The Six Principles, Philosophy, and Applying Human Ethics to Animals

2020 ◽  
pp. 127-146
Author(s):  
Julian Savulescu
Keyword(s):  
Research Ethics ◽  
Animal Experimentation ◽  
Animal Research ◽  
Harm Principle ◽  
Practical Implementation ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
The Core ◽  
Animal Research Ethics ◽  
Upper Limits ◽  
Human Ethics

Beauchamp and DeGrazia’s framework of six principles of animal research ethics is arguably the most constructive step forward in the ethics of animal experimentation in the past fifty years. Their advance beyond the influential Three-Rs framework is due to their display of the core values and basic principles in animal research ethics. Further work on the practical implementation of their principles can start by focusing on how to better weigh human interests against animal interests. This is where a great fudge can loom large: either human benefit is overestimated or harm to animals is underestimated. How benefits and harms can be more precisely understood, evaluated, and balanced is critical. To this end, this commentary expands on Beauchamp and DeGrazia’s principle of sufficient value to justify harm, principle of basic needs, and principle of upper limits to harm.

Animal Research Ethics

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

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.

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.

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.

scholarly journals “Eek! A Rat!”

2021 ◽  
pp. 301-322
Author(s):  
Joachim Nieuwland ◽  
Franck L. B. Meijboom
Keyword(s):  
Research Ethics ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Pest Management ◽  
Psychological Factors ◽  
Moral Agency ◽  
Moral Motivation ◽  
Animal Research ◽  
Moral Deliberation ◽  
Ethical Frameworks ◽  
Animal Research Ethics

AbstractRats are often despised. In what way does such aversion affect moral deliberation, and if so, how should we accommodate any distorting effects on our normative judgements? These questions are explored in this chapter with regard to recent proposals in (1) the ethics of pest management and (2) animal political theory. While ethical frameworks and tools used in the context of animal research can improve moral deliberation with regard to pest management, we argue based on psychological factors regarding the perception of rats that before implementing these methods in either animal research or pest management, one needs to ascertain that rats are owed genuine moral consideration. With regard to animal political theory, we identify three issues: truth-aptness, perception, and moral motivation. To complement as well as address some of the issues found in both animal research ethics and animal political theory, we explore compassion. Starting from compassion, we develop a pragmatist and interspecies understanding of morality, including a shift from an anthropocentric to a multispecies epistemology, and a distributed rather than an individual notion of moral agency. We need to engage with the experience of others, including rats and those who perceive these animals as pests, as well as pay attention to the specific way individual agents are embedded in particular socio-ecological settings so as to promote compassionate action.

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.

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