Normalising-the-Unthinkable-Report

[intrinsically] wrong might nevertheless be justified if it could be shown to be the lesser of two wrongs that wehave to choose between’ (APC, 2003, emphasis added). Now this qualifier again invites a number of questions.Let us consider the subclause ‘that we have to choose between’. This language suggests that we have to make adirect or immediate choice between two wrongs (bad options). But a moment’s reflection will show us that there isno ‘direct’ choice involved. A direct choice is precisely that: a choice that has to be made; there is no alternative tomaking it. To live one further minute or second is to make a choice. That is why (as the APC admits) the ‘your childor your dog’ argument has no real relevance to judging the morality of animal experiments. As the APC states, ‘inanimal research we are rarely, if ever, presented with the stark situation in which we can save the life of a childby taking the life of an animal’ (APC, 2003, p. 15). In reality, what we are presented with is an actual harm and ahypothetical good. In fact, in the entire history of experimentation on both humans and animals, there is not onedirect choice of the kind supposed. It is not a question of ‘if ever’ but one simply of ‘never’. As argued by early antivivisectionists,who were equally concerned about experimentation on human subjects, ‘It is NOT a question ofYour Dog or Your Baby, but one of Your Dog AND Your Baby’ (Lederer, 1995, p. 101, capitals in original) 5 .6.10. This consideration is often overlooked in discussions in the media and even in scientific analyses of animalexperiments. But it requires much more ethical probing. Let us try to focus the point by way of an example.Suppose an aged professor (who happens to teach ethics) hears a noise in his house one night and comes downto discover a person stealing his books. On closer encounter he discovers that the thief is actually a former ethicsstudent.‘Now, Stephen, what are you doing?’‘Well, very good to see you, Professor Noggins, but I would like to defend what I am doing.’They both sit down and begin some philosophical discourse.‘As you may know,’ begins Stephen, ‘I have always been attracted by consequentialist ethicaltheory.’‘I know that’, says Professor Noggins.‘Well, I have decided to begin to act on this theory’, the student says, ‘and implement someconsequentialist thinking in my life.’‘I see,’ says Professor Noggins, ‘but what has this to do with you rifling through my books?’‘Well, everything’, says Stephen. ‘I’m not just rifling through them. I’m taking them, at least athousand or so – hence all the noise and the boxes everywhere.’‘And what exactly are you going to do with them?’ asks Professor Noggins.‘Well, that’s the point, or rather the consequentialist point. I intend to sell them and give all themoney to Oxfam. Consider, whatever small harm stealing your books involves is outweighedby the benefit stealing them will bring to starving people in desperate need of water, food, andproper sanitation. I judge it to be a simple and readily understood moral assessment.’‘But what about the injustice to me?’ questions Noggins in a state of some alarm.‘Yes, I’m sorry about that’, says Stephen reassuringly. ‘But there is a higher choice here. It isplainly wrong for you to enjoy something which, when properly stolen and utilised, can relievethe suffering of others.’5Lederer’s much-overlooked thesis is that ‘the moral issues raised by experimenting on human beings were most intentlypursued by the men and women committed to the protection of laboratory animals’ (Lederer, 1995, pp. xiii–xiv).A Report by the Working Group of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics33