Animal Testing in the UK: Going Up
The UK has had a terrible time with animal liberationists trying to prevent the use of animals in necessary medical research. Apparently their campaign isn't working. The number of animal experiments rose by 2% last year. Obviously, animals should not be subjected to research for frivolous reasons and should be treated humanely when they are so used. But if this research is needed--as the government claims--it is a good thing that result in the relief of much human suffering.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 7:47 PM
4 Comments
4 Comments:
I agree it is better to use animals to find cures than humans, or to not research at all, but I don't think it is always obvious to people that we shouldn't hurt animals. Hitler the animal torturer. The irony of Raskolnikove weeping for a beaten donkey as a child but becoming a murder as a young man. This Biblical view:
Proverbs 12:10 A righteous man has regard for the life of his animal, but even the compassion of the wicked is cruel.
contrasts with this view for instance by Immanuel Kant:
"But so far as animals are concerned, we have no direct duties. Animals... are there merely as means to an end. That end is man."
I take note that William Wilberforce led England to the abolition of the slave trade and slavery AND founded the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
We discussed this and a number of your posts on this thread:
http://www.arn.org/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=30318574&page=0&fpart=2&vc=1
I find nothing to disagree with you. I disagree with Kant on this. We undertand pain and have empathy. We are the only moral beings in the known universe. We have a human duty to animals to treat them humanely. Thanks for writing.
Bradford Short informs me I am mistaken about Kant, among other criticisms. Bradford is a true expert on the writing and thinking of Kant. Here is his comment, slightly abridged:
"Wesley, this is the thing. You just got that poster on your blog to get you to say that you "disagree with Kant on this"-furthermore the quote Kant is misleading and it has an ellipsis in it, which is why you don't understand it...Kant's position on why animals have no "direct duties" owed them by humans rests on the fact that animals, as
you believe, are not "moral beings," and only humans are. All "duty" for Kant is duty towards other "persons" (i.e. humans, both earthly and heavenly,e.g. God and His angels). So you only have duties to other humans, directly.
But this does not change the fact that the pain animals experience is enough like that mankind experiences that animals take part in the
duty to mankind in general, each person owes at all times, to inflict as little pain as he can.
So Kant believed that humans had a duty in preventing animal cruelty, period..."
"Hitler the animal torturer."
According to what I've heard, Hitler actually loved animals (especially dogs) and was a vegetarian because of that.
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