Principles of Animal Research Ethics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom L. Beauchamp ◽  
David DeGrazia
Keyword(s):  
Research Ethics ◽  
Comparative Psychology ◽  
Animal Research ◽  
Animal Protection ◽  
Moral Framework ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Societal Benefit ◽  
Animal Research Ethics ◽  
The Three Rs ◽  
New Framework

This book is the first to present a framework of general principles for animal research ethics together with an analysis of the principles’ meaning and moral requirements. This new framework of six moral principles constitutes a more suitable set of moral guidelines than any currently available, including the influential framework presented in the Principles of Humane Experimental Technique published in 1959 by zoologist and psychologist William M. S. Russell and microbiologist Rex L. Burch. Their “principles”—commonly referred to as the Three Rs—are better described as specific directives than as general moral principles, and they are insufficient as a moral framework of basic values in the context of contemporary biomedical and behavioral research. The framework presented in Principles of Animal Research Ethics is more comprehensive in addressing ethical requirements pertaining to societal benefit (the most important consideration in justifying the harming of animals in research) and features a more thorough, ethically defensible program of animal welfare (the area on which Russell and Burch focus). The present framework is also more likely than the Three Rs to foster extensive agreement between the biomedical and animal protection communities—an agreement deeply needed at the present time. The book features commentaries on the framework of principles written by eminent figures in animal research ethics representing an array of relevant disciplines: veterinary medicine, biomedical research, biology, zoology, comparative psychology, primatology, law, and bioethics. The seven commentators on the authors’ Principles are Larry Carbone, Frans B. M. de Waal, Rebecca Dresser, Joseph P. Garner, Brian Hare, Margaret S. Landi, and Julian Savulescu.

scholarly journals Beyond the 3 Rs to a More Comprehensive Framework of Principles for Animal Research Ethics

ILAR Journal ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
David DeGrazia ◽  
Tom L Beauchamp
Keyword(s):  
Research Ethics ◽  
Animal Welfare ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Social Benefit ◽  
Animal Research ◽  
Animal Protection ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Animal Research Ethics ◽  
Suitable Framework ◽  
Comprehensive Framework

Abstract We have produced a framework of general moral principles for animal research ethics in a book, Principles of Animal Research Ethics, which is forthcoming with Oxford University Press in fall 2019. This book includes a detailed statement and defense of our framework along with critical commentaries on our work from seven eminent scholars: Larry Carbone, Frans de Waal, Rebecca Dresser, Joseph Garner, Brian Hare, Margaret Landi, and Julian Savulescu. In the present paper, we explain the motivation for our project and present our framework of principles. The first section explains why a new framework is both needed and timely, on the basis of six important developments in recent decades. The second section challenges assertions of an unbridgeable gulf dividing the animal-research and animal-protection communities on the issue of animal research. It does so, first, by indicating common ground in the core values of social benefit and animal welfare and, then, by presenting and briefly defending our framework: three principles of social benefit and three principles of animal welfare. These six principles, we argue, constitute a more suitable framework than any other that is currently available, including the canonical 3 Rs advanced in 1959 by William M. S. Russell and Rex L. Burch.

Principles of Animal Research Ethics

2020 ◽  
pp. 5-42
Author(s):  
David DeGrazia ◽  
Tom L. Beauchamp
Keyword(s):  
Research Ethics ◽  
Animal Welfare ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Ethics Committees ◽  
Social Benefit ◽  
Animal Research ◽  
Ethical Review ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Moral Framework ◽  
Animal Research Ethics

The centerpiece section of this book on animal research ethics presents a new moral framework of general principles. It is preceded in the front matter by a preamble that explains the overall project in the book as well as in the sections specifically on the six principles. The centerpiece section first discusses the essential place of ethical justification in the animal research arena and then presents the framework of three principles of social benefit and three principles of animal welfare. Next it examines both the critical role played by ethics committees in a well-functioning system of ethical review of animal research and the idea of scientific necessity as a justification for harming animal subjects. The section closes with an analysis of the influential Three-Rs framework, as presented in Russell and Burch’s Principles of Humane Experimental Technique. Despite the Three Rs’ important advance in the promotion of animal welfare, it does not adequately address the costs and benefits of animal research to human beings and lacks a comprehensive program of animal-subjects protection.

Animal Research Ethics

2002 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Pritchett ◽  
Anna Olsson ◽  
Peter Sandøe ◽  
Paul Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Research Ethics ◽  
Animal Research ◽  
Animal Research Ethics

scholarly journals Virtue Ethics and Laboratory Animal Research

ILAR Journal ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca L Walker
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Animal Rights ◽  
Laboratory Animal ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Animal Research ◽  
Moral Significance ◽  
Moral Framework ◽  
Animal Research Ethics ◽  
Human Animal

Abstract This article appeals to virtue ethics to help guide laboratory animal research by considering the role of character and flourishing in these practices. Philosophical approaches to animal research ethics have typically focused on animal rights or on the promotion of welfare for all affected, while animal research itself has been guided in its practice by the 3Rs (reduction, refinement, replacement). These different approaches have sometimes led to an impasse in debates over animal research where the philosophical approaches are focused on whether or when animal studies are justifiable, while the 3Rs assume a general justification for animal work but aim to reduce harm to sentient animals and increase their welfare in laboratory spaces. Missing in this exchange is a moral framework that neither assumes nor rejects the justifiability of animal research and focuses instead on the habits and structures of that work. I shall propose a place for virtue ethics in laboratory animal research by considering examples of relevant character traits, the moral significance of human-animal bonds, mentorship in the laboratory, and the importance of animals flourishing beyond mere welfare.

The Potential and Impacts of Practical Application of Beauchamp and DeGrazia’s Six Principles

2020 ◽  
pp. 45-60
Author(s):  
Larry Carbone
Keyword(s):  
Research Ethics ◽  
Social Benefit ◽  
Animal Research ◽  
Practical Application ◽  
Pain Medications ◽  
Animal Research Ethics ◽  
Animal Care

This commentary focuses on the potential and impacts of practically engaging Beauchamp and DeGrazia’s six principles of animal research ethics in industry, government, and academic laboratories. Specifically addressed is how veterinarians can and should work closely with Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUCs) in employing the principles to assess ways of improving our understanding of animals’ health, welfare, and desires. By contrast to the Russell and Burch Three-Rs model, Beauchamp and DeGrazia’s principles would substantially change how human benefits are balanced against animal harms and how pain medications are intentionally withheld from animals. Following these principles would also improve harm–benefit evaluations, requiring a stronger assessment of social benefit.

Holding Animal-Based Research to Our Highest Ethical Standards: Re-seeing Two Emergent Laboratory Practices and the Ethical Significance of Research Animal Dissent

ILAR Journal ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Fenton
Keyword(s):  
Research Ethics ◽  
Positive Reinforcement ◽  
Applied Ethics ◽  
Animal Research ◽  
Ethical Standards ◽  
Animal Science ◽  
Moral Legitimacy ◽  
Animal Research Ethics ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Ethical Significance

Abstract “Animal-based research should be held to the highest ethical standards” is becoming an increasingly common refrain. Though I think such a commitment is what we should expect of those using animals in science, much as we would if the participants were humans, some key insights of discussions in applied ethics and moral philosophy only seem to slowly impact what reasonably qualifies as the highest standards in animal research ethics. Early in my paper, I will explain some of these insights and loosely tie them to animal research ethics. Two emergent practices in laboratory animal science, positive reinforcement training and “rehoming,” will then be discussed, and I will defend the view that both should be mandatory on no more ethical grounds than what is outlined in the first section. I will also provide reasons for foregrounding the moral significance of dissent and why, most of the time, an animal research subject’s sustained dissent should be respected. Taken together, what I will defend promises to change how at least some animals are used in science and what happens to them afterwards. But I will also show how an objective ethics requires nothing less. Ignoring these constraints in the scientific use of animals comes at the cost of abandoning any claim to adhering to our highest ethical standards and, arguably, any claim to the moral legitimacy of such scientific use.

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