lecture notes 7/16/01

Singer Chapt 2

• Animals are caused to suffer in (some) experiments to varying degrees.
  • Animal research
  • Animal experimentation
  • Cosmetics testing
• Animal experimentation isn't necessary.
  • Only 3.5% of the fall in the overall death rate between 1910 and 1984 can be attributed to medical interventions (and the contribution of animal experimentation can be at most only a tiny fraction of this contribution).
  • If animal experimentation stopped, alternative methods not requiring animals would be found.
• The moral justification of animal experimentation can't be settled by pointing out the research benefits (91)
  • Experimenting on humans has contraints; similiar constraints should apply to animals
  • Is the analogy to humans tight?
  • It is morally justified to experiment on animals if and only if the experiment is so important that the use of a brain-damaged human would also be justified.
• Treat Natl Assoc for Biomedical Research as General Motors (93)
  • Is the analogy tight?
• Distributive justice issue (92)
  • (Distributive justice concerns the ethical appropriateness of which recipients get which benefits and burdens)
  • Developing countries don't have the same medical knowledge as the industrialized nations
  • If people really cared about human health they would make more of an effort to apply the procedures and medicines that we have already to 3rd world countries in need.
  • Distribute the knowledge
  • Relevance?