Approximately 50-100 million animals worldwide are subjected to pain, suffering, and distress by means of experimentation. 1 Animal testing, often referred to as animal experimentation or animal research, is a common scientific procedure used in hopes of discovering and understanding biological and psychological processes within humans and animals with the use of non-human subjects. 2 These procedures began in the seventeenth century, but became more common during the nineteenth century as scientists started to perform vivisections - i.e. experiments on living animals. Since then, animal experimentation has grown throughout the twentieth century, becoming a common method for testing the safety of consumer products, studying common human diseases
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Peter Singer, author of ‘Animal Liberation,’ argued that animals are able to feel pain to the same extent as humans, and should therefore be treated with equal moral concern. Singer argues that since animals have the capacity to experience pain, human beings have a moral requirement not to inflict pain or allow the infliction of pain on creatures. 13 However, numerous people still believe that if human diseases can be cured through research found through animal experimentation, the procedures are justified. These people argue that the benefits of the experiments outweigh the harm to the animal subjects. 14 Nevertheless, this viewpoint does not take into account the fact that animals and humans are morally equal. During the second world war, Nazi and Japanese scientists held prisoners of war hostage and performed immoral procedures on them for medical breakthroughs. The scientists would infect the subjects with malaria, typhus, and jaundice, often resulting in the death of many patients. 15 This demonstrates that human subjects can be of great use to the advancement of scientific knowledge. Yet, the majority of the human population would hold that it is immoral to perform experiments on unwilling subjects, even if it happens to produce groundbreaking medical knowledge. Therefore, considering that animals are members of the same moral community as humans, it would not be unreasonable to assume that experiments involving non-human subjects would be immoral as well. Consequently, experimentation on animals should be prohibited by the state due to moral complications.
Peter Singer, author of ‘Animal Liberation,’ argued that animals are able to feel pain to the same extent as humans, and should therefore be treated with equal moral concern. Singer argues that since animals have the capacity to experience pain, human beings have a moral requirement not to inflict pain or allow the infliction of pain on creatures. 13 However, numerous people still believe that if human diseases can be cured through research found through animal experimentation, the procedures are justified. These people argue that the benefits of the experiments outweigh the harm to the animal subjects. 14 Nevertheless, this viewpoint does not take into account the fact that animals and humans are morally equal. During the second world war, Nazi and Japanese scientists held prisoners of war hostage and performed immoral procedures on them for medical breakthroughs. The scientists would infect the subjects with malaria, typhus, and jaundice, often resulting in the death of many patients. 15 This demonstrates that human subjects can be of great use to the advancement of scientific knowledge. Yet, the majority of the human population would hold that it is immoral to perform experiments on unwilling subjects, even if it happens to produce groundbreaking medical knowledge. Therefore, considering that animals are members of the same moral community as humans, it would not be unreasonable to assume that experiments involving non-human subjects would be immoral as well. Consequently, experimentation on animals should be prohibited by the state due to moral complications.