Transcript Animal Rights

Animal Ethics
• Create a list and brief explanation of 5 animal
rights issues
John, a college student, has become involved in
an animal rights group on campus. He feels that
animals should no longer be used for food,
clothing, medical research or entertainment.
Visiting home for Thanksgiving, he refuses to eat
the turkey and gets into a heated argument with
his family. His father is furious, arguing that he
worked for hours to cook the meal and the bird
shouldn’t go to waste now. He demands that
John eat some turkey, and says that actions like
John’s are neither practical nor meaningful.
How do you think John should respond?
Write your reply on a sheet of scrap paper.
Do not put your name on it.
I will collect it.
Animal Rights
Animal Exploitation
Animal Liberation
Animal Welfare
Animal Rights
• Humane use
• Well being
• No cruelty
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No lab
No farm
No entertainment
No wild (hunting)
Animal Rights
Biblical History—Old Testament
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Rest on Sabbath
No boiling of kid in mother’s milk
No yoking of animals of different sizes
Animal Rights
Ancient Greece—Triptolemus
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Sacrifice only fruits of the Earth
Injure not the animals
Animal Rights
India
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No living things sacrificed
No slaughter
Animal Rights
Secular Laws: Ireland 1635
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No working of tails
No pulling of sheep’s wool
Animal Rights
Secular Laws: Martin’s Act, 1822
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Richard Martin
Proper treatment of cattle
Modern laws based on Act
Animal Rights
Carl Linneaus Taxonomy
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Animals listed in relation to humans
Humans highest order
Animal Rights
Charles Darwin
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Origin of the Species
Animal Rights
Before Linnaeus: Human Perspective
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Unfeeling
Automatons
Animal Rights
Animal Welfare Organizations
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1824-SPCA
1840-RSPCA
1866-ASPCA
Animal Rights
Henry Stephens Salt
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1892-Animal Rights
Animal Rights
Humane Society
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1954
Animal Rights
Social Protest Movements’ Zeitgeist
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1960s-70s
• Civil Rights
• Anti-War
Animal Rights
Cleveland Amory
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1967 – Protect Wild Animal Rights
Animal Rights
Proliferation of Groups
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PETA
FARM
ALF
Earthsave
Farm Sanctuary
Animal Rights
Philosophers
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Descartes – 1600s, humans are superior
Animals can’t think, therefore, can’t feel
Abuses abounded
Animal Rights
Philosophers
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Peter Singer – 1975
Animal Liberation published
Animal Rights
Is there a difference between Animal
Rights and Animal Welfare?
Animal Rights
Animal Welfare
Animal Liberation
Accept certain uses if
suffering minimal
Larger cages
Empty cages
Relative
Absolute
Animals In Research Today
• IACUC 3Rs
– Reduction
– Replacement
– Refinement
Animals In Research Today
• Reduction
– Research uses the fewest numbers of animals
• Replacement
– Research uses lower order animals whenever
possible
• Refinement
– Least amount of pain and suffering
Animals In Research Today
Benefits
– Vaccines
– New technologies
– Affects of biological and nuclear warfare on
humans
The Pro-Animal Rights View
Sentient being
• responsive to or conscious of sense
impressions
• Perceive
• Conscious
Moral Agent
• Babies?
• Animals?
• Mentally disabled?
• Babies have rights.
• Animals do not.
Speciesism
'Speciesism' is the idea that being human is a
good enough reason for human animals to have
greater moral rights than non-human animals.
Vivisection
• Literal cutting up or into live animals.
• Experimental procedures that result in
injury/death
• Male/Female
• Male gets greater weight
• Gay/Straight
• Straight gets greater weight
Negative right
• Michael Vick case
• Inflicted pain/suffering/death on dogs
• How are we different than Vick?
• 58 billion animals killed each year
The Opposite View
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Animals: no moral nature.
Not a Holocaust
Not murder
Hurt/killing animals, lamentable
Not slavery.
Not locking up different
Operate on instincts
Animals In Research Today
• 100 million vertebrates annually
– Vertebrates have backbone
– Non-vertebrates (worms, e.g.) used, too.
• Bred, wild or pounds
• Most euthanized after experimentation
• Mice, rats, fish, rabbits, cats, dog monkeys,
e.g.
• Vast majority rats and mice.
Animals In Research Today
Animals used in…
• Medical
• Cosmetic
• Defense
• Genetic
• Behavioral
Animals In Research Today
• World Health Organizations-issued principles
• U.S. principles stricter
– Approved by Institutional Animal Care and Use
Committee (IACUC)
– IACUC comprised of veterinarians, industry
professionals
A Closer Look - Baboons
• Research causes great pain and suffering
• Head trauma research at Penn
– Baboons and monkeys were subjects
– Same type of vertebrates as humans
• Animals subjected to whiplash
– Car accidents
– Sports injuries
A Closer Look - Baboons
• Animal kept alive for several weeks
• Euthanized
• Brain pathology
A Closer Look - Baboons
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http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3dw0u_unnecessary-fuss-partie-1_politics
What Ethical Issues Are Raised?
• Animal Rights and Moral Value
– Animals have moral value, just like humans
– Most animals after age 1, perceive their world
– They should live without human interference
~Tom Regan in The Case for Animal Rights
What Ethical Issues Are Raised?
• Animal Rights and Moral Value
– Animals can feel pain and suffer
– They should be respected
– Animal interests should be counted
~Peter Singer in Animal Liberation
What Ethical Issues Are Raised?
• Comparative Utility
– It is better to experiment on rats and rabbits than
people.
– No replacement for animal research
– Experiment, save lives, as opposed not
experimenting.
What Ethical Issues Are Raised?
• Anthropocentrism
– Anthropocentrism is human-centeredness.
• Poll: One of the "R's" is replacement of higher-order
animals with those of lower-orders. Is this fair?
Homework
1. Define the following:
1. Anthropocentrism
2. Vivisection
3. Speciesism.
Homework
1. Explain some of the uses of animals in
current research. Include URL.
2. Define and explain the 3 R's.