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ILAR Journal V40(1) 1999
Bioethics of Laboratory Animal Research

Bioethics, Animal Research, and Ethical Theory
Lilly-Marlene Russow
Lilly-Marlene Russow, Ph.D., is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana.

Over the past decade, scientists have become increasingly more interested in bioethics and increasingly more eager to discuss its implications for their work, especially when their work involves research on animals. This is a welcome development indeed, for it helps move the debate out of the ivory tower (or the streets and protest demonstrations) and into the laboratory and helps ensure that scientific claims are well grounded. At the same time, it is important not to lose sight of the contributions that ethical theory and moral reasoning--as traditionally practiced by philosophers, although by no means their exclusive province--can offer. This paper is intended as a review of some of those contributions.

Ethical theory and moral reasoning have influenced thinking about bioethics in at least 3 ways. The first way has been to raise the issue of our treatment of animals within the context of traditional ethical theories. (A prime example of this is the early work of Peter Singer, discussed below.) The second influence on our thinking has been the development of a more nuanced ethical theory, prompted by the realization that the issues are much more complex than Singer, for example, portrayed them. A third influence on our thinking about bioethics involves the placement of particular constraints of consistency and justification on all claims, potentially resulting in very difficult challenges: most notably, what has been labeled "the argument from marginal cases" and the "animal welfare versus animal rights" distinction.

Stage One: Initiating the Debate

Although antivivisectionist movements had been active since at least the 17th century, concerns about the use of animals in research and agriculture achieved something closer to mainstream status only with the publication of Peter Singer's Animal Liberation (Jasper and Nelkin 1992; Singer 1975, 1990). Although Singer is often thought of as "the father of animal rights," he actually rejects "rights talk" in favor of a more basic foundation--utilitarianism.

Singer follows Jeremy Bentham and other proponents of "utilitarianism" to support his opposition to animal research and raising animals for meat. Utilitarianism is the view that an action is right if and only if it produces a better balance of benefits and harms than available alternative actions, that is, our ethical evaluation looks only at the consequences of our actions. Utilitarians may disagree about what constitutes a benefit, but 2 widely accepted candidates are pleasure and satisfaction of preferences and interests. Singer argued that sentience--the ability to feel pleasure and pain, and hence to have interests--should be the basis of our ethical assessment of any action, including animal research. The examples he used to support his claim that animal research does not produce the best possible balance of benefits versus harms have come under serious attack, both for the sketchiness of the descriptions and for questions of scholarship (Russell and Nicoll 1996). Nonetheless, they served to make many more people aware of the sorts of research that had been conducted. Even if the specific examples cited are problematic, the theory does give a way of evaluating animal research, both as a general practice and as specific research projects. This approach of trying to weigh the (expected or possible) benefits against the harms, usually to the animals used, is reflected in the current regulations, albeit in an attenuated form. Moreover, since Animal Liberation is accessible to a lay audience and is also firmly rooted in ethical theory, it attracted attention from both the animal protection movement and academic philosophers.

Singer made two other, closely linked contributions that helped spark the debate over the use of animals. First, he popularized the term "speciesism" (a term coined by Richard Ryder 1975) and the concept that lies behind it: that one cannot discriminate against animals, or privilege humans, merely because they belong to a particular species; instead one must point to a morally relevant difference between cases to justify differences in treatment. Second, he placed great emphasis on what has come to be called "the argument from marginal cases."

The argument is deceptively simple. If we want to justify differential treatment of animals and humans, we must cite a morally relevant difference. However, the differences that are often proposed, such as self-consciousness, autonomy, or the ability to act as moral agents--do not apply to all human beings. Some humans with severe retardation, those in a permanent or persistent vegetative state, or (to cite the most dramatic example) anencephalic infants do not possess those qualities now, and may never have them, or have possessed them in the past. Thus, any argument that attempts to justify animal research on the basis of one of these properties would also justify using these "marginal case" humans for the same procedures. Because this term is offensive to many, I will, when I consider the argument in more detail below, break with tradition and use the term "misfortuned humans" rather than "marginal cases."

Stage Two: Theoretical Debate

Singer may have brought new life and scope to the discussion of our treatment of animals, but he obviously has not settled it. Utilitarianism is not the only moral theory ethics has to offer, and even if it were, there are challenges to the way in which Singer applies the theory. These challenges sometimes argue that Singer has radically underestimated the benefits of animal research (Cohen 1986; Fox 1986), or that his criterion of sentience is too simplistic and fails to consider values such as the quality and richness of life (Frey 1987).

Although Singer's arguments are the most generally straightforward, accessible, and therefore best known by the general public, other philosophers have given more complex and sophisticated arguments to examine the contention that animal research (as well as large-scale animal agriculture) should be abolished. Some of these are still utilitarian in flavor, but others adopt a more deontological approach. In contrast to utilitarianism, deontology insists that some actions may be right even if the consequences are not good, or as good as they could be, while other actions are ethically wrong even though they would produce good consequences; in short, consequences are not the only factor in moral evaluation. Examples typically cited are lying (which would be wrong even if you and I were both happier if I lied to you), keeping promises, and justice. The term "deontology" is often used interchangeably with "rights-based theory," since the concept of rights has often been used as a guard against sacrificing what is right (such as respect for individual autonomy in matters of religion) for what might be good for the group (forcing compliance to the majority choice). It is also sometimes called a "Kantian theory," since the German philosopher Immanuel Kant was its first major proponent. Kant famously intended his theory to apply only to rational beings capable of understanding moral imperatives and explicitly excluded animals from its scope; and until recently, that focus was unquestioned. Indeed, the sorts of rights typically associated with deontology are often called "human rights." However, his justification for excluding animals has been challenged on those grounds.

Tom Regan, for example, follows Kant in rejecting utilitarianism as an adequate moral theory in favor of a theory emphasizing rights that cannot be overridden merely because such an override would yield good consequences for everyone affected. The concept of rights is consistent with standard (Western) social and political theories: for example, a person cannot be killed (perhaps to harvest his heart, lungs, and other tissues and organs)just because more people would benefit from his death than would benefit from his continuing to live. The novelty is extending this concept of rights to animals, and that, at least in Regan's view, is justified by a form of the argument from misfortuned humans.

For Regan, the attribution of rights is closely tied to an obligation to respect another's life and inherent value. He rejects a Schweitzer-style reverence for all life and argues instead that we ought to attribute equal inherent value to what he calls "subjects of a life"--individuals who have

Regan does not attempt to draw a sharp line between animals that are subjects of a life and those that are not, preferring to leave that issue open pending a better understanding of various animal's psychological abilities. He does claim that at least all normal mammals older than I yr are subjects of a life. From the notion of inherent value and what he terms "the respect principle," he concludes that animals have certain rights that are equal in moral weight as those rights possessed by humans. These include, most basically, the right to respectful treatment and the right to not be harmed.

Even if we acknowledge the important contribution that rights-based theories make to moral deliberation, three questions must be asked about Regan's argument. The first two questions concern whether his own definition of "subject of a life" really applies as widely as he claims, and whether being a subject of a life really requires something more like reflective self-consciousness (Russow 1988). The two questions are closely connected, because what Regan refers to as "psychophysical identity over time" and a sense of one's own future present a dilemma: Either they are so broad that indeed almost any animal will have them (planaria can "remember" and "anticipate"--does that count?), in which case it is difficult to understand why they are relevant, or else they are Regan's way of referring to reflective self-consciousness, in which case we have no good reason for ascribing them to most animals.

One way to escape the dilemma would be to argue that neither reflective self-consciousness nor any of the features Regan mentions are "all or nothing"; each ranges along a continuum, and some of them may vary independently of the others. Regan, however, rejects this option, because it would undermine his contention that animals are entitled to respect that is equal to that of any other subject of a life, including humans. The whole issue of equal consideration requires additional scrutiny (DeGrazia 1996).

Although utilitarianism and deontological theories tend to dominate the theoretical landscape, they are by no means the only option. At least two other approaches to ethical theory--contractualism and what I shall refer to as Humean ethics--have been used to address animal issues explicitly. A third approach--virtue theory--is the subject of renewed interest among philosophers. However, to my knowledge, this approach has not been used by contemporary philosophers to address issues about the use of animals, even though Aristotle, widely regarded as the founder of virtue theory, had quite a bit to say about animals (Sorabji 1993). Finally, several philosophers writing on animals do not fit neatly into any of these categories, either because they have theoretical commitments that combine elements of one or more approaches, or because their arguments are not as "theory driven" as, for example, Regan's. In what follows, I do not attempt a critical analysis of these approaches but describe them briefly to provide a more complete overview.

Contractualism, as the name implies, views moral obligations as the outcome of an implicit or hypothetical contract among members of a society. Such contracts are assumed to have the following form: I agree to refrain from doing x, y, and z to you, and to do a, b, and c, if and only if you agree to refrain from doing x*, y*, and z* to me, and to do a*, b*, and c*. The indicators with asterisks are meant to indicate that although contracts are essentially reciprocal arrangements, they need not be symmetrical. One can have a contract between employer and employee, or sovereign and subject, in which the rights and duties of the participants might differ. The essential feature of contractualism is that all parties agree to abide by the rules; hence, only creatures who are able to understand an abstract concept of rules and the intention to follow them can enter into the moral sphere and have direct moral standing. Contractualism is sometimes confused with deontological theories, and some philosophers (Rawls 1971) have combined elements of both; however, there are important differences between them, some of which are implicit in the following paragraphs, but some too complex to address here. In what follows, although I often refer to "contractors" and "contracts" for the sake of convenience, it is important to remember that these typically refer to hypothetical (not actual) contracts.

It is probably already obvious that animals will not fare well on a contractualist approach to ethics: They, like children, are judged incapable of understanding the abstract rules and reasoning implied by the whole notion of a contract. Because they are unable to enter into a contractual agreement, they are also ineligible for the protection such contracts provide.

Clearly, proponents of contractualism see moral duties as holding directly only among creatures capable of understanding and abiding by such an abstract contract. As the contrast between Regan and Kant indicates, the basis for obligation or duties in a deontological theory is not necessarily so restricted: Some versions of deontological theories can accommodate duties to animals, but no contractualist theory can possibly do that; the best it can muster is a "contract" in which participants choose to include certain restrictions on the way we treat animals because the contractors would prefer not to live in a society that, for example, tolerated blatant cruelty. As we have seen, this sort of protection at best generates an indirect duty toward animals. Moreover, such protection is to a large extent voluntary, an "option" for the contractors, unlike the strict imperatives generated by a deontological theory. The disparities created by selecting different options lead contractualists to differ in their descriptions of what indirect duties, if any, might be included in the hypothetical contract, and we do find the expected variations in the views of contractualists who have written about animals. The two most prominent philosophers in this category are Jan Narveson ( 1977, 1987) and Peter Carruthers (1992). Narveson thinks that contractors might well choose to extend some protection to animals, whereas Carruthers argues quite vehemently that agreeing to such an extension of contractual protection would be irrational and misguided.

One of several problems with contractualism is the fact that the moral status of children and other "disadvantaged" individuals (that is, those lacking the capacity to understand and hence legitimately agree to the sort of contract required for admission into the moral sphere) are covered only at the whim of the contractors. Some humans in this category might be covered by dint of the contractors' self-interest--if, but only if, they think they will care about the welfare of their children, they might choose to include some protection for children in the contract. However, if they believe they will care about only their healthy, "normal," or male offspring, or children born in wedlock, only those children will be protected; no moral agent will have any duties to those "outside the pale." More generally, since morality is defined by the hypothetical contract, it is not possible to declare that the contract itself is unethical, unfair, or unjust, or that it fails to capture some real moral obligation. One can raise a legitimate objection only by pointing out that no rational agent would agree to some putative contracts. These features of contractualism have led most philosophers to reject it as an adequate moral theory; and if it is inadequate as a general analysis of morality, it surely cannot be appealed to as a basis of deciding questions about moral obligations toward animals.

Implicit in at least some popular invocations of contractualism are two ineffective justifications: (1) Since animals do not respect our rights, we do not have to respect theirs; and (2) morality is a human invention, which thus applies only to humans. The first justification is problematic because it assumes that only moral agents can be moral patients, something that needs to be argued for rather than presupposed. The second is even weaker: After all, humans "invented" mathematics and science, but that does not mean we can make them do anything we want, or that they apply only to humans.

The collection of views I hereafter call "Humean" (in recognition of the British philosopher David Hume) represents another approach to ethical theory in general and the issue of animals and animal research in particular. The views mutually hold that ethics is not something that requires only abstract, impersonal rationality. Rather, it must also involve emotions, including sympathy or empathy, and avoid the complete detached impartiality and abstractness of overly rationalistic approaches. Hume is famous for claiming "Reason is, and ought to be, the slave of the passions" (Hume 1968, p 415). In Hume's time, the term "passion" covered a wide range of emotional and personal attitudes. However, the basic unifying theme is that in contrast to the impersonal nature of deontological theories and utilitarianism (both of which hold that, all other things being equal, one has no ethical justification for giving preferential treatment to one's best friend, spouse, or child), personal, concrete relations do matter as a foundational concern in ethics. Mary Midgeley, for example, justifies her conclusions about our duties toward animals by arguing against excessive emphasis on rationalism and for the importance of emotion in ethical reasoning (Midgeley 1983). Annette Baier also emphasizes Humean themes in her discussions of animals (Baler 1983). This deemphasis of rationality has also been a prominent theme in feminist discussions of animal experimentation (Birke 1994). A rejection of rationality and impartiality seems ripe for ridicule, but both Midgeley and Baier argue extensively that both utilitarianism and Kantian theories have overstated the role of very abstract, detached reasoning.

The approach favored by Midgeley and Baier leads naturally into what DeGrazia calls the "coherence model of ethical justification," an approach to moral problems that he favors, and also attributes to Sapontzis (DeGrazia 1996). This approach has its philosophical roots in the concept of "reflective equilibrium," proposed by John Rawls. Both DeGrazia and Sapontzis want to move firmly held, carefully considered intuitions into a much more prominent role in our ethical theories, although DeGrazia puts more weight than Sapontzis does on achieving a coherent set of intuitions, rules, and justifications. The danger of this approach, of course, is that intuitions can turn out to be prejudices or mere historical tradition (or mere rebellion against tradition), and this can, in turn, lead to picking and choosing one's ethical principles primarily on the basis of whether they yield the result one wants. Sapontzis would abolish all animal research, except cases that parallel those in which we would allow research on humans (Sapontzis, p 226-228). DeGrazia is surprisingly silent on the issue.

This admittedly sketchy overview of ethical theories and their strengths and weaknesses illustrates a surprising range in the ways theory can shape views on animal research. At one end, we have Singer starting with a single moral principle--the principle of moral utility--and trying to determine what conclusions about animal research follow from it. At the other end, we have Sapontzis, who begins with the conclusion and works his way back to the justification, drawing that from a wide variety of traditions.

Other Philosophical Contributions

Some people have found the situation just described unacceptably vague or chaotic. Philosophers often disagree about constructive enterprises, trying to develop a positive theory in which to ground conclusions about animal research or our relation to animals more generally. Traditional philosophical disciplines fare better in offering critical, reflective challenges, which may, in the long run, have more practical impact on the way we criticize and defend animal research. I mentioned one such challenge above--the argument from marginal cases/misfortuned humans. The second challenge relates to the entrenched distinction between "animal rights," "animal welfare," and "animal well-being." Both arguments merit the more detailed analysis below.

The Argument from Marginal Cases

As described above, the basic argument from marginal cases is that no morally relevant property exists to distinguish all humans, including the severely misfortuned, from all nonhuman animals. Of the three possible responses to this argument, the first is to attempt to identify a morally relevant property that does separate all humans, even "misfortuned humans," from animals. The only distinguishing property that fully justifies the distinction is membership in the human species; anything else, such as the capacity for reason or moral agency, does not apply to severely misfortuned humans. This belief is often disparaged as "speciesism," but it has been defended occasionally (Wreen 1984). Such arguments tend to emphasize the importance of special emotional ties to members of our own families or social groups (Nelson 1986). The second response, defended by R. G. Frey, is to argue that there are important differences between normal adults and animals but, while agreeing that some humans will lack the morally relevant properties, to accept that some research on misfortuned humans might be even more justified than animal research. The third possible response is to accept Singer's conclusion and still insist that research on misfortuned humans would be immoral. However, that choice entails that we are not morally justified in doing research on sentient creatures that meet or exceed the conditions that protect misfortuned humans. Let us look at each of these responses in more detail.

If one wants to pursue the first strategy and cast about for a difference that might be morally relevant, it is clear, as already noted, that the standard properties (including autonomy, rationality, and the ability to engage in moral reasoning and mutual respect) do not apply to all human beings. Some people have tried to generate a longer list, even suggesting adoption of a "cluster" approach in which no individual quality is necessary but any small subset of qualities is sufficient to justify preferential treatment for humans (Dennis 1997). However, these qualities---even taken as a cluster--tend to be the precise properties that misfortuned humans lack. To date, the following three possible considerations have been suggested: (1) arguments of potentiality: marginal cases have (or at one point had) the potential for the morally relevant property, even though they do not actually have it (Stone 1987); (2) defenses of "speciesism," or arguments that attempt to justify giving preferences to individuals just because they are members of our own species; and (3) appeals to side effects, or how misfortuned humans must be afforded special protection for the good of others, not necessarily for the misfortuned human. The first argument will give us either too little or too much. Most advocates of this view restrict their attention to the potential that a misfortuned human has now, but it is simply false that most of them have the potential in question. An anencephalic baby or someone who is brain dead does not now have such a potential, and appeals to the expectation that medical science might someday be able to help such cases is simply otiose because it appeals to a purely hypothetical situation. Some day in the distant future, medical science might help these people, but at least in the foreseeable future, there is no realistic basis for holding out such a hope.

Others extend the notion of potentiality even farther, asserting that the individual had the potential at some point but lost it due to misfortune (Paton 1993) or, as a slight variation, that misfortuned humans actually have some moral status by virtue of the fact that they could have possessed some property. This premise may be true, except for defects genetically fixed at conception that manifest during fetal development. However, to make this argument work, the concept of potentiality must be defined much too broadly. Every germ cell (indeed, since the advent of Dolly the sheep, perhaps every human cell) has, under the right conditions, the potential to develop into a normal human being. The idea that every human sperm should be accorded a higher moral status than a chimpanzee, or even a laboratory rat, reduces this line of defense to absurdity. Finally, those who seek a morally relevant difference between misfortuned humans and animals might point to the so-called side effects of treating such humans as potential research subjects. The side effects include the emotions of the parents and other interested observers, possible changes in attitudes toward the medical profession, and weakening of the familial bond. The problem with these side effects is that cultural factors are the main determinant of how strong or deleterious these effects will be. If our obligations toward misfortuned humans rest solely on these factors, they will embody a "cultural relativist'' approach to ethics, an approach for which ethical theorists have long had persuasive refutations.

Consider, then, the second response to the argument from misfortuned humans. Frey argues that the value of life depends on the quality of life, and the quality of life is determined by the opportunities for rich experiences; he, like Singer, is a utilitarian. He also agrees that based on this criterion, some animals will fare better--rank higher in terms of quality and hence, value of life--than some misfortuned humans. At the same time, he rejects the liberationist claim that animal research is universally unjustified. Although he agrees that some work is frivolous, trivial, or simply bad science, he cites numerous cases in which he argues that the benefits outweigh the harms. His solution is to raise the stakes: We can justify such beneficial research, but only if we would be willing to do the same research on a misfortuned human who falls lower on the quality/value of life scale than the animal proposed as the research subject. Although his view is perfectly consistent, most of his critics continue to cast about for another way to resolve this dilemma.

The third option, as already noted, is the one preferred by Singer, Regan, and other critics of animal research. The conclusion here is that since we would not sanction most research on misfortuned humans (although there are some exceptions), we should not allow the same sort of research on animals who match or exceed those humans with respect to morally relevant criteria. This stance poses a very basic challenge to defenders of animal research, in that it seems to rest solely on a demand for logical consistency, rather than allegiance to one or another arcane-sounding ethical theory. Although Singer situated the argument from misfortuned humans in a utilitarian context, the argument is by no means limited to that context. Tom Regan utilizes the same sort of argument, maintaining that any principle which establishes all humans' right to life, liberty, or respect will also apply to animals. Indeed, at least one philosopher, Evelyn Pluhar (1995), makes the argument from misfortuned humans so central to her argument that no specific commitment to a broader moral theory is required.

In short, although there are several possible responses to the argument from marginal cases/misfortuned humans, it is a serious theoretical issue that must still be met.

Animal Rights, Animal Welfare, and Animal Well-being

Defenders of animal research often try to draw a deep theoretical distinction between animal welfare and animal rights. They often assert that researchers who use animals, or farmers who raise animals for food, are deeply concerned about animal welfare but ought to reject the notion of animal rights. A more careful analysis of these concepts, however, aided by closer attention to the philosophical traditions from which these terms arise, reveals that the distinction invoked here is far from clear, is often inaccurate (Rollin 1995; Tannenbaum 1995), and is usually divisive rather than clarifying. It is divisive because it frames the discussion in terms of just two sides, rather than recognizing the whole spectrum of subtle differences; and the two sides are presented in a tone of "us versus them," rather than looking for points of agreement. It is inaccurate because, as we have seen, many "liberationists" such as Peter Singer do not advocate animal rights. Moreover, many philosophers who argue that animals do have rights reject the idea that these rights afford them the sort of total protection that the label is usually taken to represent (Varner 1994), and also explain why talk of animal rights does not entail anything like equal treatment. Finally, as reported by Rollin, 80% of respondents in a survey of the general population (rather than scientists, philosophers, or activists) affirmed that animals have rights (Rollin 1995, p 149). Thus, advocating animal rights is neither necessary nor sufficient for holding the extremist position that the label "animal rights" is often taken to represent.

The label "animal welfare" is similarly unhelpful since it covers such a broad spectrum of views that it sometimes tends to become mere window dressing. At one end of the spectrum, it could imply a position as strong as Singer's: Animals do not have rights, but their welfare deserves equal consideration, and harms to animals must be weighed against potential human benefits (the converse is true in principle but rarely arises as a moral issue). As described above, adoption of this position would require a major reevaluation of animal research. At the other end of the spectrum, "animal welfare" is merely an injunction not to harm an animal unnecessarily, unless such harm is dictated by some human interest (including any desire to know, economic considerations, personal taste and entertainment). However, if these labels are not helpful, what vocabulary should be used? First, we need a more accurate understanding of the term "animal rights," which is best obtained by going back to the philosophical roots of theories of rights.

The most important aspect of rights-talk has to do with the force of rights-claims: what do such claims entail or suggest, and how are they different from other sorts of claims about moral obligations. We soon find an important distinction between what I shall call "broad" and "narrow" views on the force of rights-claims. Roughly speaking, a broad interpretation of rights-claims sees them as alternative ways of expressing a wide variety of moral obligations. To say that someone has a fight (for example, to liberty) is merely another way of saying that we (moral agents) have a direct duty not to interfere with her exercise of free movement, free choice, and so forth. A narrow interpretation demands something more stringent: Rights provide a foundation for only the more basic obligations, obligations that are much harder legitimately to override.

The basic theoretical difference (admittedly a difference in degree rather than kind) is that "ordinary" duties can and must be balanced and assessed against all sorts of competing demands, interests, and inclinations. We as a community have duties to respect residents' use of their private property, but those duties can and often are assessed against, and sometimes overridden by, other wants and desires: hence, zoning restrictions and some environmental legislation. Rights, on the other hand, are not so easily overridden: A person's right to free speech cannot legitimately be overridden no matter how many people dislike what is being said. Rights in this narrow sense are often said to be "basic," "inviolable," "natural,'' or "inalienable." The justification for this narrower, but stronger, sense of rights is analogous to that in the political arena, in which rights are seen as a way of protecting the minority from the potential abuses of majority rule.

It might be interesting to note in passing that the only legitimate way of characterizing Peter Singer--the author of Animal Liberation and the so-called "father of the animal rights movement" as "a defender of animal rights"--would be to rely on the broadest possible interpretation of rights-claims. All interests, costs, and benefits are to be weighed equally, and none are set aside for special protection. Joel Feinberg (1980) and James Rachels (1989) have also defended broad versions of an "animal rights thesis." Tom Regan, as we have seen, defends a more stringent and radical rights-based position on which animals have rights in the narrow sense.

In using a broad concept of rights, when people say "animals have a right to be treated humanely," they usually mean only that if there is no overriding justification, it is morally wrong to treat them inhumanely, and it is wrong because of the harm to the animal, not just the indirect harm caused to other humans. Understood this way, the position is eminently reasonable and not necessarily based on any confusion, misunderstanding, or propaganda from the lunatic fringe. Accordingly, it does not represent a position to be opposed, but rather a welcome opportunity for dialogue and better understanding, starting with the issue of what constitutes an acceptable overriding justification.

When considering the claim that attributing rights to animals is "eminently reasonable," it is important to keep in mind that neither the broad nor the narrow concept of rights entails any assumption of equality between animals and humans. Consider, first, the narrow account of rights: Rights bestow a special sort of protection that cannot be overridden by appeals to a greater general good. There is nothing inconsistent in claiming that an individual has a right to free speech but her license to vote or drive a car may be revoked or denied more readily, based on considerations of general welfare. We also routinely deny both privileges to children on the grounds that their immaturity would render their driving or voting harmful to society. Thus we can, in the same vein and without any inconsistency, argue that animals have the fight not to be abused while still holding that they may not have the right not to be killed, or that if they do have such a right, it is weaker and more easily overridden than the fight not to be abused. Even when the same right is ascribed to two different individuals, narrow views must and do recognize that one such special claim may be stronger than another, or that if only one can be respected, one has an objectively stronger status. Thus, two people may both have the right to inherit someone' s estate--a right that cannot be overridden by the fact that more good might be done by distributing the wealth to agencies that would further the public good--and we can still, in many cases, decide that one fight is stronger than another. Similarly, even if we argue that both a dog and a human have the right to life, we might legitimately conclude that the human's right is the stronger of the two, if we are in a position in which only one right can be respected.

The broad view of rights is even clearer on the issue of equality. Even a moment's thought will uncover a wealth of examples in which it is wrong to treat one individual in a certain way, and perfectly legitimate to treat another in exactly that way. Since the broad understanding of rights-talk would automatically translate such differential judgments into different fights-claims, ascribing some rights to animals cannot possibly entail that they all must have the same rights as humans, or that the rights they do share with humans have equal weight.

What follows from all of this? Because there is often confusion about the meaning of rights claims, and since concerns for animal welfare overlap significantly with at least some interpretations, perhaps these divisive labels ought to be retired in favor of a more precise statement of what is actually being claimed. If this suggestion is too extreme, at least one ought to be careful to interpret them in a more flexible and open-minded way, rather than to polarize the debate.

Conclusion

To appreciate fully any of the issues discussed in this paper, a more subtle and detailed examination is required. This exposition was intended merely as a general overview. In addition to the works cited previously, there are excellent resources that focus specifically on the issue of animal research. There are, of course, some sustained defenses of practically all animal research, without restrictions or qualifications (Goodwin 1992; Goodwin and Morrison 1993); some are quite thoughtful, but others convey the impression of defensiveness. One litmus test is whether such defenses agree that there is room for improvement and that not all animal research meets the highest ethical standards. However, attacks on animal research involving claims that no significant gains have been achieved through animal research, or that all such research could readily be replaced by alternatives such as computer models and in vitro testing, also undermine their own credibility. There are, fortunately, well-reasoned and detailed discussions of all aspects of the debate (Smith and Boyd 1991; Tannenbaum and Rowan 1985) as well as carefully stated and well-documented arguments against animal research (Lafayette and Shanks 1996) and anthologies that try to present a varied selection of views on animal research in particular (Baird and Rosenblum 1991). Although many of the most difficult issues surrounding the use of animals in research are far from settled, philosophical theory and moral reasoning have made important contributions toward moving the debate forward in a rational manner. One can only hope that this progress will continue.

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