Please wait while the transcript is being prepared...
0:00
My name is Bernard Rollin.
I'm a university distinguished
professor of philosophy,
biomedical sciences
and animal sciences
at Colorado State University.
I will be addressing the
question of the moral status
of invasive animal research.
0:18
In order to retain custom,
freedom and autonomy,
industries, businesses
and professions
must operate in accord with social
expectations, and societal ethics.
Failure to accomplish this
is very likely to result
in onerous external regulation,
far more difficult to adhere
to than voluntary self regulation.
This observation is particularly
true of animal research.
During the 1970s animal
research was greatly
unsynchronized with social concern
regarding the treatment of animals,
growing out of the research
community's failure
to realize that emerging societal
ethics for animals, viewed
animal research as a moral issue.
For example, there was
essentially no analgesia
employed in animal research, even
for the most painful invasive
project.
One notorious editorial in a
prominent international science
journal opined that quote "Animal
research is not a moral issue,
is a scientific necessity."
As if it could not be both.
1:18
Indeed, ethical ambivalence
about the moral status
of scientific research has been
extant since the Renaissance.
With the rise of animal research and
such philosophical justifications
for it as Descartes's denial of
consciousness, awareness and pain
in animals, not everyone
welcomed such arguments.
In a fascinating book opposing
Descartes's view of animals as
machines, titled From
Beast-Machine to Man-Machine,
historian of science
Leonora Cohen Rosenfield
chronicled contemporary vigorous
opposition to Descartes, including
the views of theologians
who emphatically affirmed
that Descartes must be
wrong about animal's souls
because quote "heaven would
not be heaven without my dog."
Inevitably, such opinions, as
well a strong moral feelings
towards animals inherent
in common decency,
gave rise to strong social
opinions opposing animal research
and favoring anti vivisection,
particularly in Great Britain.
Indeed, some of the early
researchers utilizing animals
were highly ambivalent
about such use,
but relied on invoking cost
benefit analysis to justify it.
