed, there is still a schism when it comes to the matters of experimentation involving animals. Those in opposition of it see it as being against the will of the animal, because animals have no say in the matter. However, through animal experimentation there has been vast medical advances in hospitals and veterinarians , research has led to cures for various diseases that would normally take many more years to cure, and the use of animals is highly ethical considering what could be the alternative, although there is progress being made to change these measures. This is how animal experimentation is of use to society for humans and animals.
Living beings consist of only two kinds, animals and plants. Humans being the highest race of animals, seems to have a big sense of their own importance and live in the illusion that the earth belongs only to them and they are the only ‘living creature’ to be cared. Since the very beginning of the human race, science has been making our lives easier and comfortable. The outstanding combination of nature, its resources and the human brain has been the raw materials for this advancement. As it is well said nothing comes free of cost, and nature had been paying a huge cost for humans comfort. The animals-cats, rabbits, rats and so on are widely and cruelly used in various kinds of scientific research, and millions die every year. The use of animals as a source of experiments in behavioral and biomedical research has become a subject of heated debate in social, political, philosophical, ethical and psychological grounds. Animals should not be used as subjects for experiment because they are living being and experience pain, instead we can opt for alternatives for animals as subjects for experiments.
Since experiments are cruel and expensive, “the world’s most forward-thinking scientists have moved on to develop and use methods for studying diseases and testing products that replace animals and are actually relevant to human health” (“Alternatives to Animals”). Companies claim that this sort of cruelty will benefit the human population by testing the “safety” of the products, as they have been for hundreds of years, and although this may have been helpful in the past, scientists have discovered otherwise. “While funding for animal experimentation and the number of animals tested on continues to increase, the United States still ranks 49th in the world in life expectancy and second worst in infant mortality in the developed world” (“Animal Testing Is”). This evidence shows that while we still continue to support and spend money on animal testing, it is not working as well as we thought.