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The Ethical Case against Animal Experiments

The Ethical Case against Animal Experiments

Edited by Andrew Linzey and Clair Linzey

Published by: University of Illinois Press

2 tables

Digital download
9780252099922
Published: December 2017

Description
Contents
Authors
Praise

At present, human beings worldwide are using an estimated 115.3 million animals in experiments—a normalization of the unthinkable on an immense scale. In terms of harm, pain, suffering, and death, animal experiments constitute one of the major moral issues of our time. Given today’s deeper understanding of animal sentience, the contributors to this volume argue that we must afford animals a special moral consideration that precludes their use in experiments.

The Ethical Case against Animal Experiments begins with the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics's groundbreaking and comprehensive ethical critique of the practice of animal experiments. A second section offers original writings that engage with, and elaborate on, aspects of the Oxford Centre report. The essayists explore historical, philosophical, and personal perspectives that range from animal experiments in classical times to the place of necessity in animal research to one researcher's painful journey from researcher to opponent.

A devastating look at a contemporary moral crisis, The Ethical Case against Animal Experiments melds logic and compassion to mount a powerful challenge to human cruelty.

Title Page

Contents

INTRODUCTION. Oxford: The Home of Controversy about Animals

PART 1. NORMALIZING THE UNTHINKABLE: THE ETHICS OF USING ANIMALS IN RESEARCH

Introduction to the Report

1.1 The Scale of the Problem

1.2 The Old Debate

1.3 The New Scientific Critiques

1.4 The Changing Ethical Paradigm

1.5 The Putative Justifications

1.6 The Problem of Institutionalization

1.7 The Failure of Control

1.8 Undercover Investigations

1.9 Consideration of Counterarguments

1.10 Summary and Conclusions

Bibliography

PART 2. THE SUPPORTING ESSAYS

2.1 Animal Experimentation in Classical Antiquity

2.2 Gender and the Animal Experiments Controversy in Nineteenth-Century America

2.3 Is “Necessity” a Useful Concept in Animal Research Ethics?

2.4 Science Fiction and Science Fact: Ethics and Nonhuman Animal Experiments

2.5 Harms versus Benefits: A Practical Critique of Utilitarian Calculations

2.6 Utilitarian Benefit and Uncertainty under Emergent Systems

2.7 Do Moral Principles Permit Experimenting on Nonconsenting Beings?

2.8 Can Animal Experiments Be Ethically Acceptable When They Are Not Scientifically Defensible?

2.9 A Rawlsian Case against Animal Experimentation

2.10 The Harms of Captivity within Laboratories and Afterward

2.11 When Harry Meets Harry: An Ethical Assessment of Harry Harlow’s Maternal Deprivation Experiment

About the Editors, Contributors, and Members of the Working Group

Index

Andrew Linzey is the director of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics. He has written or edited twenty books, including Animal Theology and The Global Guide to Animal Protection. Clair Linzey is the deputy director of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics and associate editor of the Journal of Animal Ethics.

"This well-referenced A4-sized volume performs the valuable service of throwing open the doors of a hidden world and exposing the multiple ethical compromises that perpetuate it." --Studies in Christian Ethics

"At a time when the necessity for animal experimentation has been called more and more into doubt, the Linzeys show how deep-seated research paradigms, institutional inertia, and money from the biomedical industry can persuade an esteemed university like Oxford to press on with practices that to any dispassionate observer must seem barbaric. Their analysis is backed up by an impressive set of essays by philosophers, lawyers, and scientists."--J. M. Coetzee, Nobel Laureate for Literature

"Essential reading. A comprehensive ethical analysis of animal experiments. Bound to become a classic."--Sir David Madden, Senior Member, St Antony's College, Oxford