"you would have to acknowledge that there would be a vast collateral damage in human lives and suffering that would otherwise be averted"
You have to acknowledge that the same argument, and a much more convincing one, can be applied to the forced use of humans in experimentation. It's more convincing because if we experimented on humans we would get data that are directly relevant to humans and in many cases much more useful in our quest to treat human ailments. A very large fraction of animal use in experiments has no direct link to treatments for human drugs. Therefore your argument doesn't even apply to the majority of animal use in this context.
All of this is beside the actual point! You have yet to address the real issue, which is why do we condemn using humans exclusively as a means to our ends yet we allow such use of non-humans. What, aside from species, makes the use of humans morally unjustified, while the use of other thinking and feeling beings is found to be unproblematic? Distinguishing between sentient beings based on species is the same form of othering that is used in sexism and racism. It's the exclusion of a group based on an irrelevant characteristic. When the question is 'should we cause them harm?' or 'should we use them exclusively for our own ends?' we can not answer in the affirmative based on the colour of their skin, or the nature of their genitals anymore than we can based on the physical manifestation of their DNA.
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Date: 2009-03-10 04:01 pm (UTC)You have to acknowledge that the same argument, and a much more convincing one, can be applied to the forced use of humans in experimentation. It's more convincing because if we experimented on humans we would get data that are directly relevant to humans and in many cases much more useful in our quest to treat human ailments. A very large fraction of animal use in experiments has no direct link to treatments for human drugs. Therefore your argument doesn't even apply to the majority of animal use in this context.
All of this is beside the actual point! You have yet to address the real issue, which is why do we condemn using humans exclusively as a means to our ends yet we allow such use of non-humans. What, aside from species, makes the use of humans morally unjustified, while the use of other thinking and feeling beings is found to be unproblematic? Distinguishing between sentient beings based on species is the same form of othering that is used in sexism and racism. It's the exclusion of a group based on an irrelevant characteristic. When the question is 'should we cause them harm?' or 'should we use them exclusively for our own ends?' we can not answer in the affirmative based on the colour of their skin, or the nature of their genitals anymore than we can based on the physical manifestation of their DNA.