Probably the biggest interaction we humans have with animals is the eating of them. We also interact with animals by keeping them as pets, by studying and enjoying them in their native state and in zoos, by using them as subjects for scientific experiments, and by using them to develop and to test the safety of medical and other products.
Many of our interactions with animals can cause them pain and suffering. How many of these interactions can be justified on ethical grounds?
Consider two objects, each at opposite ends of a spectrum: an ordinary piece of granite and a human being. Consider the ethical implications of giving each a hefty blow with a hammer. Let us assume that no extenuating circumstances apply, such as using the hammer in self-defence.
Few of us would see a problem in hammering the rock, but we would all find the hammering of a human to be ethically unacceptable. Now consider a third object, an animal. How do we react to the idea of hammering it? Since, for the great majority of us, the answer would depend on the type of animal in question (e.g. a cockroach or the family dog), let us specify the animal as a "higher" form such as a dog, cow, primate or dolphin. I will use the term animal in this sense in the remainder of this article. The animal is obviously far more like a human than like a stone. But would we afford the same protections to the animal on ethical grounds as we afford to the human? We certainly do not in practice, but we do protect animals to a certain extent (e.g. protection from pain) on ethical grounds where we deem that the primary intention behind intruding on the animal's bodily integrity serves the "greater" human good (e.g. helping to find a cure for a human disease).
How should we treat animals? The answer depends largely on the range and intensity of feelings and the depth of reasoning powers we judge animals to possess.
Animals can certainly feel physical pain. We know this from the anatomical and physiological similarities between the central nervous systems of a dog or a chimpanzee and the human nervous system. We also know it from common observation. Most of us have at some stage accidentally stepped on the cat's tail and noted the reaction.
Animals also display emotions, although the range and expression depends on the animal type. Dogs can show anger, fear, anxiety and happiness.
The general scientific consensus has been that animals are neither rational nor self-conscious, have no conception of the future and live entirely in the present. However, it seems quite likely to me that there is some degree of rationality in animals such as the ape and the dolphin, and perhaps a glimmering of rationality in other mammals. Some workers claim to have taught sign language to chimpanzees.
We routinely raise and kill animals to eat them and in the process we sometimes inflict pain and suffering on them. But, you may ask, are these animals not killed humanely? Yes, by and large, when the regulations are followed.
But in some cases animals are raised, held and transported under poor conditions. For example, poultry have been raised in overcrowded "battery" conditions, with no room to exercise or live normal lives. We often see media reports of how cattle are transported over long distances under poor conditions.
Is it ethically justifiable to inflict pain on the animals we rear to eat? The answer would be Yes if two conditions held: (a) we would starve if we did not eat animals, and (b) to rear and kill animals without inflicting pain is impossible.
Since neither of these conditions obtains (because we could live on vegetables and we could ensure that no animal reared for food suffers pain), we are not ethically justified in inflicting pain on agricultural animals.
This conclusion has an expensive consequence. Almost all the suffering inflicted on agricultural animals flows from economic reasons. Animal-producers rear animals in overcrowded conditions, and so on, not because they are insensitive to the suffering of animals but in order to keep costs down.
After all, there is a limit to what the consumer is prepared to pay for the pleasure of eating chicken or beef. It is extremely unlikely that consumers would be prepared to pay the high price necessary to ensure both that animals are reared under ideal conditions and the animal producer still makes a profit.
What about the use of animals in scientific research and teaching? Much of what we know about many human diseases and about general physiology and biochemistry has come from studying animals and extrapolating the knowledge gained to the human condition.
It would also be well nigh impossible to teach and research certain subjects such as physiology without relying to some extent on the experimental manipulation of living animals. It would be difficult to teach aspects of biochemistry without using tissues taken from dead animals.
Human health and well-being are enormously indebted to animal research. The development of all modern drugs and vaccines has depended on animal research. If such research were to be terminated forthwith, progress towards abolishing many human diseases would greatly slow down. Most people would therefore support the continuing use of animals for this purpose.
Of course, there is an absolute ethical requirement on researchers to ensure that the animals are held under optimal conditions and that every effort is made to ensure that experimental manipulations are painless. I think I can reassure readers that these precautions are carefully followed in Irish research laboratories.
Researchers who use animals under conditions where the animal may suffer discomfort have an obligation to use alternative methods where feasible, such as tissue culture or computer simulation. Such methods should also be actively developed so that in future there will be less need for animal experiments and perhaps, eventually, no need at all.
William Reville is a senior lecturer and director of microscopy at UCC