Introduction Many institutions use animal experiments to develop a new product or test the safety of medicines. Animals may be modified into suitable condition to obtain knowledge about potential human diseases and treatments. As animals including mice and rats that are distant from human share many genetic and physiological similarities with human, experimenting on them may bring enormous benefits (BBC, n.d.). Many of the experiments, however, cause pain to them or even reduce their living quality (HOPES, 2010). This brings attention to the justification of animal experiments. The moral status of animals and the benefit are highly controversial parts of the concern. Against animal experiments Most people would agree that animals have some kind of moral status. This presents a shift of view from past that animals had no moral status and respecting them was merely for protecting human property. Today, this question has evolved to how much moral status and what right animals have. (HOPES, 2010) The strongest answer to the question is that animals have the same moral status as humans do and that they deserve exactly the same treatment. This claim means that human have no right of killing and forcing animals in fulfilling their own goals and animals are no different from human. Specifically, supporters argue that animals have the capacity to enjoy or suffer life. (HOPES, 2010) They further claim that granting animals less moral is simply a prejudice or “speciesism”. Human has the tendency to consider themselves more moral simply because they belong to their own species. Belonging to particular race does not mean other species have less moral status. (HOPES, 2010) Considering the fact that the experiment exerts suffering to animals,... ... middle of paper ... ...or ability as some animals, are not considered subjects. Works Cited BBC. n.d. Animal ethics: Experimenting on animals. [online] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/animals/using/experiments_1.shtml [Accessed: 18 Nov 2013]. Harley, H. 2013. Consciousness in dolphins? A review of recent evidence. Journal of Comparative Physiology A, pp. 1--18. HOPES. 2010. Animal Research: The Ethics of Animal Experimentation. [online] Available at: http://www.stanford.edu/group/hopes/cgi-bin/wordpress/2010/07/animal-research/ [Accessed: 18 Nov 2013]. NEAVS. n.d. Alternatives to Animal Testing and Research. [online] Available at: http://www.neavs.org/alternatives/in-testing [Accessed: 18 Nov 2013]. Stevens, A. and Stevens, J. 2012. Animal Cognition. [online] Available at: http://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/animal-cognition-96639212 [Accessed: 18 Nov 2013].
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 broadcasted 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
“Animals and Research Part 4: Ethics of using animals in research.” Editorial. Seattle Post-Intelligencer 20 Apr. 2000 <http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/anml4.shtml>.
Driscoll, Sally and Laura Finley. “Animal Experimentation: An Overview.”Points Of View: Animal Experimentation (2013): 1. Points of View Reference Center. Web. 6 Feb. 2014
Philips, Trevor. "Human Self-Interest Will Ensure That Animal Experimentation Continues." The Independent (25 Apr. 1998). Rpt. in Animal Experimentation. Ed. Cindy Mur. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2004. At Issue. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 21 Apr. 2011.
Animal testing is performed in a wide arena of areas such as colleges and universities, laboratories, and within pharmaceutical companies. The main uses for the need of animal experimentation are genetic development, biomedical and biochemical research, toxicology, cosmetic testing and more. The use of animals for scientific research has constantly been a topic of ethical debate. Some major ...
Ferdowsian, Hope R. "Ethical and Scientific Considerations Regarding Animal Testing and Research." EBSCO Animals. EBSCO, Sept. 2011. Web. Mar. 2014.
“The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.”(Arthur Schopenhauer)
Festing, S., & Wilkinson, R. (2007). The ethics of animal research. Talking point on the use of animals in scientific research. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2002542/.
Scientific men are under definite obligation to experiment upon animals so far as that is the alternative to random and possibly harmful experimentation upon human beings, and so far as such experimentation is a means of saving human life and of increasing human vigor and efficiency (the ethics of animal experimentation)
... concept. An animal cannot follow our rules of morality, “Perhaps most crucially, what other species can be held morally accontable” (Scully 44). As a race humans must be humane to those that cannot grasp the concept. Animals do not posess human rights but they posess the right to welfare and proper treatment by their handlers.
Animals have held an important spot in many of our lives. Some people look at animals as companions and others see them as a means of experimental research and medical advancement. With the interest to gain knowledge, physicians have dissected animals. The ethics of animal testing have always been questioned because humans do not want to think of animals on the same level as humans. Incapable of our thinking and unable to speak, animals do not deserve to be tested on by products and be conducted in experiments for our scientific improvement. Experimentation on animals is cruel, unfair, and does not have enough beneficial results to consider it essential.
The deployment of animals for medical research has brought heated debates from both the proponents and opponents each holding to their views in a tight manner. Those who are in support of animal research argue that it has been constituting a vital element in the advancement of medical sciences throughout the world providing insights to various diseases, which have helped in the discovery and development of various medicines that have brought an improvement in the qualify of living of people. Such discoveries have gone so deep that but for them many would have died a premature death because no cure would have been found for the diseases that they were otherwise suffering. On the other hand, animal lovers and animal right extremists hold to the view that animal experimentation is not only necessary but also Cruel. Human kind is subjecting them to such cruelties because they are helpless and even assuming such experiments do bring in benefits, the inhuman treatment meted out to them is simply not worth such benefits. They would like measures, including enactment of legislations to put an end to using animals by the name of research. This paper takes the view there are merits in either of the arguments and takes the stand a balanced approach needs to be taken on the issue so that both the medical science does not suffer, and the animal lovers are pacified, even if not totally satisfied. The rest of the paper is organized as follows: The next section discusses both the sides by taking account the view of scholars and practitioners and the subsequent section concludes the paper by drawing vital points from the previous section to justify the stand taken in this paper....
“Man is the highest rated animal, at least among all the animals who returned the questionnaire (Brault, 2009).” For years humans have been using animals for experimentation, food, clothing, sport and entertainment, manual labor, and let us not forget man’s best friend. The unethical treatment of animals can best be resolved by deontology contrasted with ethical egoism.
Orlans, F. Barbara. In the Name of Science:Issues in Responsible Animal Experimentation. New York: Oxford UP: Oxford UP, 1993.
It has long been debated as to whether it is ethical to use animals for experimentation. When considering whether animal research is ethically acceptable or not two main concerns must be raised. The first issue is whether it is absolutely necessary to use animals in order to acquire information that may contribute to the improvement of people’s health and well-being. The second issue is whether the use of animals is defendable on a moral ground.