Examining the justifications of animal testing, and how we weigh our interests against those of non-human animals.
With modern advancements in human cell tissue testing and computer modeling, the validity of the animal testing model has come under increased scrutiny. It is now widely accepted that animal experiments have serious limitations in that results in humans cannot always be extrapolated from results in animals. A mixture of high dosage, artificial introduction of diseases, and stress conditions of animals in confinement mean there are often simply too many variables to gain reliable results. “Caution” about extrapolating results from animals to humans is now almost universally recommended. Despite this being the case, animal testing has resulted in many significant advances in our understanding of biology, medicine, and epidemiology.
The limitations of the animal testing model are very real, but to examine the issue on a solely ethical basis, we will assume that animal testing is a useful research methodology, and assess its justifications on the basis that it does work, despite the legitimate doubts which have been raised by many in the scientific community. The question then, is not whether animal testing works, but whether or not it can be justified even when it does.
Figures on animal testing are difficult to obtain, but it is estimated that around 115 million animals are used in experiments annually, though not all countries keep statistics on this. This figure also does not include invertebrates, meaning the real number is likely far higher. The function of these experiments is as varied as the animals used in them, and ranges from cosmetic and product safety testing to dissection, veterinary education, and medical research.
While there are regulations in place in most countries for the use of animals in experiments, these animals are not generally subject to the same animal welfare laws that animals outside of a laboratory setting benefit from. This means that so long as the experiment is judged necessary, the amount of suffering inflicted within it is generally considered justified so long as the results are deemed significant and steps have been taken to reduce pain where possible. There is no hard limit on what cannot be done to animals and no specific practices that are outlawed; researchers can do almost anything to laboratory animals so long as the results are desirable enough.
The fundamental issue of animal testing from an ethical perspective, is how we weigh animal interests against human interests. When the experiment is for cosmetic purposes it becomes relatively easy to dismiss the benefits to humans as frivolous, and therefore the harm caused to animals as unjustified; this is the basis on which many non-vegans oppose cosmetic testing. The issue becomes trickier, however, when we are dealing with medical research that has the potential to save or radically improve human lives. In this context, many people are willing to concede that the interests of our species must be placed higher than the interests of other species, out of some notion of the unique inherent value and importance of human life. The basis for this is of course speciesist, but many people are happy to admit that they value the lives of their species over the lives of those they consider “lesser” species, even when those species are relatively close to us, like the many chimpanzees used in research.
People generally acknowledge that the harm caused to animals is a bad thing and should be minimised where possible, but they will generally argue that the ends justify the means. This is the basis on which research organisations, ethics boards, and animal welfare groups justify animal testing, arguing for a “harm-benefit” analysis where the gains of the experiment are measured against the expected harm to laboratory animals.
To give the most generous treatment to the pro-animal testing position then, we will make use of the same harm-benefit analysis that researchers do, starting by defining what the benefits of animal research are, and whose interests they serve. It has to be acknowledged from the outset that pretty much all major breakthroughs of the last century have involved animal testing, and if we look at the top 20 most prescribed medicines, we can see that animal testing has been involved in the development of every one of them.
Though many of these drugs are not life-saving, plenty of them are, and even in the case of those that aren’t life or death, the benefit of these drugs to the quality of life for humans is still significant. Animal trials have indeed been involved in the development of all of these drugs, however, it does not follow that animal testing is the reason we these treatments, as is often argued by pro-animal testing advocates. That animal research was involved in the development of these drugs does not mean that animal testing is the only means by which they could have been developed, nor does it mean that animal research played a significant role in development.
In many cases, animals are used because the law requires these substances to be tested on animals, but it does not follow that does not mean that the research done on animals is what resulted in the development of the drug. Animal testing does serve a purpose, and in each of these cases, it was judged that the benefit to humans justified the cruelty inflicted upon the animals experimented on to obtain them.
These drugs, it will be argued, will save millions of human lives and therefore it justifies the deaths of the few thousand animals who had to die for their development. This is a simple utilitarian calculation of harm caused vs benefits gained; the benefits are higher than the amount of harm caused, therefore the experiments are ethically justified. The problem with this line of thinking should be obvious and can be seen more starkly if we reformulate the dilemma to include human victims of experimentation. If it became legal to subject unwilling, innocent human beings to horrific experiments, would we think that the sacrifice of the few would justify the benefits to the many?
The consequences for accepting such a cold, mathematical way of making ethical decisions would lead to defending all sorts of horrific acts, so long as they are judged to benefit the many. ‘Euthanasing’ members of the public who are a drain on funds or resources, experimenting on ‘undesirable humans’, forced sterilisation to control the population – all of these cases would involve suffering for the few to justify gains for the many, but for most of us these ‘sacrifices’ would be abhorrent. This is often the language we use to justify animal experimentation, that the few must be ‘sacrificed’ for the many, a notion most of us would oppose if the victims were human.
Comparing animals to humans is anathema to many scientists, even though their justifications for the validity of testing rely on the psychological and physiological similarities between humans and animals. However, what even the most staunch advocate of animal testing must admit is that non-human animals undeniably do have interests, just like human animals. They do not share identical interests with us, having no use for voting rights for example, but it cannot reasonably be doubted that animals would rather stay alive than be killed, that they would rather be fed than starve, and that animals subjected to cruel experiments their entire lives would not rather be free and happy. Animals very clearly have desires and preferences, the obvious fact that animals act on these interests by seeking out food, shelter, warmth, and avoiding harm is evidence enough that they exist.
Despite this, the interests of animals are not at all factored into the harm-benefit analysis of animal research. The analysis for such research is done solely based on benefits to us, factoring in only how these experiments could meet our interests. The counter to these interests is the harm inflicted upon the animals to achieve the desired results, but no meaningful weighing is done between the animal’s interests and our own. It is assumed that we are the ones with interests, they are the ones who must be hurt to fulfill those interests, and doing so is justified so long as the benefits to humans are significant enough.
A true harm-benefit analysis would weigh the like interests of one species against the like interests of another, and count them equally. If an experiment would take away one species’ interest in being alive just so another species could avoid some temporary discomfort, that research obviously would not be performed. Yet in the world of animal experimentation, if a drug like omeprazole treats discomfort of the stomach in humans, but requires potentially hundreds of animals to suffer and die to provide it, the fact that the interests of the animals (being alive) is obviously of a higher order than the interests of the humans who benefit from the drug (being free of indigestion) does not seem to matter at all.
So what does this say about how we value non-human animal interests against human ones? First of all, there is an inherent assumption in this “harm-benefit analysis” that human lives are de facto more important than animal lives, which is an assumption that few who argue for it are ever able to justify to a satisfactory degree. On what basis can we argue that animal lives are just inherently more important than animal ones?
It is often argued that humans are more intelligent than animals and are therefore more important, but the underlying principle behind this notion is that the more intelligent you are, the more valuable your life is. This would be a very troubling principle to build our ethical judgments on. Few people would be happy to accept that the lives of unintelligent humans, cognitively/intellectually disabled people, or children are of less value than other people’s, in cases where their intelligence is lower. Intelligence is a poor basis by which to judge the value of a life. If we are going to value the lives of humans so highly over any other animal that we are willing to inflict extreme pain and eventual death on them for our benefit, then surely we should be able to justify the basis for our assumed superiority.
In some cases, the argument is simply that human lives “just are” more important. The argument for animal testing then, becomes something more like “human lives are so important that it is justified to sacrifice the lives of other animals, so long as that sacrifice brings benefits to humans.” This thinking, the idea that some lives matter less than others, has been the basis for oppressive systems for thousands of years and is perhaps one of the most evil concepts in the history of humankind. On this basis we have enslaved each other, allowed millions to starve, justified committed genocide, and allowed millions of migrants to drown off the coasts of our countries, because their lives ‘do not matter as much as ours.’
The justification that it is acceptable for the few to suffer for the many, particularly when the few are not members of our own group, has been responsible for some of the most abhorrent atrocities to have ever been committed. The moment we begin to weigh immoral acts against the benefits we can gain from performing them we have given up on any notion of compassion or the immutable value of life. Animals, like humans, are ends in and of themselves, not the means to achieve some good on behalf of another species.
Advocates of animal testing want to uphold the notion of animal research as a necessary evil, and present us with the false dilemma that we must either subject animals to cruel experiments or fail to save human lives with research and treatments. This is highly misleading, since reliable alternatives to animal testing exist, opposing animal research does not mean we have to oppose research itself. It may be true that animal testing was our only option once, and that we have made a great deal of progress because of it, but with many organisations making significant achievements without it that is no longer the case, with some experts already advocating full replacement of all animal experiments. When a ‘necessary evil’ is no longer a necessity, what are we left with?
The argument for animal testing relies on a highly speciesist understanding of the value of life, and an outright dismissal of the greater interests of animals. Advocates of animal research often frame the debate as if the only options are between animal research or no research at all, but we do not need to be willing to sacrifice human progress to free animals from a life of suffering. We just need to be willing to make a concerted effort as a species to move away from our inhumane treatment of animals and toward more compassionate research. We should be committed to science that will work for the benefit of all species; not just our own.
Support an independent blogger and activist
Advocating for animals through educational content
