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Ethics of Research involving animals

How does the justification of animal research relate to the justification of animals for other uses?

3.67 We have already noted the various ways in which humans interact with animals (paragraph 1.1). Comparing different uses of animals can be helpful in assessing more closely how specific morally relevant criteria, such as those considered above, are valued in practice. Comparisons usually carry with them the implication that the same criteria should be applied in comparable cases, and that similar cases should be evaluated alike. Two tendencies are common in making comparisons:

• ‘Using animals in research is justified because we also use animals in other contexts’

According to this view, a closer look at the way in which animals are used in, for example, food production and sport reveals that a range of negative implications for animal welfare in favour of human benefit are accepted by many people. Accordingly, the view might be taken that the use of approximately 2.7 million animals in research is relatively insignificant when compared to more than 950 million livestock and nearly 500,000 tonnes of fish used annually for food production in the UK (Appendix 1), or when compared to the number of wild birds and mice killed by pet cats, which has been estimated to be 300 million per year.27 The benefit to humans in using animals as food entails primarily an increased range in dietary variety, while the benefits of animal research can consist in significant developments in scientific progress and human welfare. Hence proponents of this view assert that the latter use should be more acceptable.

• ‘Thinking about animal research poses more questions than it answers’

Here, it is argued that concerns about animal research show that, insofar as other practices involve comparable degrees of pain, suffering and distress, they are in fact not as widely accepted as is sometimes claimed. Discussion about animal research can thus enjoin us to reassess the basis on which we seem to accept other uses of animals: is it reasoned argument? Are other uses accepted because people do not really know how the welfare of animals is affected, or because they adopt an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ view? Or, for example, because they trust farmers more than scientists to treat animals well? With regard to the quantities of animals used in different contexts, it could be argued that, although the number of research animals is far smaller than the numbers of animals used, for example, in food production, their lives are usually shorter, and that they may experience greater degrees of pain, suffering or distress.


3.68 In comparing different uses of animals it is critically important to consider the worthiness of the goal, the suffering of the animals involved and the availability of alternative ways of achieving the goals for which animals are used (see Appendix 1). If well informed, such comparisons can be instructive in ascertaining the basis of justifications given for the use of animals. However, due to the many variables involved, acceptance of one use does not automatically justify other uses. Comparisons are necessary, but are not the only consideration in moral analysis. Each of the uses requires individual consideration and justification. We return to the question of comparing different uses of animals in Chapter 14.

Footnotes

27 The estimate by the Mammal Society that 300 million wild animals and birds are killed by domestic cats every year in Britain
is based on a survey of the kill or capture records of 964 cats over a five-month period. See The Mammal Society (1998) Look
what the cat’s brought in, available at: http://www.mammal.org.uk/catkills.htm. Accessed on: 15 Mar 2005.