Normalising-the-Unthinkable-Report

crisis situation in which one has to make a direct choice. But to philosophise from that one situation, in which mostpeople may choose to save fellow human beings, to a supposed duty to choose humans beings in a wide rangeof normative situations, where there is no direct choice to be made, is logically fallacious. Thus, the report fails todistinguish between normal and crisis situations. What may happen in a crisis situation, where there is absolutelyno alternative but to choose between competing claims, does not settle the issue of what is normally correct. Forexample, most people would probably save a member of their own family before someone else’s family member,but it does not follow that it is therefore justifiable to experiment on someone else’s child to save one’s own.Again, consider a scenario in which an animal hospital is on fire, and one has to choose between the animalsone can save. A person who keeps Siamese cats may well seek to save her own cat and other Siamese cats, butthe fact that the person has made that decision in that circumstance does not by itself imply that other cats areinferior or deserve inferior moral treatment 8 .6.44. The second moral conclusion, according to the Weatherall report, is as follows:2. Humans think it is morally required to sacrifice the lives of animals to save human life(consistency then requires that they should do so – other things being equal – in medicalresearch, as well as in hospital fires). Humans do not always make these distinctions basedon species prejudice, i.e. in favour of members of our own species, but based on an analysisor theory about what justifies such distinctions, which is race, gender and species neutral.(Weatherall, 2006, p. 125; our emphasis)6.45. Much is wrong with this paragraph as an example of moral reasoning. In the first place, the languageis changed, and therefore so too is the nature of the putative argument. What was previously described as an‘intuition’ has now hardened into a supposed moral requirement. While the report may see this requirementas a corollary of our intuitions about the ‘fire’ scenario, no moral reasoning has been adduced to make it so.Second, the use of the word ‘sacrifice’ – insofar as it implies (as it usually does) a voluntary act of the individual – isinappropriate. Animals do not sacrifice themselves; they are coerced, rather obviously against their will and theirown best interests. Third, the parenthetical clause is deeply muddled: ‘consistency then requires that they shoulddo so – other things being equal – in medical research, as well as in hospital fires’. It does not follow that havingdone one thing in a crisis situation, we should do the same in another, entirely different circumstance. A variety offactors may come into play. And neither – and this is the central point – should it follow that what we do in a crisissituation should become what is known as ‘normative’. The report again tries to obfuscate the issue by use ofthe words ‘other things being equal’, as if the cases of a hospital fire and medical research are identical. But theyare not, precisely because things are not equal. In the case of the hospital fire, one’s choices are both direct andnecessarily limited. That is not the case in animal research, where one faces no such direct choice. Indeed, in allsuch cases, one is not weighing two direct claims, but weighing an actual harm against only a hypothetical good.There is no urgency, crisis, or direct choice involved. Moreover, in the fire situation, one is not deliberately causingharm to those one does not rescue.6.46. This latter point is accepted even by those who endorse animal experiments. It is worth repeating thejudgement of the APC report: ‘in animal research we are rarely, if ever, presented with the stark situation in whichwe can save the life of a child by taking the life of an animal. Invariably other options and choices intervene.Hence, it is perfectly coherent to oppose animal experiments, by arguing that other options and choices arepossible, but save the child if we are faced with a stark choice’ (APC, 2003, p. 15).6.47. The second line of the Weatherall report’s second moral conclusion is as follows: ‘Humans do not alwaysmake these distinctions based on species prejudice, i.e. in favour of members of our own species, but based onan analysis or theory about what justifies such distinctions, which is race, gender and species neutral’ (Weatherall,2006, p. 125). If such distinctions are not made simply on the basis of ‘species prejudice’ (despite the apparentreliance on a crisis situation in which simple ‘intuitions’ are appealed to) and rely on ‘an analysis or theory about8Not only is the conclusion flawed, but so actually is the scenario. We are reliably informed by firefighters that in such cases‘you just get whoever you can (including animals) as fast as one can’. The idea that one can rationally plan in the event ofsuch an extreme crisis is fanciful, and indeed, thought experiments tend to be fanciful; that is why they are conducted inthought and not in reality.40 Normalising the Unthinkable: The Ethics of Using Animals in Research