Read this story. Do animals have the same intrinsic value as humans? Is it ethical to kill them to find cures for diseases? Are the activists morally justified?
they have insincts but i can kill an animal i have before now a human talks to me and can interact it depends on what kind of research make up no cures for diseases yes and no activists are just annoying veagans who think cuddles the deer shouldn't be shot
I think it really depends on what ethical theories you hold in your agenda.
I like Peter Singer's speciesism when it comes to ethics and animals. He is a utilitarian, so he believes that minimal suffering is the way to go when faced with an ethical decision. Given that all animals, regardless of intelligence, experiences suffering. Discriminating whether it is okay to test on animals should not be based on the fact they they have wings or fur. That would be just like racism.
There are some mentally retarded people and infants that some monkeys may have more intelligence than. So, if we are going to do animal testing we might as well do it on the retarded and all babies under 6 months of age.
Another thing, would you accept the fact if some Alpha Centurions come from outer space, landed on earth and demanded 100,000 humans to test a drug on? But, they argue that because they have superior intelligence it is ethically acceptable to test on us.
Animals may not have the same rights as us, but as Peter Singer says we all deserve equal consideration because all living beings that can endure suffering has intrinsic value.
Ashley has the right idea. That was a fairly decent summary of Singer. If the utilitarian approach isn't for you, there's also Tom Regan with this rights-based approach, but he has the same individialistic approach in mind. For Regan, humans and animals both possess inherent worth and possess it equally so long as they are subjects-of-a-life. This category has a bunch of subjective properties that I won't elaborate on here (but I will say that the capacity to suffer is one of them), but it's possible that some "animals" are not subjects-of-a-life because they don't have these experiences - perhaps a stem-cell for instance. Maybe even an embryo. I think Regan would permit testing on these things in respect of the greater good for human society.
animals,not ethical to use for research. food?somewhat.
Technically animals are not the same as humans, they have different type of genes, hormones,etc.
i see no use in testing sometrhing which is totally different from us as deem it as research. if there was minimal or no pain for the animal,i would only somewhat agree
@Asherlee. what you wrote was kind of true,animals were used for research,because of the fact that they were" inferior" ,in terms of intelligience.but retarted and mentally challenged human are also low in terms of intelligience.
hmmmm i smell sarcasm Funny how you spell intelligence wrong, but anywho...
@Shermzx, you say that it is ethically "okay" to kill animals for food. I agree. Do you not kill and eat them for the point of survival?
What if we had a scenario of testing this new AIDs drug on 1000 monkeys. It wasn't going to kill them, but maybe leave some not pleasant side effects. Let's say that this drug is estimated to save millions once it has been tested so it can be put on the market. Is that not survival also? Sacrificing 1000 for a million?
@everyone who just mocked me okay i'm typing fast cuz i got to respond to lots of other disscussions and i'm no the greatest typer and it is our vocal cords not only our intelligence that makes us talk
uhhhh i feel that anything that runs on four legs and can't speak that is covered in fur is not nearly as important as a human life i mean i have pets yes i love having pets but they don't need the same rights humans have
I agree that the rights of humans and the rights of animals are not the same because we are not the same species. So, please read my first post about the Alpha Centurions. What if those beings came down from another planet and decided they needed 100,000 humans to test a product of theirs out, but they justified that we had to willingly give ourselves up because they are of higher intelligence and we are nothing but dogs to them?
