The "test on convicts" argument

[Rye]

Long story short, I've got in a big argument with antivivisectionists on another site, and they're trotting out the "test on paedophiles, murderers and rapists" line. What is the ethical response to it?

On the one hand, it's attractive because we all hate them and the animals are unable to do anything wrong like they did, and are sort of innocent. On the other, there's the possibility for mutilating people that have done nothing wrong and only there for a miscarriage of justice, there's also the fact that there aren't enough to compete with animal testing, as well as the fact they can't do many things with convicts that they can with rats, like monitor genetic change over generations.

They are nutty in how pro-animal they are, I mean, I'm pretty pro-animal, but am fervently for vivisection for the future treatment of humans and animals. I'm pretty undecided on whether to experiment on the lowest of the low in human society in order to cut down on harming the little fluffy kittens, bunnies and puppies, so I need some convincing and thought before I can respond to the other thread.

[defanatic]

Is it ok to kill or experiment on someone on death row? What about if they volunteered?

These are questions that I would answer thusly, for reasons in particular:
It's not ok to kill someone on death row, until the specified date. They may want to do something with their remaining time, like cure cancer or develop FTL technology.
It's ok to experiment on someone on death row, so long as they consent, like any other person.

I guess the same applies to people who are imprisoned for 'x' years.

Volunteer does not mean "Yes sir! I'll make sure they volunteer."

[Darth Raptor]

Assuming capital punishment exists anyway, I see no problem with extracting as much medical and scientific knowledge from convicts as possible. Provided- and this is no minor point- that physical and emotional suffering be kept to the absolute minimum. Reforms in the justice system are needed to make sure convicts are actually guilty, but sweeping CJ reforms should probably just dispense with capital punishment altogether.

[Trytostaydead]

Well, it's unethical to conduct research on people who do not consent. Though on the other hand, they are a ward of the state.. much like probably someone with severe mental retardation, the government can assent to a number of things on the inmates behalf I would think.

Also what research would you conduct on inmates? Most medical stuff are geared towards fixing a certain problem. So unless you intentionally gave it to them, you'd not only just be fucking around with an already healthy body, but your test results may not be what you want.

Thirdly, control. I would guess inmates do not represent the general population. A lot of them would be like drug users, tattoos, etc etc.

Fourthly, compliance. It would take a lot of work to get them to say take a drug every so often, remember to take it, or force them to take it.

In short, there's a number of factors you have to think about when force-conducting experiments on prisoners. On the other hand there are some that may be ideally suited, such as maybe a new method or drug to stop their addiction for X thing. Specifically lowering testosterone levels, behavioral therapy.

[Hillary]

Long story short, I've got in a big argument with antivivisectionists on another site, and they're trotting out the "test on paedophiles, murderers and rapists" line. What is the ethical response to it?

On the one hand, it's attractive because we all hate them and the animals are unable to do anything wrong like they did, and are sort of innocent. On the other, there's the possibility for mutilating people that have done nothing wrong and only there for a miscarriage of justice, there's also the fact that there aren't enough to compete with animal testing, as well as the fact they can't do many things with convicts that they can with rats, like monitor genetic change over generations.

They are nutty in how pro-animal they are, I mean, I'm pretty pro-animal, but am fervently for vivisection for the future treatment of humans and animals. I'm pretty undecided on whether to experiment on the lowest of the low in human society in order to cut down on harming the little fluffy kittens, bunnies and puppies, so I need some convincing and thought before I can respond to the other thread.

A lot of animals rape and murder - why are they painted as such innocent creatures? Rats have been known to kill and eat their own offspring IIRC. I hate the "poor, innocent lickle creatures" line that gets chucked about.

But it's all besides the point. We abuse animals for our well being in all sorts of ways, not just through vivisection. We eat them, wear them, work them in all sorts of dirty jobs, experiment on them, kill them for being in our houses or gardens, injure them for our own entertainment. In short, we own the inferior species.

Vivisection is simply one way in which we do so but the campaigners know it is one that tugs at the heartstrings of the public more than any other. Firstly, because there are so many graphic imaqes from it and, secondly, because the lie that animal-testing need not be used has been swallowed by a significant percentage of a gullible population.

[Rye]

A lot of animals rape and murder - why are they painted as such innocent creatures? Rats have been known to kill and eat their own offspring IIRC. I hate the "poor, innocent lickle creatures" line that gets chucked about.

They're too dumb to have responsibility.

[Hillary]

A lot of animals rape and murder - why are they painted as such innocent creatures? Rats have been known to kill and eat their own offspring IIRC. I hate the "poor, innocent lickle creatures" line that gets chucked about.

They're too dumb to have responsibility.

Who? The guys on death row or the animals?

The bottom line is that a human life is way, way, way more important to me than an animal life. Why? Not sure I can answer that with any conviction really. My view is that the less intelligent a creature is, the less importance its life has, which sounds pretty callous but is the reality to most people (are we happy to swat flies? put down ant-killer?).

The people you argue with will say that all life is as important as a human life so this doesn't hold. I guess the only argument you can make with them is to say "Where do you stop?" A rat's life is as important as a human's. So is an amoeba's life as important? Obviously not, so at what point does a creature's life become as important as a human's? A fly's life? A worm's life? A butterfly's life.

[Keevan_Colton]

Obviously not, so at what point does a creature's life become as important as a human's?

Generally when it's cute, fuzzy and photogenic.

Most of this bullshit is founded on an appeal to emotions.

[Alyeska]

Medical testing against consent is along the lines of torture and cruel and unusual punishment. There is no justification to do so. Worse when you consider you've tested someone and permanently damaged them, then its found out this person is innocent. Oops, sorry about taking away 15 years of your life and making your skin feel like its permanently on fire, go live your life again!

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

Hillary Wrote:

But it's all besides the point. We abuse animals for our well being in all sorts of ways, not just through vivisection. We eat them, wear them, work them in all sorts of dirty jobs, experiment on them, kill them for being in our houses or gardens, injure them for our own entertainment. In short, we own the inferior species.

I am not sure what you are saying, so I want to make sure you understand you clearly. Although I agree tht vivisection and many experiments are responsible and ethical, out of the whole list you provide, are you trying to go from an is to an ought?

Yes, we do abuse animals in many ways. I wouldn't call some of the things you list above "abuse" thought, anyway. I am perfectly willing to be shown wrong that Humans don't, in fact, reasonably need to eat meat. But what about wearing them? Should we kill other things or "abuse" them as you say simply for fashion? If that's the only reason (and that's an if, not an is, becauseI don't fully know). It shouldn't matter whether they are animals or "inferior" as you put it.


In actuality, I don't think the killing of the animals is actually the bad part in all circumstances. Sometimes, killing them isn't wrong at all, since I don't think most animals are self-aware. Some people simply do horrific things in the food and clothing industry that's unnecessary, like chucking chickens feet first down woodchippers to dispose of extra quantities.

The fact that they are animals and that they aren't equal

The bottom line is that a human life is way, way, way more important to me than an animal life. Why? Not sure I can answer that with any conviction really. My view is that the less intelligent a creature is, the less importance its life has, which sounds pretty callous but is the reality to most people (are we happy to swat flies? put down ant-killer?).

Certainly Human life is worth way more than an ant, a cat, or a mouse. Certainly more than any cockroach, bee, or hornet. I would say one for one, probably all the higher level primates, but Why and does this hold for all cases? You can't simply go by emotion and "intuition." Now, I assume that's all you have in particular because you say you cannot answer why with any convinction. That requires no reasoning.

No don't get me wrong. I really think there are perfectly good reasons for holding most human life higher than most animals.


I think that human importance stems from it's level of sapience, or self-awareness, which seems also to be the dominant view in bioethics today. According to Dr. Singer, Humans are both sentient creatures who are aware of their surroundings and sapient ones that possess awareness of the self. Since they are aware of their surroundings, they have the capacity to suffer and feel pain, but it's generally believed that as intelligence increases and one develops a self, the ability becomes stronger and more important. As you mention, their intelligence level has an impact on morality. I agree, but I think I think self-awareness correlates to a basic level of intelligence/brain development.

Most Humans who have a concept of the self and said level of intelligence are capable of forming preferences for the future, including an implicit or explicit preference to continue living or live for the future to accomplish complex life goals. Many non-sapient animals shouldn't. A roach, which has no concept of the self or conscious preference to continue living, isn't a person. I don't even think it can experience pain, much less like we do.

One principle is the principle of equality of interests, but this principle doesn't mean that all beings should be treated the same, regardless of the situation. It's not that type of equality. It seems to have a lot in common with the Utility philosphy of Jeremy Benthem when he said it matters if something has the capacity to suffer. Things should be given moral weight according to their similarity of interests. As interests become known and more similar to our own, they are deserving of more moral weight, whether or not they are Human.

Now, as before, this doesn't mean equal treatment, because few animals are actually equal to Humans in most regards. For example, I doubt that
even all animals would be equal to all other animals insofar as their pain thresholds or comprehension of suffering, pain go. It just means that we shouldn't dismiss animal pain or the interests they might have, especially as cognitive capacity increases, just because they are not human. They also matter. Obviously not all intelligence level of animals will even be able to understand or suffer the same, due to the intelligence and gap in self-awareness, and not on animals will have the same interests. Humans, for instance, are said to be given voting rights. Humans, since they are sapient, at least on a one-to-one ratio, have far more to lose, have more complex lives of interests, desires. THey can probably also suffering more due to foreboding and afterthought and comprehension of the pain. It would certainly make no sense to give animals many "Human" rights, since they are often tailored to our interests as self-aware beings.

Surely there are other animals that are marginally aware. Mice are aware, but I doubt they are self-aware like Humans, or even several of the higher intelligence-level primte species. I don't think even that Human experience of pain is equal to a mouse, or a frog, and certainly not ants, roaches, or flies. can a fly even experience pain?

While I find it generally easy to pull out the Human trump in the abstract, weighing the interests is a problem, since Utility is aggregative, and one of the problems is the exact weighing of interests. Happiness, pain, and suffering cannot truely be measured on a scale. It's good to say that something is wrong if it increases average suffering, maximizes average pleasure and/or other interests, but how do you exactly weigh the interests? In some cases it's obvious. Certainly it's worse to tortue one dog, than it is to slap a Human in the face. The extremes it seems doable in that regard.

I cannot say with certainty how MUCH lesser suffering is equal to X amount of higher level suffering or interest frustration? Would one say it's moral to torture 100 dogs to prevent Y quantity of pain to one human? That seems odd, but you really cannot mathematically calculate it, it seems. If we were to take the Principle of Equality of Interests seriously, and if we really were to aggregate utilty, it wouldn't seem so. This is perhaps why Utiity seems to be the dominant philosophy for animal welfare. Few other moral philosphies come to the same conclusion, because they are largely human-centred, while Utility isn't. It considers, at least marginally, all sentient and more importantly, sapient life, depending on the version of utility (hedonistic or preference).

[Straha]

Testing on convicts in prison should only be allowed with two cases:

A. It's something that is almost certainly benign, or something which the side-effects would not be too disastrous and it falls into a field which it is accepted that the state has control over in the first place. I.E. Serving Genetically modified food in the prison cafeteria, furniture changes, soap/shampoo/whatever dispensed in the shower/bathroom, etc. Pharmaceutical testing would not fall under this category (as it has the chance to seriously screw someone over) unless it's something like a different coating on pills, or a different time release capsule.

B. The inmate consents to the testing. Obviously this applies for almost anything that could be tested, but as long as he has the risks and benefits explained to him and agrees (prehaps with a time off incentive, or an added good word at the next parole hearing) it's perfectly acceptable.

I don't think any serious ethical objections can be raised to this.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

I would think another thing, in addition to the above advice straha offers, is whether or not it would be practical to engage in the testing. It would be wrong to do it if it wouldn't have as good as results as if one could test on something else, or if the testing would likely be flawed in some way due to the sample.

[wolveraptor]

Who would trust a drug tested on such an abnormal segment of the population? Seriously, the number of convicts likely to have unusual characteristics or behaviours would negate the possibility of completely phasing out animal testing and introducing prisoner testing.

[Hillary]

I am not sure what you are saying, so I want to make sure you understand you clearly. Although I agree tht vivisection and many experiments are responsible and ethical, out of the whole list you provide, are you trying to go from an is to an ought?

Yes, we do abuse animals in many ways. I wouldn't call some of the things you list above "abuse" thought, anyway. I am perfectly willing to be shown wrong that Humans don't, in fact, reasonably need to eat meat. But what about wearing them? Should we kill other things or "abuse" them as you say simply for fashion? If that's the only reason (and that's an if, not an is, becauseI don't fully know). It shouldn't matter whether they are animals or "inferior" as you put it.

In actuality, I don't think the killing of the animals is actually the bad part in all circumstances. Sometimes, killing them isn't wrong at all, since I don't think most animals are self-aware. Some people simply do horrific things in the food and clothing industry that's unnecessary, like chucking chickens feet first down woodchippers to dispose of extra quantities.

The fact that they are animals and that they aren't equal

The point I am trying to make is that we do not only use animals in vivisection, but in many, many aspects of our life. As such, the argument should not be about the legitimacy of vivisection but about the legitimacy of humans using animals per se for their own benefit. Of course, the anti-vivisectionists prefer only to talk about vivisection as it has the biggest pull on the public's emotions.

Certainly Human life is worth way more than an ant, a cat, or a mouse. Certainly more than any cockroach, bee, or hornet. I would say one for one, probably all the higher level primates, but Why and does this hold for all cases? You can't simply go by emotion and "intuition." Now, I assume that's all you have in particular because you say you cannot answer why with any convinction. That requires no reasoning.

I agree with the rest of your post (which I cut because it was so long). However, Rye's friends will never accept these arguments as they will maintain that all animal life is equally important. My post was an attempt to show what a ludicrus position that is to hold, i.e get them to admit that a human's life was more important than, say, an ant and then challenge them to describe at what point an animal is advanced enough to be worth as much as a human.

Apparently that didn't come across too well but I hope this is now clear.