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The Moral Argument against Vivisection/Nonhuman Animal Research
Vivisection is the practice of torturing and killing innocent lives, allegedly in the name of altruism and compassion. This is why it has been criticized as far back as Shakespeare, formed the inspiration for Frankenstein, and why the likes of Mark Twain, Leo Tolstoy, and Gandhi were opposed to it strictly on moral grounds.
Intuitively we know that if you seek to help someone, torturing innocent bystanders is morally perverse, like saving a village by destroying it. We don’t help a homeless person by massacring a family and call it kindness.
Vivisection is defended according to the belief that human animals have superior moral worth to the nonhuman animals being tortured and killed in ways we would generally consider extreme punishment if carried out on the most despised criminals in history.
This can be called a belief in human supremacy or human exceptionalism (in an effort to disguise the “bigot” connotations of a superiority complex).
Human supremacy is assumed to be an absolute objective truth–without proving it to be so. In fact, in reality, human supremacy beliefs are biased personal opinion just like beliefs in racial, gender, or religious supremacy. Any trait, criteria, or attribute cited to confirm this alleged superiority, whether mind, intelligence, soul, creativity, divine or biological specialness, survival of the fittest, tenacious moral instinct, moral reciprocity, an unspecified faculty X, or a bundle of them, are as much subjective personal opinion as the importance given to skin colour or gender. Not only can one question that all humans possess the attributes or that all nonhumans lack them, but Nature does not confirm this alleged superiority through natural phenomenon like weather, gravity, earthquakes etc and the constant routine natural exploitation of humans by other humans–which does include experimentation on humans without their consent.
Nature cannot be shown to validate this allegedly “objective and absolute” superior moral status of humans. And invisible supreme deities are conveniently vague and mute on the subject as so-called indisputable religious texts are constantly disputed- to the point of human bloodshed. If you claim humans can justify the systemic exploitation of nonhumans based on biased personal opinion then another human can justify the systemic exploitation of humans using biased personal opinion since you cannot prove these opinions to be absolute, fair objective truth. In short, if you want human rights, you must accept nonhuman rights to close this ethical loophole.
It is common sense that only humans can be shown to use moral codes and laws in an effort to control their behavior thus they are the only ones obligated to follow them, nonhumans benefit without needing to reciprocate out of fairness and consistency, since punishing them for being unable to follow human laws when you know they cannot would be like punishing a blind man for not reading warning signs or an armless man for not grabbing a drowning swimmer.
Moral perfection is impossible; you only do the best you can in any given situation. The failure to stop homicide or child abuse does not justify concentration camps, thus the failure to stop the accidental death of microbes or plants does not justify the construction and maintenance of vivisection labs.
Those that claim nonhuman experiments are necessary can be asked which drug or treatment would they consider safer–one only tested on rats or monkeys, or one only tested on humans? Their answer will reveal the truth on the importance of nonhuman animals in human medicine.
Common sense tells us that if you seek to find medical treatments for elephants, you do not focus on giraffes. We overlook this in human medical research because we consider nonhumans inferior in value (based on biased personal opinions).
Nonhuman animal research is big business for vivisectors (how many do you know that live in poverty?), breeders, and cage manufacturers, and the former have a vested interest in conjuring up new experiments on “disposable” life forms to keep their paychecks, while telling the public that the research is important and a “breakthrough.” A week does not go by without another report of a “scientific miracle” thanks to non human animal experiments; although with the caution that human trials are years away.
In ancient times, temple priests and witch doctors would cut open live animals to read their entrails to encourage the hope and health of society (a good harvest, easy childbirth). Those that opposed it endangered society by angering the gods and betraying their community. Today, some researchers will claim that if nonhuman animal research stopped, the world would descend into a hell of disease and misery (without explaining why society and culture endured even during the bubonic plague). By such logic, humans should have died out thousands of years ago. Animal researchers promote the view that life works according to a quasi-Darwinian “Great Chain of Being” hierarchy where animals follow a ladder of complexity– ending with humanity, and that you can take “lower animals” apart and reassemble them as easily as a jigsaw puzzle.
If nonhuman animal research is necessary for producing safe drugs and treatments why then do we need clinical trials on humans? Why does Pfizer have to conduct medical trials in Africa? Why do drugs like Thalidomide get pulled after being shown to be safe in nonhuman animals?
Such discussions never go far without a vivisector using the desperate emergency situation–burning barn, house, boat, –where you have to choose to save either a human or a nonhuman.
Ignoring the fact that scientists cannot find cures for illnesses by simply torturing one or a few or thousands of rats to death no matter how much they want people to believe they can perform miracles, the answer to this should be no less controversial than if the choice was between two humans. One familiar, one not.
If you chose the familiar human, does it mean you want the loser to be tortured in a lab? If you refuse to choose, does that mean you do not love the familiar as much as the stranger? This question is not raised because it reveals the bias and double standard in the myth of human supremacy.
Common sense tells us that the best and safest research model for human disease is another human. If finding a cure for disease is so important, why aren’t scientists and patients advocating the use of criminals or volunteers in medical experiments? Humans are the best and safest model for research, and we send healthy people off to be maimed and killed in wars for natural resources, religion, and political ideology, and yet the war against cancer is only considered of dire importance when it comes to the discussion of abolishing nonhuman animals in research.
This exposes how the human supremacy myth is the driving force in defenses of vivisection.
Another vivisector argument is to condemn a critic of vivisection for having had any medical treatment that can be linked to vivisection. The moral perfection demand.
They conveniently ignore the work of Dr James Sims, Dr Joself Mengele, Dr Jonas Salk or the Pfizer researchers among others. Harmful research on humans against their consent has also been done and the research preserved and used. Do they make the same demand of human rights activists that they cannot use anything that may be traced back to human experimentation they oppose? Sims experimented on slaves, Mengele on prisoners, Salk on mental patients, Pfizer on Africa villagers.
If we confronted them, it is likely they would defend their experiments along the lines of the superior worth of themselves or their intended patients to those being used as research models. A supremacy belief based on biased personal opinion just like the vivisector of nonhuman animals. But unlike vivisectors exploiting nonhuman victims, the anatomical value of such work could not be questioned. Elephants are the practical model for elephant medicine.
Researchers say they need to use nonhuman animals for research because they are like us–-and yet they say they deserve no rights because they are not like us. This highlights the real issue: the motivation for animal research beyond money and sociopathic tendencies is an arrogant belief that humans as a species are superior in value to all other life, based upon biased personal opinion criteria conveniently determined by those who stand to benefit from the discrimination and exploitation.
If we say that someone who is ill does not have the moral right to demand that other humans be used for research to find a cure (even though the results would be far more beneficial than using nonhumans) then logically since humans cannot be shown to be superior to other beings (as all standards and criteria are based on biased personal opinions like they are for racial supremacy etc.) they cannot make the same demand when it comes to nonhumans used in vivisection. It is not complicated–it simple and fair morality.
Some will charge that the animal rights advocate must come up with alternatives to nonhuman research. This is an example of a bullying tactic and upside down view of fairness.
If one seeks to find cures for human illness, the onus is on them to do it in a way that does not violate basic and consistent standards of moral conduct, not the animal advocate for pointing out the immorality of a practice.
The Supremacy Myth Animal Rights Argument 
Tom said:
A few thoughts.
Your repeated references to innocence are misleading. An animal can be neither guilty nor innocent – it is amoral, unable to make moral decisions. If a cat can be innocent, then it must be possible for it to be guilty – is a cat that kills a mouse innocent or guilty? Neither, it is ammoral.
However, these animals do have moral value, and thus exist within the human moral framework. Few would disagree that kicking a cat is morally reprehensible in a way that kicking a rock is not.
Now, humans’ exceptional power of reasoning is what has created morality. It is the principle of morality. Before humans there was no morality. Rights were created to mediate human-to-human interaction. The intelligence required to create a moral framework is the exact exceptional trait which means it only has value to humans. It is not arbitrary in the way that skin colour or gender is.
Your analogies on why animals should not need to reciprocate human moral rules if they are to partake in them does not make sense. A blind man has the capacity to understand why he should not ignore a warning – what others must do is provide a non-visual way of enabling him (such as loud beeping indicating when to cross a road – if he crosses otherwise, and causes a crash he would be responsible). However, we cannot teach animals morality another way – it simply cannot be understood by them. A bear will kill fish if it comes across them, and humans cannot teach it this is wrong.
“Common sense tells us that if you seek to find medical treatments for elephants, you do not focus on giraffes.”
Many animal vaccines are derived from research started in another species. The papillomavirus vaccine in dogs began its development in cows and mice for instance.
“Nonhuman animal research is big business for vivisectors”
But terrible economics for pharmaceuticals. It’s vastly expensive and if they didn’t need it they would push to ban it.
“If nonhuman animal research is necessary for producing safe drugs and treatments why then do we need clinical trials on humans? Why does Pfizer have to conduct medical trials in Africa? Why do drugs like Thalidomide get pulled after being shown to be safe in nonhuman animals?”
1. Pre-clinical animal trials are needed to show the drug is safe enough for clinical trials. The clinical trials show if it is safe enough for mass market. You must also remember that most animal research isn’t safety testing, it’s the process of understanding the disease and developing the treatment.
2. Thalidomide wasn’t tested in pregnant animals. It was that tragedy which started the comprehensive process of animal safety testing.
“Researchers say they need to use nonhuman animals for research because they are like us–-and yet they say they deserve no rights because they are not like us.”
This is a very silly argument. Consider the opposite formation:
– You say we needn’t use animals for research because they are unlike us, but say they deserve rights because they are like us –
Both arguments are ridiculous, the meaning of “similar” is very different in the two halves of the sentence. One refers to physiological similarity, the other to moral (and cognitive) similarity.
There are many issues with the essay, not least the use of language like “torture” which suggest you have never been to a lab, but I hope I have given a flavour of objections to your point.
Supremacy Myth said:
Your arguments show a lack of understanding and human supremacist bias (debunked in the essay if you paid attention-clearly you did not) but we will attempt to help you. An animal is innocent if it is not capable of making decisions that we consider wicked. Being unable to make a decision we would consider righteous is irrelevant. They engage in violent behavior for survival related purposes–the bear example you mention–vivisectors do not. They are not facing personal life and death situations. And as we both know-disease is natural. Human morality is merely an effort to get humans to behave in a rational fashion as other species do by design. It is not an absolute–nonhumans benefit by default from fairness requirements in human concepts of morality. The blind man analogy is simply to show that you-as a human supremacist bigot, are holding nonhumans to a double standard that is unfair. You know that a nonhuman cannot follow human moral codes and are punishing them for it–worse than you would punish a criminal who deliberately violates such codes. By your logic criminals should be used for medical research. Humans have a long way to go to reach the moderate behavior that nonhumans show by default. Vivisectors are probably a lost cause given that their behavior violates common sense morality. Good luck in improving your reading and comprehension skills. I can try to help you but based on your previous comments I have my doubts you can be reasoned with.
Tom said:
“An animal is innocent if it is not capable of making decisions that we consider wicked”
So by your definition, a plant, rock or utterly insane serial killer, are all innocent. This does not make sense. If a plant is innocent, can we not eat it? Decision making is essential in guilt and innocence – it’s a core principle within the law.
A bear could live off nuts and berries – it eats fish because, ultimately, that’s what its evolution drives it to do. The bear eating the fish is not a life or death situation (as bears are omnivores). We cannot teach a bear to participate in human laws, we can enable nearly all humans – even those with disabilities.
“Human morality is merely an effort to get humans to behave in a rational fashion as other species do by design”
– Cats will toy with mice
– Lions will kill the cubs born of other fathers
– Spotted hyenas, and many birds, will kill their siblings for improved survival
If you think animals are rational then perhaps you hope humans return to a nomadic murderous tribal existence.
“The blind man analogy is simply to show that you-as a human supremacist bigot, are holding nonhumans to a double standard that is unfair.”
and my response, as a thinking person, was to explain why it was a bad analogy that could not back up the point you wanted to make.
” You know that a nonhuman cannot follow human moral codes and are punishing them for it–worse than you would punish a criminal who deliberately violates such codes”
The human moral code cannot be applied to amoral beings. Your belief that animals are equal to humans, something that has no basis, is *hurting* humans. Regardless of whether disease is natural, it is cruel and causes mass human suffering that we have a duty to alleviate.
“Good luck in improving your reading and comprehension skills”
cute.
Supremacy Myth said:
You need help lol. Nonhumans engage in violent behavior for survival related purposes–you cannot prove nonhumans are capable of sadism–we know humans are. Of course the moral code can be applied to amoral beings–you cannot prove they are not eligible. It is absurd. You are using a biased personal opinion like skin colour and claiming it to be an absolute fact. I already pointed this out in the essay. No wonder you have to go after trivial items.
Supremacy Myth said:
It makes sense–they are not capable of wickedness–or are you saying a rock can be wicked like a vivisector? lol A bear does not need moral codes and cannot be criticized for not using them. You might as well say you blame a blind man for not seeing. It is unfair and absurd. Human moral codes DO apply to nonhumans-for you to say they cannot is to claim biased personal opinion as absolute fact. It is you who acts as a divine judge-simply not fair. You are making double standards according to the human supremacy myth–like a racial supremacist would. As for serial killers–one can certainly make the case that some are unable to make moral decisions and it is unfair to regard them as wicked for being unable to comprehend human moral concepts. One could say the same about some vivsectors who are sociopaths. But it doesnt change the morality of the situation for those who agree that such actions are inconsistent or immoral.
Tom said:
“Nonhumans engage in violent behavior for survival related purposes”
– Bears don’t need to eat meat. A killer whale will play with a sea lion. It’s not sadism because, like many behaviour/sensations, is a complex human-only one. Animals act out of instinct, not balanced rationalised thought. Once again reinforcing their amoral position. A moral code requires a moral understanding – which animals lack. If they had one, we could judge them on it – we could judge the bear who eats fish over berries.
“It makes sense–they are not capable of wickedness”
– So you think a rock is “innocent”. Then presumably we cannot exploit the “innocent” rock for our purposes?! Your all-encompassing definition of guilt and innocence has removed any useful meaning from the terms. It is mere anthropomorphism on your part.
Supremacy Myth said:
You skirt around the important issue–just to emphasize–human moral supremacy claims are exactly the same in design as a religious or racial moral supremacy claim-they are based on biased personal opinions not absolute fact. Because they are the same-your bigoted view leaves the door open to justifying the exploitation of humans (which as I have pointed out-happens anyway-sometimes with laws, sometimes without them). As I already said-moral perfection is impossible-but the inability to be perfect with plants, bacteria, air, light whatever, does not mean we cut off the line at humans. If you say that-then one can cut the line off at race, gender, family, religion (which does happen if you read the daily news). In the end, for practical systemic exploitation like vivisection or meat eating, they are shown to be immoral. The human supremacy myth is the key. Debunk it and the house collapses.