http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/003150.html

Heh. As ever Arif, you are my conscience mate.

Thanks for a very thoughtful analysis. I will consider the points you raised.

Sunny,

No, I wouldn’t submit to being experimented on by aliens. Although once, when very, very drunk, I may have submitted to an anal probe from;

http://www.cinemas-online.co.uk/films/species/1.jpg

The memory is hazy.

Really, I don’t see how I have suggested that anyone or anything was morally obliged to submit to anything. I have scarcely been a flag waver for vivisection here, I would like to see it reduced. regulated and – ideally – superceded by technology. I certainly don’t want it extended to us.

Now I am off to consider my position on the social contract.

I think its main strength is that it allows pro-testers to solve ethical problems in an intuitively acceptable way:

- it justifies giving human beings more rights and duties than animals.
- it solves the hypothetical problem of what happens to human rights in the face of a more intelligent/”compassionate” or whatever species wanted to use us for their testing. We can continue to insist on our rights and duties as part of a moral community.
- it means that humans can excuse their less intelligent/powerful or whatever members from being used for medical research, by insisting they have rights as members of a community, even if they haven’t greater mental/social whatever faculties than individual members of other species which we do allow experiments on.

The problems it is weaker on, are then how we can regulate conflicts between different human communities.

- On a secular level, there is nothing to stop humans abusing other human beings to an infinite extent if they do not accept them as part of the same social contract (eg of nation). Slavery among humans would be acceptable.

- Contracts need not be egalitarian in nature even within a community. We could even have a society with a free market in human testing under the social contract philosophy (the point Sunny is making).

I think Don makes the issues clearest when offering three options for how to deal with Ebola. The social contract he might be promoting could be something like humans will do all they can, including torturing animals and excluding torturing humans, to avoid painful human catastrophes. And it seems quite appealing.

But the basis of the appeal is partly moral and partly selfish. It sets up a principle which happens to put us in a privileged situation and allows us to try to defend the privilege. It is more attractive to a liberal mind if it implicitly assumes that there is a universal social contract among human beings, and not just a number of contracts among different tribes or nations, all of which are entitled to torture others to gain their ends.

I believe the attraction would be less if we didn’t feel it allowed us to effectively fight wars we expect to win. If we felt we or those we care for would ever be on the losing side of the principle, it would seem less attractive.

People who care more for other animals than humans also put contractarians in a difficult position. If we say that we do not experiment on mentally damaged humans because there is a social contract entered into by people who care about mentally damaged humans, then we also have to avoid experimenting on any animals that human members of society have strong feelings for. I guess a contractarian can argue that this would be an internal argument about the contents of the social contract which can change over time. And in reality I think this best describes how animal testing might get outlawed in the real world.

So rather than arguing that the social contract should be altered to allow activities which are currently banned for seemingly sentimental reasons, perhaps, Sunny you could be arguing to alter the social contract to ban activities (on sentimental grounds) which are currently undertaken without conscience.

I understand the shock value, Sunny, but you never know how seriously your arguments might be taken, justifying ever increasing human and animal exploitation.

Erm, actually no Don. Animals are also perfectly capable of having compassion for their own species and that of others. There are plenty of anecdotes demonstrating this. I believe some animals have even mated across species.

How do you also know they are not concious of their own existence? We care enough to having this debate means what? We can pat ourselves on our backs? When a dog rescues a kid from a fire from example, you think that dig is not doing it out of compassion?

Arif mentions another point in my previous article on this issue – I assume then also that is a species much more powerful and intelligent and self-aware than us were to arise and want us for testing – you would submit? After all, that is your thinking…

Apologies in advance this week, this is a fairly short Britblog Roundup. I’m afraid my own additions this week have been severely curtailed by the pressure of time. So, please don’t forget that you can make your nominations by emailing

I don’t really have a philosophy to pick holes in, Sunny. I’m playing this by ear. I am just very uncomfortable with;

a likely real world alternative is the use of the death penalty to provide a source of organs – this appears to be happening in China

Though I see people screaming blue-murder about this, I agree. Chris Dillow in his piece mentions the fact that criminals break the social contract and therefore get tested on. I think that’s a line of thinking I may agree with.

Please respond to my links to what is already happening in China, and suggest to what extent one must break the social contract in China to be considered ‘ripe’ for harvesting. Actally, don’t bother. Market forces will take care of it.

‘The point of this exercise is to determine what exactly you think gives us the right to violate the living rights of other beings.’

Oh, good. An easy question. Because we are living beings, and all living beings exist on violating the etc. What makes us special is that we are capable of compassion towards those not of our species, that we are aware that others are concious beings, that we care enough to have this debate.

I don’t have a problem with a debate about the ethics of animal experimentation, but do you seriously want to ‘open the floodgates’ on a market driven free for all on human experimentation, given the reality?

But it’s not obvious that our superior rights over animals derives from our physical features. Why are bipedelism, opposable thumbs and some language morally important, as generators of rights?

A better line of argument is that rights arise from some type of implicit social contract. But this distinguishes some animals from other animals, not all humans from all animals. Cats, dogs and horses have entered into society with humans, generating reciprocal obligations, whereas rats and monkeys haven’t. I can see the case, then, for experimenting on the latter but not the former.

However, if rights originate in a social contract, then surely serious or persistent criminals – by breaking that contract – lose their rights. So why not experiment on him, him, or them, to name but a few.

The point of this exercise is to determine what exactly you think gives us the right to violate the living rights of other beings.

Is it a social contract, a measure of intelligence, a belief that humans have an unalienable right to kill and do whatever they want with other species and nature – what exactly?

By understanding how you come to the understanding that you do, I can poke holes in your philosophy

http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,7369,1568622,00.html

And;

‘Speaking before the subcommittee, Wang described the procedures, saying that often group executions were organized to facilitate the demand for organ transplants.

“It is with deep regret and remorse that I stand here today testifying against the practices of organ and tissue sales from death row prisoners,” he said.

“My work required me to remove the skin and corneas from the corpses of over one hundred prisoners, and on a couple of occasions, victims of intentionally botched executions.”

Wang said that prisoners were given blood tests to determine their compatibility with donor seekers.

He said his conscience was tortured after an incident in October 1995 when he was ordered to remove skin from a prisoner still alive.

The prisoner — sentenced to death for robbery and murder — was administered an anti-blood clotting agent and then shot.

Wang said the prisoner did not die immediately and was taken into the back of an ambulance where urologists removed his kidneys.

Wang and other surgeons then harvested the prisoner’s skin before putting the body — still not dead — in a plastic bag then into a truck.’

http://www.buyhard.fsnet.co.uk/harvesting_and_sale_of_body_parts.htm

Wtf, they broke the social contract. Probably.

Not screaming blue murder, Sunny. Just pointing the real world results of your philosophical musings.

The aspiration is admirable, but in terms of its real-world implementation, the solution is morally unacceptable.
Why exactly? You could say 200 years ago colonialists said the same about people of other races such as blacks.

Just because someone willingly gives you an opportunity to exploit them, it does not mean that the ethical course of action would be to actually take that opportunity.

Happens all the time. Just take a job at Walmart for example.

Theoretically, one way to avoid the dilemma of animal vs human testing would be to use computer simulation modelling techniques, assuming that the technology is advanced enough

It isn’t – granted that in a discussion on HP someone said this to me, and I’ll take their word for it. But you find testing on humans morally abhorrent – I find testing on animals morally repugnant.

Eventually, history will take my side… that much I’m sure about. Humanity might be generally screwing up but slowly and surely it is improving in terms of respecting life.

Larry:
Can I suggest that animal-testing is small-fry? For people who are genuinely concerned about animal welfare, the most important issue should be meat.

I agree. I’m vegetarian but I can’t force others to be. However I would like meat to reflect its true cost, as I said above

As I understand it Sunny’s proposal is a form of reductio ad absurdum
Steve – that is only assuming that the end conclusion is an absurd one. My conclusion is that humans and animals are equal – but rather that all sort of intelligent life should be respected.

a likely real world alternative is the use of the death penalty to provide a source of organs – this appears to be happening in China

Though I see people screaming blue-murder about this, I agree. Chris Dillow in his piece mentions the fact that criminals break the social contract and therefore get tested on. I think that’s a line of thinking I may agree with.

Scribbles – thanks the same goes for you.

virtual rights now!

soru

1. I can understand Sunny’s wish to draw attention the suffering of animals via the analogy of similar testing on humans, but I do not think it is acceptable to sacrifice the lives of poor & desperate people with the aim that the eventual by-product of this course of action will be greater understanding of the horrors animals have to go through. The aspiration is admirable, but in terms of its real-world implementation, the solution is morally unacceptable.

2. Just because someone willingly gives you an opportunity to exploit them, it does not mean that the ethical course of action would be to actually take that opportunity.

3. Theoretically, one way to avoid the dilemma of animal vs human testing would be to use computer simulation modelling techniques, assuming that the technology is advanced enough and there is a sufficient understanding of the intricacies of the various biological systems involved in order for scientists to be able to accurately model the effects of the test scenarios concerned. Such techniques are already used in fields as disparate as (for example) advanced physics and investment banking (risk management etc).

The meat-industry is at least as cruel as the animal-experimenters, involves billions and billions more animals, and has none of the concomitant benefits.

On the other hand most people do eat meat, and most people don’t perform experiments on animals. Hence, just as over hunting, we end up looking like a nation (or species) of total hypocrites

On the case of organ transplants I think that the case for a market in organs is very strong. One thought to bear in mind is that, given the very high demand for organs for transplant, a likely real world alternative is the use of the death penalty to provide a source of organs – this appears to be happening in China. Larry Niven made this scenario an important part of his “Known Space” series of novels and stories, a bit scary when you can see it starting to come about.

I think for the sake of animal and human we should consider other ways to achieve medical advancement than through animal experimentation.

This piece on humane research is useful for those interested in this subject:

http://www.animalaid.org.uk/campaign/humane/intro.htm

Keep it up Sunny. The world needs people like you!

Goodnight.

Lol at handed over. All I’m saying is that companies should be able to offer money to test on people. I believe they want to already, and are kind of doing it already in small instances. Open the flood-gates – make it legal here.

I think the resulting debate, the actual process of it happening would be quite interesting.

And personally, yes its more ethically right that testing is done on humans (voluntarily!) than animals.

You seem to read this as shepherding poor people into their deaths… which sort of explains how I feel about animals being forced to become commodities that can be experimented on at will.

By forcing this debate, I’m trying to get people to understand the enormity of what experimentation on animals actually means… ethically and morally.

That’s not what you’re saying? This whole debate was sparked by your assertion that the poor and the homeless should be handed over to market forces as experimental subjects for medical science because their putative free-will and supposed informed consent made them more ethically acceptable sacrifices than animals who stood to gain no benefit, either individually or as a species, from the research. Refer back.

Tightness of UK regulations and ‘life-saving stuff’: ok, I’ll be honest; I haven’t done any research. I have no idea what the regulations are. I don’t have two statistics to rub together. I was guessing. Was I wrong? Is the UK low on the list of countries with an ethical policy towards animal testing? You’ve caught me out, I was bluffing.

‘You’re making out as if the ALF nutters make up the vast majority of animal rights campaigners,’

No I am not. Please don’t impute that to me. I am pointing out that possible targeting by extremists is a significant disincentive to gratuitous vivisection.

‘Rubbish. I regard both as morally unacceptable. ‘

There were three choices. Pick one.

‘a lot of misreading’

I have no idea if I have misread you or not. I seriously hope I have.

It’s just called a clinical trial.

If you mean testing at the first hurdle… Hmm. You may as well eat a random mushroom you found in the forest. But that’s a risk people take when they volunteer. It may be better than dying of cancer anyways.

However, if people are allowed to risk death in this way, what about euthanasia? If people have the right to almost kill themselves, they have the right to actually kill themselves.