Submission Number: JAM-4-323-142

Abstract Number: 1

IDEAS HAVE CONSEQUENCES.

James VD Parker

Oregon Regional Primate Research Center, Beaverton, Oregon ¹

Abstract:
The development of anesthesia, the success of physiologists in developing vaccines and the success of physicians in convincing the public of the role of animal research in advance of medical knowledge and practice led to the demise of the 19th century antivivisection movement. Paradoxically, the very achievements of biomedical research, along with sociological factors such as transitions to an urban and entertainment culture, explain its re-emergence at this moment in history as the current animal liberation/animal rights movement. Philosopher Peter Singer has seized on the opportunity of this historical moment and provided an extraordinarily influential ethical argument for ending biomedical research. Reviving an 18th century ethical theory called utilitarianism, Singer has proposed that we judge the rightness or wrongness of any activity in terms of that activity's consequences for all individuals that have interests and can suffer harms. Critiques of Singer focus on the difficulty of weighing the future benefits and harms of basic biomedical research and of accepting the premise that the suffering of animals should have equal moral standing with the suffering of humans. A more satisfactory alternative is offered by Strachan Donnelly, who articulates the "troubled middle" position taken by researchers "saddled with the task of ethically and judiciously sacrificing or harming life for the sake of the ongoing worldly reality and goodness of nature alive.".

Keywords: animal liberation, philosophy, Peter Singer

This abstract is being presented at: 10:30 AM in session:
Minisymposium V: ANIMALS AND SCIENTIST: PARTNERS FOR PROGRESS IN REPRODUCTIVE BIOLOGY