Is There a Need for a More Expansive Use of Ethics and Values in Reflecting on the Use of Animals in Scientific Research?
Abstract
:Simple Summary
Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Difficulties with Common Ethical Stances
3. Knowing Animals
The rat’s sensitive eyes, shunning the intense artificial light, provide it with a hazy view in predominantly grey, ultraviolet and green hues. From within its cage, it hears the chirps, squeaks and whines of its neighbors, gaining information that we cannot hear unaided and are yet to understand. Background noise consists of the low babbles and hisses of distinctively scented humans, and the unregulated drones and blasts of ultrasonic sounds. Scents provide visceral warnings and enticements, induce new motivations, and inform the rat about social possibilities outside the cage. The environment wafts a succession of scents, from pleasant, calming fragrances to the innately alarming odours of intangible predators. The rat tastes little apart from its dry, satiating homogenous diet. Its vibrissae provide a protective, finely tuned force field to feel the details of the cage surfaces; with the rat perceiving security from close contact with the solid walls.
Strange night! Strangest in this, that so soon as dawn had come, I, who had talked with God, crept out of the house like a rat leaving its hiding-place—a creature scarcely larger, an inferior animal, a thing that for any passing whim of our masters might be hunted and killed. Perhaps they also prayed confidently to God. Surely, if we have learnt nothing else, this war has taught us pity—pity for those witless souls that suffer our dominion.
My favorites were the Modern Library editions ... At first I just ate happily gnawing and chewing ... When Norman made an especially big sale … I clapped my paws and silently shouted, “Way to go, Norm!”... He had seen me! … a little heap of strange food. A little pile of cylindrical neon green pellets. They smelled good, so I nibbled. … I woke up coughing and full of anguish. I tried to vomit but couldn’t.
There is another truth that I would not deny for a second namely that those rare humans who have a real gift for training and working with dogs owe that gift to experience, intuition and a certain kind of empathetic reasoning that has almost nothing to do with science.
4. Respect for the Research Animal
5. Discussion
6. Conclusions
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Fisher, M.W. Is There a Need for a More Expansive Use of Ethics and Values in Reflecting on the Use of Animals in Scientific Research? Animals 2014, 4, 643-656. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani4040643
Fisher MW. Is There a Need for a More Expansive Use of Ethics and Values in Reflecting on the Use of Animals in Scientific Research? Animals. 2014; 4(4):643-656. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani4040643
Chicago/Turabian StyleFisher, Mark W. 2014. "Is There a Need for a More Expansive Use of Ethics and Values in Reflecting on the Use of Animals in Scientific Research?" Animals 4, no. 4: 643-656. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani4040643