EVALUATING THE ETHICS OF ANIMAL RESEARCH
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This is a very controversial topic and feelings run high among some groups of people. Given that animal research in this is currently legal and taking place, I propose to evaluate this methodology as it is, rather than insisting on how it ought to be. The Examiner would surely adopt the same view.
Strengths (in favour) The Theory of Evolution is widely accepted by scientists. It clearly implies that we can learn from the behaviour of animals and draw conclusions about human behaviour. Denying this
amounts to a rejection of Darwinian evolution, which few scientists are inclined to do. There are practical advantages to such research. Animals can be controlled more exactly than humans and observed more continuously. Their lack of self-awareness reduces the likelihood of demand characteristics in experimental conditions. Their faster breeding cycles makes it
possible to observe development in an experimental timeframe of days or weeks, rather than the years it would take for humans. The 1986 Act and the BPS Guidelines ensure that animals are protected and only the most beneficial, high quality and humane research goes on. Research that satisfies the Bateson Cube decision-making process should be considered to be ethical.
From a certain ethical position, anything that maximises the benefit for the maximum number of creatures is ethically desirable. If more humans (and other animals) benefit from research than are harmed by it, this might be seen as ethical too. Weaknesses (against) The “animal rights” argument claims that animals have an absolute right not to be harmed or
interfered with by us. It’s not enough to make research as humane as possible: it simply shouldn’t happen at all. This viewpoint rejects calculations about the benefit to the majority, the Bateson Cube decision-making process or any approach that tries to “minimise” rather than put a stop to harm to animals. Another argument, put forward by Peter Singer (1975), is that it is wrong to do things to animals that we wouldn’t do to humans.
This is what Singer calls “species-ism” and it is a type of discrimination, just like racism or sexism. It is also argued that animals have different needs and perceptions from humans, so we cannot know to what extent they are suffering. This makes the Bateson decision-making cube and attempts to “minimise” harm impossible to carry out. It is also argued that, in spite of our evolutionary similarities, we cannot generalise from animal experiments to humans because our thought processes and behaviours are simply too different. If this is true then all animal studies are “low quality research” and fail Bateson’s decision-making cube test. Applications There have been clear applications of animal research to human life. Jeffrey Gray (1991) argues
“we owe a special duty to members of our own species” and if we can benefit humans by experimenting on animals, then this is our moral duty. Examples would include Pavlov’s research into dogswhich revealed the processes of
Classical Conditioningand Skinner’s research into rats which explored Operant Conditioning. Both types of conditioning are used today to benefit humans,
especially people suffering from phobias and addictions or people in prisons or psychiatric hospitals. Pavlov’s research does seem inhumane in hindsight, because the dogs were restrained, deprived of stimulation and surgically altered to drain away their saliva and measure it. Pavlov’s lab was essentially a physiology factory, and the dogs were his machines – Michael Specter (2014)
Pavlov also used 35 dogs, which sounds excessive, but that was
over 25 years and he tested other things on them besides condition. His research was certainly of high quality and he received the Nobel Prize for Medicine for the benefits his research produced. There is also the use of a white rat, a rabbit, a dog and a monkey in Watson & Rayner’s “Little Albert” study. These animals weren’t experimented on; they were just
used as neutral stimuli for Albert. However, there were still issues with how they were procured and disposed of. (Presumably Watson got them from a local pet shop and returned them afterwards but his study doesn’t make this clear.) Research into the language abilities of great apes has changed public perceptions of apes and may change their legal status. In 2014, an Argentinean court recognised an orang-utan named Sandra to be a
“non-human person” who had been deprived of her freedom by Buenos Aires Zoo.
Comparisons
Much of the research into Learning in animals has been “done to death” and would not pass Bateson’s test in the 21st century: if you want to see operant conditioning in
rats or pigeons, you can watch the films made by Skinner online. Some of this research, such as the cruel experiments on rhesus monkeys carried out by Harlow, dragged the Learning Approach into disrepute. Some of the most interesting contemporary research on animals is from the Cognitive Approach, looking at the language and problem-solving abilities
of apes. Apes have been taught to use human sign language and one of the first apes to do this, a chimpanzee named Washoe, died in 2007. Washoe inspired Peter Singer to launch The Great Ape Project to campaign for changes in the law, so that apes should be treated under the oral category of “persons” rather than as
“property”. In this way, Cognitive Psychology could be seen as advancing the cause of animal rights, rather than exploiting animals.
Ayumu is a chimp who can beat humans in a test of Working Memory. This sort of
Cognitive research has strengthened the argument that great apes are "non-human persons".
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