A conflict of interest was recently brought to my attention in conversation with a dear friend of mine. Having sought to increase knowledge about Schistosoma mansori ‘for the betterment of mankind’ by doing immunology research, she recently paused to reflect on the well-being of the dear little rodents that were giving up their lives for the sake of humankind and felt a pang or two of sympathy (to say the least). She said to me "I'm sure you have an opinion on this." At the time I didn't, but as I thought more and more about it, I thought maybe it was something that might prove valuable to explore. So here goes...
Animal ethics. A very difficult topic for so many reasons, least of which is the prevailing trend of anthropocentrism in many, if not most, major religious and socio-political ideologies prevalent today. One only need read through Genesis to see that according to Christianity, the rest of the universe exists in relation to humanity. Marxist ontology describes the major dialectical clash as the one existing between man and nature: “Neither nature objectively nor nature subjectively is adequate to the human being… History is the true natural history of man.” Arendt speaks of ‘The Human Condition’: “Whatever touches or enters into a sustained relationship with human life immediately assumes he character of a condition of human existence.” Even Hinduism, which treats the sacred cow with so much respect and dignity (and I really do miss their random presence in the streets everywhere), is merely returning a favour for the manner in which this animal almost single-handedly provided a means for human survival at one point. There are exceptions of course, chiefly Buddhism in which some sects refuse to deal with even the most difficult problems created by natural pests (I recall a fairly recent story of a group somewhere in Southeast Asia whose situation was so bad that they had to call in an exterminator to deal with a major ant problem: although they weren’t allowed to harm these beings, it seemed that the situation was so desperate that they felt that they could call in someone else to do the ‘harming’ for them).
Of course we now have many Animal Rights groups that protect the livelihood of other species of the Animal Kingdom, but when it comes to putting our own well-being ahead of those of any ‘lesser’ species, most individuals don’t seem to worry too much. And they often wield this lack of general concern in strange ways, the ‘mongoose incident’ in the late 1800s in Hawaii being one such abuse of nature, which ended up providing a greater problem than the original one (mongooses hunt during the day and rats are largely nocturnal, idiots!). And then there is the recent hubbub about whether transplanting lemurs from Madagascar to one of the British Virgin Islands owned by Richard Branson is such a good idea with respect to guaranteeing their survival (and whether it is not just about guaranteeing their survival but also about increasing profits to his multi-million dollar resorts on the island). Animal rights has led the way in overseeing and imposing more ‘humane’ treatment of animals, even those that will inevitably be led to the slaughter to grace our hamburger buns with a large dollop of tasty protein. But there is not too much of an issue here: the presence of a carnivorous bent to the animal kingdom has been ever-present since the first prehistoric fishes some time ago in the middle Paleozoic era (just a guess, but somewhere around there). Though there will always be grumblings about extent, the presence of meat in the human diet has become something of a given, just as we seldom spare a thought for the poor lettuce that has recently been decapitated and is soon to become the basis for a tasty Caesar salad.
Though killing animals for food is seemingly more than justifiable (after all, if I don’t eat the scrumptiously delicious and magically nutritious foreleg of this critically endangered white rhinoceros, some pride of lions somewhere in the sub-Saharan savannah will, right?), when it comes to science there is seemingly a sliding scale about what is and is not acceptable. These animals are no longer directly sustaining our well-being by sacrificing their thoroughly delicious hindquarters to our butchers and/or sadistic sportsmen; instead we are pumping them full of drugs, making them dance on hot plates, and carefully noting the exact second that each of rodent number one and rodent number two finally became so exhausted that they no longer have any choice but to sizzle. Or, if we step it up a few stages, we are pumping them full of drugs, cuffing them to a wall, and carefully noting the exact second that each of chimpanzee number one and chimpanzee number two shuffle off to the much less torturous and much more forgiving shadowy realm of dreamland… (or, at the very least, sleepland…)
Yet I mentioned a 'sliding scale' and with good reason. Who knows where the world of genetics (and/or the biology lab experiments that it spurned) would be without the ever-present Drosophila melanogaster? Of course, it is a lot more difficult to cry foul at the ‘torture’ and ‘indiscriminate killings’ of insects (come to think of it, where was the aforementioned individual’s sympathy to all of those parasitic nematodes that she was sending to a rodenty grave?), especially since much of the medical research that is being done is with one eye on ATTEMPTING to kill 'exponentially lesser' beings like viruses, bacteria, nematodes, flukes, mosquitoes, etc. And most shan't really miss them if/when they are gone. But research can only go so far on such simple beings, chiefly because they share almost no physiological traits with human beings. 'We ain't nothin but mammals', so we have to start somewhere, and mice, being the smallest, the most readily available, and traditionally a bit of nuisance were nominated as the de facto playthings of sadistic biologists.
The question is 'why do we care?' I know from personal experience walking around at night in Mumbai with gigantic rats in constant chorus scurrying across streets and through the tiniest gaps is a bit unnerving; they are often harbingers of disease both as vectors for the diseases themselves and vectors in terms of spreading around large amounts of garbage and/or filth, for all intents and purposes making less than sanitary areas even worse. But the mutant rats of Mumbai are not cute white mice. And these mice are factory-made and settled completely for the purposes of satisfying the aforementioned sadistic biologists. Is this wrong? Is it any more wrong to breed such victims for the purposes of selling them to people who need to satisfy the cravings of their pet amphisbaena or whatever they might have in their aquarium upstairs? Again, as with the discussion above, these furry little creatures are properly involved in 'the circle of life' in the latter case, but only artificially so in the former case. But what's so unethical about sending them to the sacrificial bio-altar? We gave them life for the explicit purposes of taking it away. Without these sadistic biologists, these mice wouldn't have existed in the first place...
Well for starters, it is true that according to the ideal life-world model we are only really transforming existing particles, molecules, cells from one state to another. Remember the principle of conservation of matter from Grade 10 science? 'Matter is neither created nor destroyed, it is only transformed': well quantum physicists and general relativity junkies might have something to say about that, but it is approximate enough. However, when we change matter from dormant cells to living cells, and then throw them out as refuse when we are done with them, they tend to accumulate in not so nice ways. In theory we could grind them up into some nice milkshakes for our cats, but this is not normally done for obvious reasons, chief of which is that these mice have just been pumped with possibly harmful substances that could have nasty side-effects if ingested. So instead of that their disposal must be much better thought out. Mouse disintegration can lead to its drug-laced bodily fluids leaching into groundwater, etc, and this is not such a nice prospect for the animals and human beings that are affected by this groundwater, unless, perhaps, they were testing for more potent forms of LSD.
So from a purely environmental point of view, there is a problem. What about from an ethical point of view? Well unlike viruses, bacteria, and plants (aside from mandrakes, of course) animals have sensory receptors that allow them to feel pain. So technically what is being done to them amounts to torture. In effect, biologists are playing out the good cop, bad cop routine: "I'll put you in this nice house where you can gorge yourself silly and have all of the exercise you want on this little wheel... AND NOW I WILL INJECT WITH THIS TRUTH SERUM... TELL ME WHAT IT DOES THROUGH THE OBSERVABILITY OF YOUR UNWITTING ACTIONS!!" But they're just mice, right? Just like that baby that was unplanned and couldn't be aborted because of various state-imposed laws was just found in a dumpster because nothing else could be done for it. Simple, no? What is our responsibility to these creatures when we play God for the sake of discovering ways for God to live a healthier and fuller life? Or are there any?
Opinions vary, but tend to be less and less forgiving the more 'complex' and 'conscious' the animal in question is: you won't find too many people agreeable to monkeys being put on exercise wheels, injected with drugs, and then checked for time of death, partly because they are not as physiologically dispensable given their gestation and maturation time, and they are also not as ethically dispensable because the pain and suffering that they feel garners much more sympathy in the people who are the direct cause of it. It is a real ontological conundrum: are some life-forms more valuable and/or disposable than others? And if so, what makes them so? Consciousness or lack thereof? Pain and suffering or lack thereof? Their ability to garner sympathy (i.e. 'cuteness') or lack thereof? Other physiological qualities such as gestation time, maturation time, upkeep, complexity, etc?
And then there are the humans themselves. If we want what's best for the human race, why not limit our studies to human 'victims'. That way no unsuspecting or unconsenting animal gets hurt. There are even more problems with this, though there have been many rumours (and real incidences, e.g. MK-ULTRA) where this has indeed gone on. Maybe its not so far-fetched that this is the new scientific norm that is being implemented to avoid sacrificing these poor animals: another 'massive social experiment' as Heidegger once called the Nazi movement.
Let's just hope that this one doesn't also 'go horribly wrong'...
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