First off, we need to define a normative goal in how human society ought to operate.
The normative goal is to promote increase the degree of collective pleasure and decrease the degree of collective pain. (I know, very Rousseuian.
With regards to animals and environment, we either adhere to the principle above, or we must then admit, collective human happiness/security/fulfillment is not the underpinning of morality. Often what is moral in the normative context I list above is also concerned with the preservation of the environment and ecosystem, which are needed to maintain health and resources which hold a great deal of stock in happiness.
Testing on animals, so long as it maximizes human happiness, is morally ethical. However, when animals are used in a way that is wasteful in the exchange of happiness/displeasure, then that is an unethical form of testing. Though, animal testing in and of itself is not unethical under the normative underpinning listed above.
So my question for those who are against animal testing, what is the normative underpinning you are basing ethics? Keep it concise, one or two sentences, and then explain the application to the topic thereafter.
I am anticipating that those against testing on animals have an unexpressed normative underpinning of how morality and ethics ought to be constructed. Mainly, that animals have rights and endure suffering, and essentially, humans should limit the cumulative happiness, which might include forgoing lower food supplies, increase costs of living, less money to invest in other activities/education/family/healthcare, decreased health status with less efficient medical testing, among other deficiencies to happiness. Happiness will necessarily decrease among humans if testing on animals is outlawed...unless as effective alternatives (in regard to results and costs) are discovered. That condition has not been met, therefore, currently outlawing testing will reduce collective happiness among humans.
Normatively, how do you justify that?
I remember cosplaying as Jean-Jacques Rousseau for my history project a few years ago lol Everyone had to dress up and debate a topic from that person's standpoint.
That aside,
I think the language that you use is rather self-serving (for humanity) and excessively powerful for the context it's used in. Specifically, a summary of your statement would be "How could someone justify that animal rights are anywhere near as important as those as the right of [wo]man?" It's more the word "justify" than anything: animals have feelings, are sentient, in some ways are conscious (but not typically free-will from what we've seen) creatures. It is sad that we should have to justify that any creature that feels pain, sadness, loss - all feelings that have been demonstrated and proven in the animal kingdom (the dog that dies on his owner's grave from sorrow, the elephant that weeps the loss of its child, the bunny that dies from depression after its mate dies, the cat that races to its owner's side if the individual yells or cries) - is deserving of rights. The fact that it has to be justified when it is scientifically obvious that animals are sentient creatures is self-serving for humanity in that purposeful ignorance in that regard is only for the benefit of man at the expense of much less "important" animal life.
I do not think it's humanity's decision to decide what is and isn't valuable life. Humanity makes a lot of really stupid judgmental errors all the time; it's almost foolish not to say that in this case, where the economical profit is so high, that the error is explicitly purposeful. To encourage any other mindset would be to ultimately accept financial losses as companies would be forced to find alternatives to furballs in order to achieve the same results.
Sure, I'm happy when they discover a new vaccine or positively test a new treatment that can save human life. I think it's great that science has advanced to the point where we can now heal broken wrists, restructure bones, prevent diseases before they even occur, etc. The methodology is flawed and is selfish, however, and until the outcry against such practices intensifies the research will continue since it is the option that is consistent and the less expensive to use.
The collective good is no good if it's founded on the graves of millions of animals who were kept in small cages, experimented on, in discomfort or pain before being tossed aside like an aborted foetus. A lot of people who have posted here are against testing unknown substances on humans and have expressed interest in testing these same potentially dangerous concoctions on unexpecting lab rats and rabbits. Obviously there is a shift in value here that I cannot agree with. Humans are going to protect their own before anything, but they are also meant to protect those around them as we are at the top of the food pyramid. We are devastatingly powerful creatures that have caused the extinction of numerous species and leave our own to starve to death on African plains. Rather than using our stature for the collective good of
all, we insist on taking easier routes for the sake of acquiring more or spending less money.
I'd like to ask everyone, not just you, an objective question:
Why do you believe that animals should have less rights than humans? Is it because they are simply not human, and thus they are disposable? Is anything "not human" disposable, even if we rely on those things to live the way we do (trees, grass, animals, atmosphere, etc.)? Are you in denial of the fact that animals have been proven to harbour feelings? Is it because they lack a conscience, something that only humans have identified as of some degree of importance (and not the natural order of things that insists on its acquisition)? Are you in denial that animals flagrantly feel pain and other emotions? Or is it because you believe that they are simple-minded (instinct-driven) and can't understand their own emotions?
Or are we really the simple-minded ones? We've outgrown our instincts and replaced it with money; money that means absolutely nothing to any other species, planet, etc. Money that even on our planet can be seen as useless or pointless when substinance is readily available in the environment. Money, money, money. It's not even about ethics anymore. It's a question of money. The idea that animals are somehow less than humans is rooted in the fact that by having the public accept this as ethical, labs can continue to use animals as a cost-effective solution to bettering human life rather than investing in other solutions that cause less grief for similar results. I'm not talking about prisoner use here but rather of developing cells that when clustered would produce some kind of result. It's not impossible to invest in an alternative; rather, it's just too expensive and "we're fine like this" is the commonplace attitude nowadays. The desire for money is equally drowned in the power we have acquired by having the option to choose an alternative but choosing not to. We can choose; the animals have no choice. They are raised to be subjected to sometimes mediocre studies - make-up and fashion products being the first that come to mind - at the expense of their comfort or lives.
If humanity really cared about the collective good, it would shift away from money and return to a pseudo-bartering system where the good was really in mind. Everyone would live comfortably and researchers wouldn't resort to animal experimentation due to less cost because cost would not exist: as long as there is greed, there will be animal experimentation, there will be poverty, there will be suffering not just from animals but from humans. The system of ethics we currently have - completely based around money - is horribly flawed and benefit a select few.
As long as a system of greed based on money is in place, the collective good is not the mindset; never has been and never will be. It's whatever makes the most money and results in less spending that is at the forefront of their minds. It's a facade to assume that they're looking out for even your best interests when they're simultaneously bathing in green. They might have been able to convince the majority that what they're doing is "for society's good" but trust me, if it somehow became non-profit there'd be a lot less interest. That's not even to speak of the short-term mindset those with the most power have - resorting to oil sands for energy, dumping toxic waste into underwater crevasses, etc. - resort to because, guess what, it's cost effective. It was never about us; it's been about gaining enough support to make things acceptable that shouldn't be in an effort to make the most money.
