Is There Beauty In Using The Beast David Benatar

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Is There Beauty in Using the Beast: an analysis of animal experimentation In David Benatar's "Duty and the Beast: animal experimentation and neglected interests," he poses the question: is experimenting on animals worth the price of death and suffering? Benatar recognizes that many medical experts are aware of their actions and feel that the costs to animals are outweighed by the benefits to humans; yet states that further information is needed to decide if experimentation on animals can be proven morally just. He invites his audience to delve into the moral question: do even the most minute benefits of animal experimentation to human kind outweigh the great costs to animals? Benatar expresses that in calculating and comparing the costs and the benefits many individuals …show more content…
He then goes on to argue that accepting the consumption of meat gives way for individuals to accept animal experimentation. The author provides his view of that an individual in abnegation of animal interests would perceive that animal interests have little value when being compared to human interests. Benatar quotes fellow English philosopher Richard Ryder's coined term 'speciesism' and defines it as being a 'species analogue of racism and sexism.' In referencing this term, Benatar states that humans would be exercising discrimination if they gave different moral weight to the interests of animals. He later recognizes that some individuals find it acceptable to experiment on animals because there are significant differences between humans and animals, and then states that the observation of humans' heightened mental capacities in defending animal experimentation is a questionable argument. That it is

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