[Foot Notes at end]

Sacrificed for Science

Are animal experiments morally defensible?

Professor Raymond Wacks^{1
(Hong Kong University)}

There is no impersonal reason for regarding the interests of human beings as more important than those of animals. We can destroy animals more easily than they can destroy us; that is the only solid basis of our claim to superiority. We value art and science and literature because these are things in which we excel. But whales might value spouting, and donkeys might maintain that a good bray is more exquisite than the music of Bach. We cannot prove them wrong except by the exercise of arbitrary power. All ethical systems, in the last analysis depend upon weapons of war.

Bertrand Russell ²

SOME 140 million animal experiments are performed annually. ³ Protests against these and other practices involving animals (including the fur trade, battery farming, hunting trapping, circuses, zoos, and rodeos) have, in recent years, increased significantly. ⁴ Though many experiments inflict pain and distress on animals, it is worth noting that many do not. Nor will all he "sacrificed", the researcher's euphemism for killing. ⁵ Moreover, it is hard to deny the fact that eating animals "is responsible for a vastly greater quantity of death and suffering than experimentation." ⁶

While what follows is confined to the use of animals in scientific research, any analysis of this difficult question entails a consideration of our attitude to, and relationship with, non-human animals. ⁷ I shall, however, make four assumptions,none of which is uncontentious, in order to facilitate a clearer statement of what seem to me to be the principal issues.

1. That human and non-human animals occupy a continuum. ⁸

2. That a line can be drawn between "higher" and "lower" animals; the difference between vertebrates and invertebrates does not appear to be a wholly unreasonable one. ⁹

3. That animal experiments have produced some practical benefits to both human and non-human animals. ¹⁰

4. That "higher" animals have the capacity to suffer pain and distress."

The justification for these assumptions should become a little clearer in the course of this paper, but I have neither the space nor the expertise to explore any of them at length. My purpose is rather to sketch the nature of the (inevitable?) conflict between those who advocate the continued use of animals in research, on the one hand, and those who believe that such activities are unacceptable, on the other. Unless animals are regarded simply as replaceable commodities (a position which few would adopt) the argument is ultimately a moral one. The use of animals in scientific experiments therefore requires a moral foundation. ¹² And I shall attempt to examine the case, from an ethical standpoint, both for and against such use.

A. Animals in the laboratory

Accounts, often vivid,¹³ of the experiments to which animals are subjected, seriously challenge the spirit of objectivity and detachment which is generally regarded as the hallmark of academic enquiry. Many of these reports (which I do not propose to repeat here) cause profound distress and anger in many who read who learn of them. I cannot pretend that they do not have similar effects on me. Chomsky may be right:

By entering the arena of argument and counter-argument, of technical feasibility and tactics, of footnotes and citation, by accepting the legitimacy of debate on certain issues, one has already lost one's humanity. ¹⁴

I hope he is wrong, and that it is possible for moral sensibility and logical argument to co-exist. It seems important to me that they do. Animals, especially rats, are widely used to test the efficacy and toxicity of new drugs.¹⁵ Thus the so-called LD5O test (LD lethal dose) seeks to establish the single dose required to kill 50 per cent of test animals.¹⁶ Rabbits have been routinely used to test for skin irritancy of cosmetics and shampoo. ¹⁷ The Draize test is used to determine eye irritancy.¹⁸ Mammals, principally primates, are also used in cancer research (the image of smoking beagles provoked strong, and occasionally violent, protest from organisations such as the Animal Liberation Front), behavioural research, surgery, artificial insemination, agricultural research, and in weapons and safety testing. It is often suggested that significant differences between humans and animals render a good deal of these experiments of dubious value and possibly even dangerous. ¹⁹ One scientist concludes:

Since animal-based research is unable to combat our major health problems and, more dangerously, often diverts attention from the study of humans, the real choice is not between animals and people, rather it is between good science and bad science. In medical research animal experiments are generally bad science because they tell us about animals, usually under artificial conditions, when we really need to know about people.²⁰

Whatever the benefits of vivisection, unless one is to adopt a strict utilitarian position (which I consider below), the pain and distress it causes to its victims call for some justification.

B. Justifying animal suffering

1. Subjectivism arid intuitionism

Why is any justification required? The simplest (and least successful) response is to claim that to inflict suffering on animals is unacceptable "because it is wrong". And it is wrong, according to this subjectivist view, because it is obviously the case. Or, it might more plausibly be argued, it is wrong on the ground that our intuition or our common sense tells us so. A serious difficulty with this form of moral intuitionism is generally thought to be that it suggests that there are certain objective standards "out there" which ought to guide our behaviour. But the source and content of these standards is, to say the least, debatable, unless it could be shown that, as Chomsky suggests in respect of language, we are genetically endowed with a system of non-deductive norms.²¹ Subjectivism and moral intuitionism seem fragile foundations upon which to build a defence against animal suffering,²² though the strongest and most coherent argument in support of animal rights (considered below) appears to be founded on intuitionist claims.

2. Utilitarianism

A firmer basis may be found in utilitarianism. Utilitarians take as their premise the proposition that the fundamental basis of morality and justice is that happiness should be maximised. Though there are a number of classical utilitarian theories (including those of John Stuart Mill and Henry Sidgwick) it is Jeremy Bentham's classic formulation that is well captured in the following passage from An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation:

Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne... The principle of utility recognises this subjection, and assumes it for the foundation of that system, the object of which is to rear the fabric of felicity by the hands of reason and of law. Systems which attempt to question it, deal in sounds instead of sense. in caprice instead of reason, in darkness instead of light.

A fundamental assault on utilitarianism consists in the view ²³ that it fails to recognise the "separateness of persons". It suggests that utilitarianism, at least in its pure form, treats human and non-human beings as means rather than ends in themselves. This important attack consists, in Hart's view ²⁴, of four principal criticisms which may be summarised as follows: ²⁵

(1) Separate individuals are important only in so far as they are "the channels or locations where what is of value is to be found",

(2) Utilitarianism treats individual persons equally, but only by effectively treating them as having no worth, for their value is not as persons, but as "experiencers" of pleasure or happiness,

(3) why should we regard as a valuable moral goal the mere increase of in totals of pleasure or happiness abstracted from all questions of distribution of happiness, welfare etc.,

(4) The analogy used by utilitarians of a rational single individual prudently sacrificing present happiness for later satisfaction, is false for it treats my pleasure as replaceable by the greater pleasure of others.

These arguments seriously undermine the utilitarian project in the present as well as other contexts. ²⁶ The pain of a few may in principle be justified by the pleasure of (or at least the benefits to) the many. The utilitarian objection to killing a conscious being rests on the destruction of the prospect of future pleasures. Killing an animal is therefore wrong, not because it harms the animal killed, but because its death diminishes the sum of the utilitarian calculus.

The leading text on animal welfare, Peter Singer's, Animal Liberation ²⁷ proceeds from an act-utilitarian standpoint. His central argument is that in calculating the consequences of our actions, the pain suffered or pleasure enjoyed by animals counts no less than our own. To regard their experience is in some way inferior to ours is "speciesism". Animals have moral worth; their lives are not simply expendable or to be exploited for our own ends. Singer does not claim that the lives of humans and animals have equal worth or that they call for identical treatment - except in respect of the capacity to experience pleasure and pain. Animals need not be treated equally, but they are entitled to equal consideration. Thus, animal experiments are justifiable, provided pain is restricted to a minimum and the research is highly likely to produce aggregate benefits outweighing individual pain. His test is whether it would be morally acceptable to perform such experiments on mentally retarded human orphans.²⁸ If it would not, it would be "speciesist" to inflict pain on animals of similar intelligence.

The strength of the utilitarian argument lies in its focus upon actual suffering, a concern that seems to accord with our intuitive view of animals, captured two centuries in Bentham's oft-quoted observation that the question to ask about animals is not "Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?" Its weakness lies in its neglect of individual animals and its willingness to accept the use of animals where expected benefits outweigh the costs of suffering.²⁹

3. Animal rights?

A deontologist is an animal's best friend. The utilitarian, in order to prove his case for treating animals humanely, must show that the consequences of such humanity outweigh the consequences of any of a number of alternatives, and this may stretch his empirical evidence to breaking-point. The proponent of a right-based argument, on the other hand, needs to overcome not only the objection that animals cannot really be said to possess rights, but that talk of moral rights is, in Bentham's words "nonsense on stilts". To invoke the categorical imperative that cruelty to animals is simply wrong, the deontologist is more likely to enable a dog to have its day.³⁰

In view of the importance the argument for animal rights has recently assumed, a brief foray into the concept of rights is necessary. Right-based theories are understandably fashionable. They have a strong political and rhetorical appeal.A modern trilogy (first introduced by Ronald Dworkin) of legal and moral theories which are right-based, duty-based and goal-based has emerged. J. Waldron³¹ provides an example which illuminates this (sometimes elusive) distinction. We are opposed to torture. If our opposition is based on the suffering of the victim, our approach is right-based. If we believe that torture debases the torturer, our concern is duty-based. If we regard torture as unacceptable only when it affects the interests of those other than the parties involved, our approach is utilitarian goal-based.

To reply that since animals cannot be the subject of duties, they cannot be "moral agents" and are thus incapable of being objects of rights is to beg the question about what it takes to be a right-holder. In particular, it presumes a choice-based rather than an interest-based theory of rights.³² (See below)

Rights talk immediately raises the distinction between what a right is, on the one hand, and what rights people actually have or should have, or, in other words, between moral rights and legal rights. The two are often confused, and it is by no means certain that even the most influential (and perhaps the most satisfying) analysis of rights (that undertaken by Wesley Hohfeld)³³ is applicable to moral rights. It probably is not.³⁴ Hohfeld seeks to clarify the proposition "X has a right to do R" which may, in his view, mean one of four things:

(a) That Y (or anyone else) is under a duty to allow X to do R; this means, in effect, that X has a claim against Y. He calls this claim right simply a "right".

(b) That X is free to do or refrain from doing something; Y owes no duty to X. He calls this a "privilege" (though it is often described as a "liberty").

(c) That X has a power to do R; X is simply free to do an act which alters legal rights and duties or legal relations in general (e.g., sell his property) whether or not he has a claim right or privilege to do so. Hohfeld calls this a "power".

(d) That X is not subject to Ys (or anyone's) power to change X's legal position. He calls this an "immunity".

It is important to note that, for Hohfeld, claim rights (i.e., rights in the normal sense) are strictly correlative to duties. To say that X has a claim right of some kind is to say that Y (or someone else) owes a certain duty to K But to say that X has a certain liberty is not to say that anyone owes him a duty. Thus if X has a privilege (or liberty) to wear a hat, Y does not have a duty to X, but a no-right that X should not wear a hat. In other words, the correlative of a liberty is a no-right. Similarly the correlative of a power is a liability (i.e., being liable to have one's legal relations changed by another), the correlative of an immunity is a disability (i.e., the inability to change another's legal relations).

But is Hohfeld correct? Is it true that whenever I am under some duty someone else has a corresponding right? Or vice versa? In the first case, surely it is possible for me to have a duty without you (or anyone else) having a right that I should perform it. In the criminal law certain duties are imposed upon me, but no one has a correlative right to my performing these duties. This is because it is possible for there to be a duty to do something which is not a duty to someone; for instance, the duty imposed on a policeman to report offenders--he owes this duty to no one in particular, and, hence, it gives rise to no right in anyone. And even where someone owes a duty to someone to do something, the person to whom he owes such a duty does not necessarily have any corresponding right. Thus, my moral duty to give charity to X implies no right vesting in X. Similarly, I have certain duties toward my students, but this does not necessarily confer any rights upon them (though perhaps it should!) Or the duty to observe road signs contains no reference to any duty to others and therefore implies no rights vested in anyone.

On the other hand, it is, of course, common for me to have a right to do something, without you (or anyone else) having a corresponding duty. Lawyers, however, often mistakenly assume that right and duty are correlatives. But this Hohfeldian notion does help to clarify the concept of a right, as J.W. Harris³⁵ demonstrates. It is true that, in order to make sense of legal relations between persons, correlativity is part of the law's lowest common denominator, because every judicial issue involves at least two persons. In practice, therefore, litigation gives rise to opposing parties - even where, strictly speaking, the defendant does not owe a duty to the plaintiff. Thus my duty to pay tax on my income does not necessarily give rise to a right held by another; but the taxman will pursue me in the courts in order to recover tax owing. Hence, the court has to answer the question: does the defendant owe a duty to the plaintiff. Similarly, in those recent decisions in which the courts have had to consider whether private individuals have locus standi to enforce the duties imposed by the criminal law, or the duty of public authorities to provide various facilities such as health care and housing, the question is whether the defendant's conduct was m some way privileged in relation to the plaintiff.

What of moral rights? A moral right is an entitlement which confers moral liberties on those who have them to do certain things, and the moral constraint on others to abstain from interference.³⁶ A legal right is one recognised by the law. Statutes imposing a duty on persons not to inflict cruelty on animals (with their normal sanctions for violation)³⁷ could be said to confer on animals a legal right to humane treatment.³⁸ Does the same follow in respect of moral rights? I shall briefly consider this difficult question and then address the problem of whether (notwithstanding my confidence in respect of legal rights) animals, or, to enable me to put the strongest case, "higher" animals, can be bearers of rights.

McCloskey argues that "(t)o show that animals possess moral rights, moral rights against persons, it is not sufficient to establish that persons have duties in respect of animals."³⁹ His argument rests on the view that there is no strict correlativity of rights, a position accepted above in respect of legal rights. He then proceeds along the following lines:

1. Central to the concept of moral rights is the notion of exercising such rights. The paradigm possessor of a right is an actor or potential actor who can act by doing what he is entitled to do, or act by demanding, claiming, requiring what he is entitled to demand claim, require. In the absence of the possibility of such action in the being towards whom duties are owed, and where the being is not a member of a kind which is normally capable of action, we withhold talk of rights and confine ourselves to talk of duties. Moral rights are ascribed to beings who are capable of moral autonomy, moral self-direction and self-determination.

2. We can therefore deny the capacity for rights to "ex-persons" (the brain damaged, or extremely senile) and "non-persons" (those born with damaged or under-developed brains), but not to "potential persons" (infants who will become persons). We also deny this capacity to inanimate objects and plants, even though they (like ex-persons and non-persons) may be the object of duties. This is because they cannot exercise rights or have them exercised for them.

3. The capacity to have interests is insufficient to establish a capacity to bear rights. This is because, though non-humans (including corporate bodies, churches, states, clubs etc), may be said to have interests, the idea that non-human animals have interests relies on an equation of interests with desires, aims and beliefs, and it would therefore still need to be shown that the possession of the capacities is a ground for the attribution of rights. Moreover, "rights and interests are completely different things" There will be circumstances where a right-bearer may wish to exercise his rights against his own interests. Equally it may be in his interests to deprive him of his freedom to exercise rights. And where a putative right-bearer is incapable of expressing his wishes (if he has any) his mind would have to be read. Where he has no mind or will to be read, he cannot be a representation of his rights or the exercising or waiving of moral rights.

4. Since most animals lack the relevant moral capacity, they do not have moral rights. Some animals (whales and dolphins) may be found to have such capacity: it may therefore be "morally appropriate for us meanwhile to act towards (whales and dolphins) as if they are possessors of rights".⁴¹

This is an important and careful argument, but it does not seem to me to be a particularly convincing one. Indeed, some of its claims do not appear to advance its own case. Thus, it is difficult to see how a right-bearer's inability to express. his wishes leads ineluctably to the conclusion (in point 3) that he has no rights that can be represented. To argue (as McCloskey does)⁴² that the paternalism it involves would offend liberal values may call for an examination of those values. Nor is the speculative empirical move (in point 4) a particularly solid foundation for the benevolence towards a limited range of creatures.

Non-human animals have interests and needs. In particular, they have a clear interest in avoiding pain and an untimely death. But this does not dispose of the matter. It enables one to reject one of the two main theories of rights (the "choice" theory) which is plainly less congenial to animals than the "interest" theory. The main virtue of an interest-based theory is that it enables us more easily to ground duties toward animals,⁴³ but, as I shall try to show, it has a considerably wider application.

The "choice" theory (advanced, most notably by H.L.A.Hart⁴⁴ holds that when I have a right to do something, what is essentially protected is my choice whether or not to do it. It stresses the freedom and individual self-fulfilment that are regarded as essential values which the law ought to guarantee. The "interest" theory, on the other hand (most effectively espoused by D.N. MacCormick)⁴⁵ claims that the purpose of rights is to protect, not individual choice, but certain interests of the rightholder. It should be noted that the advocates of both theories (though not Professor MacCormick) normally accept the correlativity of rights and duties; indeed, this is often central to their arguments.

In attacking the choice theory, proponents of the interest theory raise two main arguments. First, they reject the view that the essence of a right is the power to waive someone else's duty. Sometimes, they argue, the law limits my power of waiver without destroying my substantive right (e.g., I cannot consent to murder or contract out of certain rights). Secondly, there is a distinction between the substantive right and the right to enforce it. MacCormick gives the example of children: their rights are exercised by their parents or guardians; how can it be said, therefore, that the right-holder (i.e., the child) has any choice whether or not to waive such rights? It must, he argues, be concluded that children have no rights--which is absurd. And a similar point could, of course, be made in relation to animals.

While the choice theory, by arguing that the enforcement of Ys duty requires the exercise of will by X (or someone else), rests on the assumption of the correlativity of rights and duties, it is possible to postulate the interest theory (as MacCormick does) independently. Thus, it may be argued that conferring a right on someone (e.g. to housing) constitutes an acceptance that the interest represented by that right ought to be recognised and protected. There are two main versions of this theory. One asserts that X has a right whenever he is in a position to benefit from the performance of a duty. The other claims that X has a right whenever the protection of his interest is recognised as a reason for imposing duties--whether or not they are actually imposed.

Regan's sentimental anthropomorphism argues for the similarities between a human and an animal life. In particular, animals, like us, are "subjects-of-a-life". They have inherent, not merely instrumental, value or worth. This entitles them to the absolute right to live their lives with respect and autonomy:

The most reasonable criterion of right-possession ... is not that of sentience or having interests, since neither of these by themselves can account for why it is wrong to treat humans who are not irreversibly comatose merely as means; rather the criterion that most adequately accounts for this is the criterion of inherent value: All those beings (and only those beings) which have inherent value have rights.

Hence, no amount of benefit to humans (from, say, vivisection) can justify the violation of this absolute right:

The laudatory achievements of science, including the many genuine benefits obtained for both humans and animals, do not justify the unjust means used to secure them.. .(T)he rights view does not call for the cessation of scientific research. Such research should go on - but not at the expense of laboratory animals. ⁴⁶

While the idea of rights lends support to the animal case (as it does to many causes) it is often rejected by many who might otherwise be enlisted to the animal cause. Hence communitarians stigmatised rights as individualist. They are seen to operate formally not necessarily to assist those (the poor, oppressed, alienated) who most need them. They are disparaged as "excess baggage" superfluous in the condemnation of cruelty or exploitation. All we need, it is argued, is a fully developed theory of right and wrong. Moreover, as I shall suggest below, Regan's argument that animals have an inherent value does not lead ineluctably to a right-based conclusion. A second attack conceives of rights as weapons of last resort: "the really desperate word". ⁴⁸ And the source of Regan's notion of inherent value is often questioned; is his theory no more than a form of sophisticated intuitionism? ⁴⁹ Though Regan seeks to distinguish his case from that held by classic intuitionists like G.E. Moore, there is always the danger that your intuition might lead in the opposite direction to mine. How are we to determine who is right? Some rights-sceptics therefore prefer to prescribe duties without recourse to the precarious problems generated by animal rights through the mechanism of a social contract which I shall now briefly examine.

4. Animals and social contractarianism

In essence contractarianism seeks to establish a moral system on the basis of what rational agents would agree under ideal circumstances. In its most modem, sophisticated version, as postulated by John Rawls, ⁵⁰ these "people in the original position" are shrouded in a "veil of ignorance" which prevents them from knowing to which sex, class, religion or social position they belong. Each person represents a social class, but they do not know whether they are clever or stupid, strong or weak. Nor do they know in which country or in what period they are living. They possess only certain elementary knowledge about the laws of science and psychology. In this state of blissful ignorance they must unanimously decide upon the general principles that will define the terms under which they will live as a society. And, in doing so, they are moved by rational self-interest: each seeks those principles which will give him or her the best chance of attaining his or her chosen conception of the good life. Objective standards are thus guaranteed.

I cannot discuss here the conclusions reached by Rawls as to what principles of justice these agents would select (he explicitly excludes animals as rational agents). But it is not altogether implausible that, in pursuit of objectivity, (even though we do not ask them to imagine themselves members of another species) they would choose a moral system which included respect for animals. At most the social contract may require indirect duties to animals because of the (contingent) characteristics of the social contract struck in any particular society, or out of respect for the feelings of humans. But this seems too delicate a foundation upon which to construct a protective framework for non-humans.

5. Intrinsic worth

Resting the welfare of animals on any of the arguments canvassed briefly above is unlikely to supply a convincing case. Perhaps, in the same way as the heated debate about abortion has missed the central issue, this controversy has lost its way. Ronald Dworkin distinguishes between two positions that are taken by those who oppose abortion. ⁵¹ The first he calls a derivative objection for it derives from the rights and interests that it assumes all human beings, including foetuses, have. A second objection rests on the claim that human life has an intrinsic value, that it is sacred or inviolable; abortion is therefore wrong because it infringes this value even in the case of an unborn human being. This he calls the detached objection.

Dworkin contends that the critical question in the abortion debate is the violation, not of the rights or interests of the foetus (an impossibly difficult metaphysical problem anyway) but of the importance of life itself.

Abortion wastes the intrinsic value - the sanctity, the inviolability - of a human life and is therefore a grave moral wrong unless the intrinsic value of other human lives would he wasted in a decision against abortion. ⁵²

The sterility of the disagreement concerning whether an animal may be said to be a "person"⁵³ or (whether or it is) whether it can or should have rights raise similar difficulties. And a similar solution. The determination of the circumstances under which it is morally defensible to subject a living creature to pain or death seems to require coherent detached arguments that seek to show why the inherent worth of other lives (human and animal) are more valuable. The arguments sketched above appear, as in the case of the dispute concerning abortion, to generate a good deal of vitriol and rhetoric, and little in the way of constructive results. An essential element in the search for a happy ending is, of course, to find alternatives to the use of live animals in the laboratory.

C. Alternatives to experiments

Many experiments on animals are unnecessary. 54  Alternatives often exist. The use of tissue culture, in vitro methods, mathematical and chemical modelling, computer simulation, and human volunteers is not uncommon, but is far from being generally accepted, even though the "number of major contributions that replacement techniques have made to Nobel Prize-winning research is astonishing". ⁵⁵

Inadequate funding for alternative methods and researchers' hostility have, at least in the past, conspired against what is misleadingly and unfairly described as the "anti-science" posture of advocates of animal welfare. Cruelty aside, in today's world of advanced technology, the whole process of vivisection seems slightly anachronistic. Perhaps the Nobel Laureate in medicine and physiology, Sir Peter Medawar, was correct when he declared in 1972: "the use of experimental animals on the present scale is a temporary episode in biological and medical history". ⁵⁶

D. Regulating experiments

Legislation to control and regulate the use of animals for experiments exists in a number of European jurisdictions. Though they differ in scope they share five principal objectives: ⁵⁸

1. To define the legitimate purposes for which animals may be used,

2. To exert control over permissible levels of pain and distress,

3. To provide for inspection of facilities and procedures,

4. To ensure humane standards of animal husbandry and care,

5. To provide for public accountability.

The British statute is the most far reaching. Enacted in 1986 the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act establishes an elaborate system of licensing and inspection operated by a government department. In particular, it requires researchers to demonstrate that the potential results of their experiments are sufficiently significant to justify the use of animals, that their proposed research could not be done without live animals, and that the minimum number of animals will be used. ⁵⁹ other forms of non-legislative regulation are in place in the USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

In 1986 a European Convention for the Protection of Vertebrate Animals Used for Experimental and other Scientific Purposes was formulated. It requires each of the members of the Council of Europe, should they decide to ratify it, to give effect to its (fairly weak) provisions by legislation. In 1987 The European Commission itself became a signatory to the Convention. The EC Directive 61 provides for the limitation of severe pain and distress and for control by the Competent Authority in each member state of experiments likely to cause severe pain, including a requirement to weigh the likely benefit against the pain suffered. It does not, however, impose a duty upon member states to reduce experiments involving animals or to use available alternatives. Nor is a system of inspection to monitor state practices established. The requirements to limit pain are not strong. Legislation plainly cannot stand on its own. Even if enforced, it needs to be buttressed by a programme of education and a consciousness of and support for its moral purpose. without the endorsement and commitment of government and researchers, it is likely to have only limited effect. There is evidence to suggest that the British Act, at any rate, is beginning to improve the lot of laboratory animals.

E Conclusion

In moral discourse the power of rights is formidable. Moral claims are routinely translated into moral rights: individuals assert their rights to life, work, health, education, housing an so on. Communities and putative nations demand a right to self-determination, sovereignty, free trade. In the legal context rights have assumed a prominence so great that they are sometimes regarded as synonymous with law itself; 62 declarations of political rights are often conceived to be the hallmark of the modern democratic state. And the inevitable contest between competing rights is one of the self-justifying characteristics of a liberal society. Whether one adopts the choice or the interest model of rights, "it is quite inconceivable that that the extension of any right should coincide exactly with the boundaries of our species". 63 But the language of rights does not seem to present a promising basis for the protection of animals against avoidable suffering. Rights need not feature in the case for a naturalist strategy to secure and protect the material, social and psychological well-being of all animals, and perhaps even plants.

The harm that scientific and economic "progress" can inflict on our environment and all who share it is plain. The attraction of rights as a weapon by which both to safeguard the interests of living things against harm and to promote the circumstances under which they are able to flourish is understandable. Yet the traditional concept of rights is problematic and, in any event, may be unable to deliver these goods. The case for a fundamental shift in our social and economic systems and structures may be the only way in which to secure a sustainable future for our planet and its inhabitants. The importance of the sanctity of all life and its flourishing offers a powerful means to this end.

Whatever conceptual strategy is deployed, there are a number of fundamental practical changes that need to take place in the approach to animal experiments.First, ethical committees (whose members are not confined to scientists) need to be established (along Australian and New Zealand lines) ⁶⁴ to allow the moral issues to be properly considered. In particular, since the central criterion of acceptability is (or ought to be) the "benefits" of the proposed experiment, those who will allegedly enjoy the principal benefits, ought to be involved in fixing the meaning of what often looks like a dangerous weasel-word. ⁶⁵ Secondly, it is essential that the public (whose taxes are often used for such scientific ends) have access to information on experiments. Participation in ethical committees would assist, but there is plainly a need for comprehensible accounts of the nature, purpose, and controls exercised over experiments. Thirdly a good deal of repetition, pain, and pointless experiments could be avoided if experimenters included in their published papers details of alternatives to the use of animals in the particular experiment, the adverse effects associated with certain procedures, special signs of suffering, results of early failures (to prevent other scientists from repeating them), and painkillers used. ⁶⁶

The argument is sometimes heard that concern for animals is misplaced. Human beings, it is contended, are manifestly more important than non-humans. Energy spent on animal causes is better directed against human suffering. Indeed one writer asserts that the popular movement in support of animal rights is a "reflection of moral decadence". ⁶⁷ This argument seems to be driven by the idea that those who are engaged in animal rights or welfare activities either subordinate human interests to animal interests, or that they have a pathological indifference towards human beings. In my experience, at least, the opposite tends to be true. Individuals involved in the animal welfare movement are frequently dedicated as well to the alleviation of suffering of oppressed or disadvantaged. And even if this were not so, our concern for animals is inseparable from our anxiety about the ravages we continue to inflict on our environment, and the consequences of this damage on all living things.

The (highly questionable) notion that science is somehow value-neutral appears sometimes to blind scientists to the suffering of animals and deny them subjective awareness and moral status. ⁷⁰

Cruelty to animals and indifference to the extinction of endangered species, is, especially in this region, sometimes defended in the name of cultural or ethical relativism. This is a neglected issue that warrants close attention. It is true that, as in the case of human rights, "since people are more likely to observe normative propositions if they believe them to be sanctioned by their own cultural standards, observance of human rights standards can be improved through the enhancement of the cultural legitimacy of those standards." ⁷¹ Yet, all too often, these arguments merely camouflage injustice. Where suffering is caused (and especially where international norms are infringed) we should be very slow to accept such claims.

If the argument about our use of animals in research is best considered as an aspect of our attitude towards the planet we inhabit, it requires an understanding of the circumstances that give rise to animal experimentation in the first place. Are experiments (if that is what they are) performed by large pharmaceutical companies ⁷² a kind of insurance policy against potential claims for negligence? Do the criteria for academic career advancement place undue emphasis on research conducted on animals? Is the practice of animal experimentation so ingrained into the methodology and reward-system of the scientific community that it inevitably generates more experiments? ⁷³

Was Bentham too sanguine when he declared:

Why should the law refuse its protection to any sensitive being? The time will come when humanity will extend its mantle over everything which breathes. We have begun by attending to the condition of slaves; we shall finish by softening that of all the animals which assist our labours or supply our wants.

Who could hope that he was?

c Raymond Wacks 1993

Foot Notes

¹ Professor of Law, The University of Hong Kong.

² "If Animals Could Talk" (1932) in H. Ruja (ed) Mortals and Others: Bertrand Russell's American Essays 1931-1935 (London: Allen & Unwin, 1975) vol.1, 120-1, quoted in P.A.B. Clarke and A. Linzey (eds) Political Theory and Animal Rights (London: Pluto Press, 1990) 92.

³ This figure (which declines each year) can only be an estimate and does not include all countries; it is based on the following estimates: US: 90m, Japan: 13m, Austria: 8m, Australia: 8m. UK: 5m, France: 4.4m, Netherlands: 3m, South Africa: 2m, Canada: 2m, Finland: 1.6m, India: 1m, Sweden: 0.9m, Israel: 0.5m, Norway: 0.09m. The statistics are from G. Mitchell, "Guarding the Middle Ground: The Ethics of Experiments on Animals" (1989) 85 S. Afr.J.Sci.285.

⁴ See P. Singer, Animal Liberation (New York: Avon, 1975), T. Regan, The Struggle for Animal Rights (Clarks Summit, Penn.: International Society for Animal Rights, 1987), J.M. Jasper and D. Nelkin, The Animal Rights Crusade: The Growth of a Moral Protest (New York: The Free Press, 1992)

⁵ Other euphemisms used by experimenters describe animals as being "dispatched," "terminated," "cervically dislocated." "exsanguinated," "decapitated," or "put down'. Whole rooms are "depopulated" or simply "cleaned". In this survey of 15 laboratories, the animals themselves were routinely reified as "controls", "recipients", "donors", "carriers", "bleeders" and so on, A. Arluke, "Trapped in a Guilt Cage" (1992) New Scientist, 4 April, 33,35.

⁶ R. Rodd, Biology, Ethics and Animals (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990)145. But it is hard to believe that in extreme cases certain "experiments" do not cause significantly greater suffering to individual animals than is caused by meat-eating.

⁷ This enquiry invites in turn a deeper question about our attitude to nature in general. For an account of some of the central issues see J. Passmore, Man's Responsibility, for Nature (London: Duckworth, 1974). But his analysis of our attitude to non-humans is not always especially perspicuous or convincing. For more sympathetic accounts see, for example, R. Attfield, The Ethics of Environmental Concern (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983), P.. Wenz, Environmental Justice, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988), H. Rolston, Environmental Ethics (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988), T. Benton, Natural Relations: Ecology, Animal Rights and Social Justice (London: Verso, 1993). See too M. Midgley, Animals and Why They Matter (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983).

⁸ This is an especially controversial assertion. It is based on the idea of ontological naturalism advanced by Ted Benton, Natural Relations, see note 7 above, which informs and reflects many of my own views on the subject of the moral status of animals. Most writers reject this continuism; the criteria upon which their differentiation is drawn are numerous, and none is without logical flaws or traces of speciesism. Thus Finnis contends that human consciousness, unlike that experienced by animals is "expressive of decision, choice, reflectiveness, commitment, as fruition of purpose, or of self-discipline or self-abandonment, and as the action of a responsible personality," Natural Law and Natural Rights (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), 194. But I see no reason why this naturalistic arguments for "human flourishing" (though anthropocentrically rooted, should not be extended to all life forms. Finnis's assertion that "(t)hose who propose that animals have rights have a deficient appreciation of the basic forms of human good" strikes me as tautologous.

⁹ I would prefer not to draw this distinction, but I shall allow this assumption to save my having to explain how we are to justify what may otherwise he classified as cruelty to a carrot or a virus.

¹⁰ It is difficult, as a layman, to assess the claims and counterclaims on this critical issue. Professor Paton seeks to demonstrate that animal experiment have been essential not only to our understanding of our bodies, but in the treatment of numerous diseases (including pneumonia, rheumatic fever, diphtheria, polio, measles, whooping cough, smallpox, childhood leukaemia, and cancer) as well as the development of surgery, hygiene and preventive medicine. Many of the drugs and procedures which have been discovered have, lie argues, been available to veterinary surgeons to treat sick animals, W. Paton, Man and Mouse: Animals in Medical Research (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 40-79. Patrick Wall, Professor of Anatomy at University College, London, refers to the "revolution" over the last 25 years in our understanding of pain mechanisms which, he says, was "generated by experimental work on animals" (which does not mean, of course, that it might not have been "generated" without the use of animal experiments. lie adds that "by great good fortune" these tests have resulted in a series of new therapies including transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, dorsal column stimulation, and epidural narcotics. See P. Wall, "Neglected Benefits of Animal Research" (1992) New Scientist 18 April, 30, 31. The House of lords in National Anti-Vivisection Society v Inland Revenue Commissioners [1947] 2 All ER 217 refer to "the immense and incalculable benefits which have resulted from vivisection... The scientist who inflicts pain in the course of vivisection is fulfilling a moral duty to mankind which is higher in degree than the moralist or sentimentalist who thinks only of the animals," per Lord Wright at 223). It is doubtful whether today even the most ardent defender of vivisection would express his support in such unqualified rhetorical terms. A powerful argument against such claims is made by Robert Sharpe who tries to demonstrate that animal experiments "are generally bad science because they tell us about animals, usually under artificial conditions, when we really need to know about people," R. Sharpe, "Animal Experiments: A Failed Technology" in G. Langley (ed) Animal Experimentation: The Consensus Changes (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989)111. He quotes (at 88) Professor Sir George Pickering, former Professor of Medicine at Oxford who in 1964 wrote: "The idea, as I understand it, is that fundamental truths are revealed in laboratory experiments on lower animals and are then applied to the problems of the sick patient. Having been myself trained as a physiologist I feel in a way competent to assess such a claim. It is plain nonsense," Physician and Scientist (1964) 2 Br Med.J 1615. As will become evident below, the utilitarian calculus implicit in the way in which I have formulated the assumption is by no means the only way of evaluating the "benefits" of animal experiments.

¹¹ That this should be in doubt is, at least to a pet-owning layman, extraordinary. The evidence appears to be irresistible, see B.E. Rollin, The Unheeded Cry: Animal Consciousness, Animal Pain and Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), M. Dawkins, Animal Pain: The Science of Animal Welfare (London: Chapman & Hall, 980). But see M.P.T. Leahy, Against Liberation: Putting Animals in Perspective (London: Routledge, 1991)124-31, 222-28.

¹² Though, according to Arluke's study, see note 5 above, most experimenters "did not have elaborate moral justifications for their use of animals. Instead, many of them appeared ethically inarticulate". (35).

¹³ See, for instance, P. Singer, Animal Liberation, note 4 above, and R. Ryder, Victims of Science (London: Davis- Poynter, 1975) for numerous unsettling descriptions.

¹⁴ N. Chomsky, American Power and the New Mandarins (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969)11, quoted in S. Clark, The Moral Status of Animals (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977)1.

¹⁵ For a comprehensive list of scientific references, see R. Sharpe, note 10 above, 111 - 117.

¹⁶ For a sceptical analysis of the reliability of this test. see G. Zbinden and M. Flury-Roversi, "Significance of the LD5O test for the toxicological evaluation of chemical substances" (1981) 47 Arch Toxicol. 77.

¹⁷ According to a distinguished human toxicologist, Roy Goulding, "the subject and practice of toxicology has become exalted to the eminence of a religion... (and) like a religion it relies rather more on faith than reason," quoted in M. Balls, "Time to Reform Toxic Tests" (1992) New Scientist, 2 May 1992, 3, 33. See C. Hollands, "Trivial and Questionable Research on Animals" in Langley (ed) see note 8 above, 118. But one ought to acknowledge, as Paton points out, that cosmetics sometimes perform more than a trivial role when used, for example, to conceal unsightly birthmarks, Paton, see note 10 above, 140. In vitro tests, developed by ICI in the early 1980s, offer a promising alternative to animals. This is formally recognised by the OECD which, in its 1992 revision of its guidelines on skin irritation/corrosion states that "it may not be necessary to test in vivo materials for which corrosive properties are predicted on the basis of results from in vitro tests". It does, however, add that it is highly unlikely that in vitro tests would replace the rabbit test completely for at least another ten years. See P. Botham and I. Purchase, "Why Laboratory Rats are Here to Stay" (1992) New Scientist, 2 May, 29, 30.

¹⁸ See B. Ballantyne and D.W. Swanson `The scope and limitations of acute eye irritation tests" in B. Ballantyne (ed) Current Approaches in Toxicology (Bristol: John Wright) 139.

¹⁹ It is frequently suggested that even if thalidomide had been tested on pregnant rats, no malformations would have occurred, for the drug does not cause birth defects in rats or in several other species, see P. Lewis, "Animal tests for teratogenicity. their relevance to clinical practice" in D.F. Hawkins (ed). Drugs and Pregnancy: Human Teratogenesis and Related Problems (Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone, 1983)17.

²⁰ R. Sharpe, see note 10 above, 111.

²¹ For an argument along these lines see D.L. Perrott, "Has Law a Deep Structure: The Origins of Fundamental Duties" in D. Lasok, A.J.F. Jaffey, D.L. Perrott and C. Sachs, Fundamental Duties (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1980)1.

²² Though they often provide the most strongly held and persuasive reasons for action. For a lucid introduction to these issues, albeit from a morally sceptical point of view, see J. L. Mackie, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977, reprinted 1990).

²³ It is made most forcefully by Bernard Williams. See J.J.C. Smart and B. Williams, Utilitarianism: For and Against (London: Cambridge University Press, 1973).

²⁴ H.L.A. Hart, "Between Utility and Rights" in his Essays in Jurisprudence and Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983)198, 200-202.

²⁵ These four criticisms contain most of the issues that lie at the heart of many of the other attacks, of which the following may be mentioned. Why should we seek to satisfy peoples' desires'? Certain desires are unworthy of satisfaction (e.g. the sadist who wants to torture cats). A third attack is one made by Johns Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973) who argues that utilitarianism defines what is right in terms of what is "good"; but this means, he says, that it begins with a conception of what is "good" (e.g. happiness) and then concludes that an action is right in so far as it maximises that "good".
Fourthly, utilitarianism is concerned only with maximising welfare; many regard the more important question as the just distribution of welfare. Fifthly, many critics point to the impracticability of calculating the consequences of one's actions: how can we know in advance what results will follow from what we propose to do. Sixthly, are our wants and desires not manipulated by persuasion, advertising and the like? Can we, in other words, separate our "real" preferences from our "conditioned" ones? Seventhly, is it possible (and, if it is, is it anyway desirable) to balance my pleasure against another's pain? Eighthly, how far into the future do (or can) we extend the consequences of our actions? Or to put it slightly differently, as Bernard Williams does (op. cit. 82): "No one can hold that everything, of whatever category, that has value, has it in virtue of its consequences. If that were so, one would just go on for ever, and there would be an obviously hopeless regress."

²⁶ But see R.G. Frey, Interests and Rights: The Case Against Animals (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980) for a rejection of the argument, from a utilitarian position, that animals can be said to have either rights or interests.

²⁷ See note 4 above. See too Singer's Practical Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979).
For a similar argument from pain and suffering see S. Clarke, The Moral Status of Animals see note 14 above.

²⁸ See Practical Ethics, 59. Orphans in order to exclude the possibility of vicarious suffering to relatives.

²⁹ Another feature of utilitarianism is sometimes viewed as helpful in developing a sound moral approach towards animals is Mill's view [advanced in a more sophisticated form by R.M. Hare (see Moral Thinking (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983)] that our primary duty is to develop certain qualities of character which would promote the greatest overall utility. But is may impose unreasonable demands on moral actors. It is not impossible to reconcile consequentialism with rights, see, for example, L.W. Sumner, The Moral Foundation of Rights (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1987).

³⁰ The strongest argument in support of animals as right-bearers is made by Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights (London: Routledge, 1984). For assaults on this view, see R.G. Frey, Rights, Killing and Suffering: Moral Vegetarianism and Applied Ethics (Oxford: Basil Blackwell. 1983) which I reviewed in (1986) 49 Modern Law Review 403, and P. Carruthers, The Animals Issue: Moral Theory in Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).

³¹ J. Waldron (ed), Theories of Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984)13.

³² 1n any event, is it wholly implausible that animals may indeed be subjects of certain duties (e.g. a watchdog)?

³³ W.N. Hohfeld, Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning, W.W. Cook (ed) (New Haven, Conn; London: Yale University Press, 1964).

³⁴ See J. Raz, "Legal Rights" (1984) 4 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 1.

³⁵ J.W. Harris, Legal Philosophies (London: Butterworths, 1980) 81 -3.

³⁶ See the useful essay by H.J. McCloskey, "Moral Rights and Animals" (1978) 22 Inquiry 23.27-8.

³⁷ The most comprehensive statute is the British Protection of Animals Act of 1911. The use of animals for experimentation is now regulated by the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 which establishes a licensing regime controlled by the Home Office. By the admission of a number of scientists (let alone animal welfare groups) the Act, though a major advance, is not providing the expected benefits for laboratory animals.

³⁸ See J. Feinberg, "Human Duties and Human Rights", 188-9, and "The Rights of Animals and Unborn Generations", 159, both reproduced in his Rights, Justice and the Bounds of Liberty: Essays in Social Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980).

³⁹ McCloskey, see note 36 above, 27-8.

⁴⁰ McCloskey, see note 36 above, 39. here McCloskey departs from his earlier view expressed in "Rights" ( 1965)15 Philosophical Quarterly. See too T. Regan, "McCloskey on Why Animals Cannot have Rights" (1976) 26 Philosophical Quarterly. Joseph Raz argues (as part of a larger and sophisticated defence of freedom) that "All rights are based on interests", J. Raz, The Morality of Freedom 191

⁴¹ McCloskey, 42-3. McCloskey proposes, instead of a rights-based argument, a justice-based argument in support of animals. A full account would require an analysis of how considerations such as desert, merit, well-being, needs, wishes etc figure in the structure of a theory of justice towards animals.

⁴² McCloskey, 39.

⁴³ This is not, of course, to say either that all duties derive from rights or that morality is right-based. See J. Raz, The Morality of Freedom (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986) chap 7.

⁴⁴ See H.L.A. Hart, Essays on Bentham (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982) chap.7.

⁴⁵ D.N. MacCormick, Legal Rights and Social Democracy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982) esp. chap. 8, and "Rights in Legislation" in P.M.S. Hacker and J.Raz (eds.), Law, Morality and Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977).

⁴⁶ Regan, note 30 above, 397.

⁴⁷ See in particular the works by R.G. Frey referred to above.

⁴⁸ M. Midgley, Animals And Why They Matter, note 7 above, 61-4.

⁴⁹ See Carruthers, note 30 above, 21-4.

⁵⁰ J.Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972).

⁵¹ R. Dworkin, Life's Dominion: An Argument about Abortion and Euthanasia (London: Harper Collins, 1993, paperback ed, 1995)11 and passim.

⁵² Ibid, 60.

⁵³ The question whether animals can he "persons" is often connected to the issue of whether they can have legal rights, particularly to inheritance. In English law an animal is a chattel which cannot inherit. The German Civil Code was recently amended to give animals the status of "beings" rather than "things". The Privy Council has accepted that a bronze Hindu idol has legal personality and locus standi: Union Bank of India v Bumper Development Corporation Ltd (1988) QBD (17 February, unreported) cited in L.V Prott and P.J. O'Keefe, Law and the Cultural Heritage Vol 3 (London: Butterworths, 1989) 546-7. I am grateful to David Murphy for the reference. Some African legal systems recognise the juristic personality of trees, rocks and even spirits. For a powerful argument (adopted by three Supreme Court judges) in support of legal rights for natural objects, see C.D. Stone, "Should Trees Have Standing'? - Towards Legal Rights for Natural Objects" (972) 45 S.Cal.L.Rev 450.

⁵⁴ Animals are also widely used in medical education. This raises questions about the right of students to object to such practices, and the academic consequences of such conscientious objection. In a recent survey, 93 per cent of physicians questioned by the American Medical Association (AMA) supported the continued use of animals in medical education. Almost 90 per cent said they had used animal for educational purposes. See J. Foreman, "Physicians' Support of Use of Animals in Medical Education" (1992) 110 Arch Ophthalmol 324. The AMA has recommended guidelines for the use of animals in medical school curricula and continuing medical education.

⁵⁵ M. Stephens, "Replacing Animal Experiments" in G.Langley (ed) Animal Experimentation: The Consensus Changes, note 10 above.

⁵⁶ Quoted by Stephens, note 52 above, 165.

⁵⁷ Notably Britain, France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark, Ireland, Greece, Italy.

⁵⁸ See J. Hampson, "Legislation and the Changing Consensus" in C. Langley (ed), Animal Experimentation: The Consensus Changes, note 52 above, 219, 220.

⁵⁹ Researchers often raise at seems to me a genuine point about the difficulty of predicting (and hence specifying, as required by section 5 of the Act) the value of many proposed research projects. The evidence is fairly strong that a high percentage of experiments, (41% in one survey) bears "no relation whatever to the disease that it later helped to prevent, diagnose, treat or alleviate," Comroe and Dripps, quoted by M.A. Fox, The Case for Animal Experimentation (London: University of California Press, 1986) 140.

⁶⁰ The US Animal Welfare Act of 1966 (amended in 1970, 1976, and 1985) is not intended to control research, but the amendment in 1985 requires the establishment of Animal Care and Use Committees at institutions where experiments are conducted. For a useful summary of the controls, see J. Hampson, quoted in Langley (ed), see note 52 above, 229-240.

⁶¹ On The Approximation of Laws. Regulations and Administrative Provisions of the Member States Regarding the Protection of Animals Used for Experimental and Other Scientific Purposes, November 1986.
It was intended that the directive would he incorporated into the domestic laws of member states by 1988. But only Britain Germany, the Netherlands, France and Italy appear to he in the process of adopting it. Opposition to the directive has been expressed by Spain, Portugal, and Greece.

⁶² See R. Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1977).

⁶³ L.W. Sumner, The Moral Foundation of Rights note 29 above, 206.

⁶⁴ See J. Hampson, "The Secret World of Animal Experiments" (1992) New Scientist 11 April, 24. Such committees (with lay representation) exist also in Sweden and Denmark. Useful accounts of developments in Australia and New Zealand are provided by reports published by the Australian and New Zealand Council for the Care of Animals in Research and Teaching (ANZCCART) an "independent" body established in 1987 sponsored by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee and the Australian Research Council.
Is this a genuinely independent organisation or a group committed to defending (and even promoting) animal experiments?

⁶⁵ The 1986 British statute creates an Animal Procedures Committee, but this deals with only a fraction of cases referred to it by the Home Office, and is not the appropriate forum for genuine moral debate.

⁶⁶ See D. Morton, "A Fair Press for Animals" (1992) New Scientist 11 April, 28.

⁶⁷ P.Carruthers, The Animals Issue, note 30 above, xi.

⁶⁸ For one writer "there is no real difference in the basic grounds on which we should condemn man's inhumanity to animals and man's inhumanity to man," T.L.S. Sprigge, Metaphysics, Physicalism, and Animal Rights" (1979) 22 Inquiry 101, 103.

⁶⁹ There is a strong connection between the feminist and the anti-vivisection campaigns of the nineteenth century in Britain. See 0. Banks, Faces of Feminism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986) 81-2 quoted in L. Birke, Women, Feminism and Biology: The Feminist Challenge (Brighton: Harvester, 1986) 120.

⁷⁰ Animals have been allowed to suffer in research not through cruelty, but rather, because consideration of suffering is forgotten in the thrill of the pursuit, by nature ultimately ruthless, complemented by an ideology which discounts the cogency of moral reflection in scientific activity and denies the meaningfulness of attributing feelings to animals, and is coupled with practical pressures," B.F. Rollin, The Unheeded Cry, note 11 above.

⁷¹ A.A. An Na im, "Problems of Universal Cultural Legitimacy for Human Rights" in An Na im and F. Deng (eds), Human Rights in Africa: Cross-Cultural Perspectives (Washington DC: Brookings Institution, 1990) p.331, quoted in R. Wacks, "The End of Human Rights?" (1994) 24 Hong Kong Law Journal 372, 392. See too R Wacks, "Human Rights: Confronting Bangkok and Beijing" (1994) 24 Hong Kong Law Journal 313.

⁷² It is I think fair to say that industry (especially the pharmaceutical companies) are responsible for most of the experiments conducted on animals. Indeed, Michael Balls, Professor of Medical Cell Biology at the University of Nottingham, laments the fact that under the 1986 Act "while individual academics must struggle hard to convince their Home Office inspectors that their use of small numbers of animals in fundamental biomedical research should be permitted, a single industrial project licence may permit the whole range of regulatory tests, involving tens or hundreds of personal licensees and the annual use of thousands, or even tens of thousands of animals," M. Balls, see note 17 above, 31.

⁷³ "It is in the name of science, and with the specious bribe of release from all our ills, that we have been cajoled and threatened and insulted into permitting the continued torture of our kindred and the continued blunting of the sensibilities of those who come to work in our laboratories. Let no-one rely on common decency in such a situation: the pressure of one's professional peer-group, the atmosphere of dismissive tolerance of all outside the clan, the calm assumption that this is what we do, are all far too strong for most of us to resist," S. Clark, The Moral Status of Animals, see note 14 above, 141-2.

⁷⁴ J. Bentham, quoted in A. Brown, Who Cares for Animals? (London: Heinemann, 1974).