Normalising-the-Unthinkable-Report

5.44. The fact that it is impossible to obtain informed consent (with all that it should entail) highlights the moraldifficulty of using animals. Constitutionally, animals are unable to give fully informed, voluntary consent for thefollowing reasons:a. It is not possible to communicate the relevant information to them.b. It is reasonable to argue that they may not fully comprehend the information, even if it werepossible to communicate the information to them.c. Therefore, they are not in a position to make sound judgements between alternative (longterm)future optional courses of action.5.45. In other words, the animals are being coerced, and coercion is an example of pathogenic (situational)vulnerability (MacKenzie, 2014, p. 39).b. Animals cannot represent or vocalise their own interests5.46. Animals cannot vocalise their own interests except by behavioural indicators, as illustrated previously.Individuals who cannot adequately represent themselves have to depend upon others to represent them. Theplight of animals, like that of children or the elderly who suffer from dementia, should invoke a heightened senseof obligation – precisely because they cannot articulate their needs or represent their interests.5.47. Again, it may be claimed that animals can and do represent their interest – as in, for example, an animalfound scouring rubbish bins may be said to ‘represent his interest’ in getting food. In such ways animals may besaid to ‘speak to us’ so we have some sense of their interests. But one cannot logically insist upon the ‘linguisticdeficiency’ of animals (as so many philosophers have done) and then refuse its conclusion that animals cannotproperly represent themselves – at least in terms that humans can verbally understand. Of course, those whowish to exploit animals pretend to know only too well what ‘their’ animals ‘want’. But in fact, while we can andshould take behavioural indications seriously, our general (and sometimes specific) unknowing should be countedin their favour.c. Animals cannot understand or rationalise their suffering5.48. The underlying assumption (at least as it is utilised in contemporary debate) is that rational incomprehensionmakes suffering less morally considerable because the suffering of rational beings is incomparably greater.Rational comprehension might heighten suffering if, for example, it involves anticipation of harm or death, whichanimals cannot experience. It is sometimes claimed, for example, that animals have no anticipation of death andare therefore spared that ontological anxiety which besets human beings. If that is true, then it must be grantedthat humans may be liable to more suffering in those situations.5.49. Another example is when a prisoner of war is told that his country has been destroyed or that his familyhas been killed or will be killed. Verbal threats or abusive comments may cause considerable suffering, whilesuch threats (as long as they remain purely verbal) would not increase the suffering of an animal. Again, in thesecases, it should be accepted that humans suffer more, or rather that they suffer in ways in which animals cannot.5.50. But is it true that rational comprehension always or generally heightens suffering? The general claim is lesswell founded. Consider the case of free-living animals – for example, NHPs who are captured, taken from theirnatural state, and then subjected to captivity in zoos or laboratories. The animals concerned do not know whythey have been captured, why they are being transported, and what will happen to them. They experience theraw terror of not knowing. And since the implication of the argument is that animals live closer to their bodilysenses than we do, the frustration of their natural freedoms may well induce more suffering than we allow.Human suffering, on the other hand, can be softened by an intellectual comprehension of the circumstances.When, for example, a human visits the dentist, who then performs procedures ranging from the uncomfortableto the traumatic, the patient can at least console himself or herself that the procedures are for his or her ownputative good. No such consolations are available to animals who are denied their liberty and who haveprocedures performed upon them that are equally, if not more, uncomfortable or traumatic.A Report by the Working Group of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics29