After reading ‘Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind’, I pondered the ethics and necessity of animal testing. Between scientific progress and respect for life, what choice should we make?
Animal testing refers to experiments or scientific procedures conducted on animals for scientific purposes such as education, testing, research, and the production of biological agents. In this process, animals endure various forms of pain and stress, and often lose their lives after the experiment concludes. While it is argued that such experiments have a long history and have contributed to the advancement of medicine and science, ethical issues arising during the process and debates over the validity of the experiments persist.
In Chapter 20 of Yuval Noah Harari’s ‘Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind’, he states that Homo sapiens is violating the laws of natural selection and crossing into the realm of the divine through intelligent design activities. For example, Brazilian bioartist Eduardo Kac paid a laboratory in 2000 to create a green fluorescent rabbit. The lab inserted jellyfish genes that emit green fluorescence into the embryo of an ordinary white rabbit. This incident sparked significant controversy at the time and raised crucial questions about how far the boundaries of science can be pushed. More recently, there have been cases of creating artificial ears by transplanting bovine cartilage onto the backs of mice. While these experiments aim to advance science, they simultaneously raise serious ethical questions about animal rights and welfare. Additionally, images of dozens of rabbits trapped inside plastic machines, unable to move, were exposed by a member of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) in a British pharmaceutical company laboratory. These incidents served as crucial opportunities to inform the public about the reality of animal testing and sparked interest in animal welfare.
It is known that many animals used in these experiments were forcibly exploited by humans, and the benefits we gain from them are not particularly significant. Therefore, animal testing is difficult to justify from both practical and ethical perspectives. Many people are questioning whether animal testing is truly necessary and whether there are alternative methods.
Before delving into the main discussion, let us first examine the meaning of the term “ethical.” ‘Ethics’ refers to the principles humans must uphold in forming and living within society. Within ethics, the normative ethics we generally address are divided into ‘deontological ethics’ and ‘consequentialist ethics.’ Deontological ethics is a universal ethics that focuses on the actions and fundamental principles humans must uphold regardless of time or place. Teleological ethics is an ethics related to practicality, viewing actions that ultimately benefit humans as right. In discussions surrounding animal testing, these two ethical perspectives often clash and serve as criteria for evaluating the justification of experiments. Therefore, something is “ethical” when it is more correct after comprehensively considering both deontological and teleological ethics. If the rightness or wrongness of animal experimentation contradicts these two ethical perspectives, opinions may differ depending on which perspective is prioritized. However, if both ethical perspectives point in the same direction, there would be no room for debate.
First, those favorable toward animal experimentation argue that the benefits humans gain from it are significant. Mice and rabbits are easy to breed, enabling their rapid deployment in numerous experiments. Moreover, for experimental results to be accepted, identical outcomes must be reproducible when the same experiment is repeated, regardless of the experimenter or timing. These bred mice and rabbits are genetically similar, enhancing the reproducibility and reliability of animal experiments. For these reasons, animal experimentation has become an essential tool in scientific research. Historically, many scientists have utilized animal testing. In the 19th century, Pasteur used sheep in his research on anthrax and vaccines. In the 20th century, Pavlov conducted his conditioned reflex experiments after surgically inserting tubes into dogs’ esophagi to allow saliva to flow out of their mouths. These historical examples support the argument that animal testing has significantly contributed to scientific progress. That is, the primary argument of those defending animal testing is that it advances medicine and biology, making it largely justified from a teleological ethical perspective. However, from a deontological standpoint, we learn from childhood that “all life is precious and must not be treated carelessly.” In other words, we ought to treat animal lives with respect, making animal testing difficult to justify from a deontological ethics perspective.
Yet animal testing is not as useful to humans as we might think. The reason people believe it is useful is the similarity between humans and experimental animals, but this similarity exists only at the functional level. That is, even if the functions of humans and experimental animals are similar, the causal mechanisms implementing those functions differ between species. In fact, out of the 30,000 diseases humans possess, only 1.16% are shared by animals. Consequently, the results of animal testing offer little help in understanding humans or treating human diseases. This is a crucial fact demonstrating the limitations of animal testing. Therefore, it is difficult to judge animal testing as substantially right from a teleological perspective, given its limited benefit to humans. Of course, animal testing does not solely aid in solving human disease problems. Animal testing is also conducted to enhance human quality of life in areas like cosmetics and fashion. However, alternative methods to animal testing have recently begun to emerge, such as patient observation, cadaver studies, experiments using human cells and tissues, and research through computer simulations. These alternative methods hold the potential to reduce the use of laboratory animals and contribute to mitigating ethical concerns. In particular, various alternative testing methods are being developed, such as using human cells or artificial skin, or employing computer modeling that mimics animal responses. Fields like cosmetics or fashion do not demand the same rapid progress as disease treatment. Therefore, using these alternative methods instead of indiscriminately conducting animal testing could achieve two goals at once: improving quality of life and advancing alternative testing methods.
Furthermore, humans possess no inherent right to use animals in their experiments. Nowhere is it explicitly stated that humans are entitled to use animals for research or experimentation. So why do humans use animals in experiments? It is likely because they believe animals are under their control. That is, humans assume that animals, being intellectually inferior, cannot retaliate against human treatment, thus justifying their arbitrary use of animals in experiments. This thinking stems from anthropocentric thinking and is an attitude that disregards animal rights. But this is nothing more than another form of discrimination. It is no different from discriminating against others simply because they are less intelligent. We cannot ignore, discriminate against, or even use disabled people for vivisection experiments simply because they are less intelligent than us and seemingly incapable of anything. The most significant reason is that disabled people also possess emotions. Therefore, differences in intelligence cannot justify using them as experimental subjects; all living beings deserve respect. While they may not verbally express pain, we can observe their reactions when pricked or injured, confirming they feel pain. By the same logic, animals used in experiments also possess emotions and feel pain, making their use in experiments equally unacceptable.
From a teleological perspective, considering that animal experiments can solve a small number of diseases, it is difficult to question their ethics. Alternative testing methods exist but are still underdeveloped. In this situation, it is hard to completely deny the necessity of animal testing, but experiments that disregard animal welfare and ethical issues are difficult to justify. However, observing the reactions of animals subjected to experiments, we have inferred that they, too, feel pain like humans. Furthermore, all life deserves respect; no life should be devalued simply because of low intelligence or other reasons. Therefore, animal experimentation is difficult to justify from a deontological ethics standpoint. Therefore, the debate over the ethical justification of animal testing must continue. Furthermore, developing ethical and effective alternative testing methods is urgent. Rather than continuing experiments based solely on the hope that they might somehow benefit humans, pausing to seek and develop testing methods that are more effective than animal testing and ethically justified is the best choice. Reevaluating animal testing and seeking alternatives is a crucial task for the benefit of both humans and animals.
