The "necessary for civilization" argument

[Bodhi]

Ok, so the post about animal experimentation got me thinking, but mostly because of the myopic majority of replies.

The civilization argument says that human practice X was (or is) necessary for the advancement of culture, technology or human life. Aristotle argued that slavery was justified because it was an economic necessity. Today we say it's an economic necessity that some people be born poor and some born rich. Some suggest that animal testing falls somewhere on the same continuum.

Now, I can't prove that any of the above positions are false. What I do have a problem with is when people say that because we could not have arrived at where we are today without human practice X, human practice X is therefore OK and anyone who doesn't like it is a soft little wimp (who obviously would've been rooted out by natural selection in the cold, cruel world that would exist today without the offending human practice X).

The excluded alternative is that human practice X was necessary for acheiving civilization as we know it, but we no longer need it today and we've found good reason to call it morally reprehensible. I think a lot of human history falls into this category. There's nothing decadent, illogical or hand-wringing about the observation that a human practice has reached this point of obsolescence.

Btw, I do think a lot of animal experimentation is morally wrong, but maybe not all of it. I'm not an expert on the topic, obviously, but primate experimentation is an abomination, imho.

[Hermlord]

Maybe civilization as we know it isn't all that great, in many ways at least.

Maybe a society built on cruelty and violence will have those things embedded deeply within its structure, so that to evolve beyond them that society cannot simply ignore them or assign them to the past, but must address them head-on and rectify the wrongs that were committed.

Or maybe the pursuit of (extreme) wealth and power are hollow, soul-destroying pursuits that perpetuate the misery of the masses. Maybe the corporate elites bear some responsibility for the suffering of the Third World. Maybe an absurd portion of our economy is tied to the military, which is not a cool video game (as their recent commercials suggest) but the actual shooting, maiming and killing of actual human beings. Sometimes our "enemies" are actually a force for evil; sometimes they stand in the way of our economic and political dominance, but in either case the people getting the bullets are usually not the ones making the policies.

Maybe everyone is responsible for their own actions, but not the tides of history, and maybe they are caught up in a system that is simply too large for them to change.

Maybe the "us-against-them" mentality isn't right. Maybe protecting America's "interests" isn't so great if it hurts the interests of the world as a whole. Terrorism is horrific because it punishes not those responsible for the wrongs of the world, but simply those who are on the sidelines. Maybe we do the same thing all the time.

Maybe you can't cheat karma. Maybe, no matter how you try to spin it, inflicting pain on another living being will always have consequences, a price that must be paid. Maybe receiving the spoils of those actions while looking the other way, saying "they already did it so I might as well use it" doesn't absolve you of the responsibility.

I'm not pretending to draw any lines. The world is too complex. I'm vegetarian but my couch is leather. I'm sure some of my clothes were made in a sweatshop. I abhor Walmart yet I've still shopped there. The point is that pain is real, whether we see it or not, and we all share some responsibility -- that hopefully manifests not as guilt, but as a desire to change things.

Just remember the law of karma, which is not punishment by some cartoon god, but a natural consequence of reality: whatsoever you put out, will be returned to you.

[Al Schoonmaker]

Some people have argued that the Civil War was unnecessary because slavery was becoming obsolete. It just did not work very well. If the war had not occurred, it might have ended within a decade or generation. The same point could be made about child labor which is a terrible and extremely common practice all over the third world. I doubt that it is economically justified, and it is certainly abhorrent.

I must add that some experiments that have been done on humans -- including work done in major universities quite recently -- is morally very questionable.

And then you get to the NECESSARY requirement for FDA approval. The control group gets a placebo. Is it justified? I don't know, but I do know that you can't be sure that a drug works without testing for the placebo effect. Occasionally, a drug is found to be so effective that the research is cut short and the placebo group receives the drug, but it is extremely unusual. In addition, when you cut the research period, you greatly increase the danger of side effects.

Research is a very high risk endeavor, and many of the arguments made against animal research are based more on emotions than rational analysis.

Regards,

Al

[goofball]

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many of the arguments made against animal research are based more on emotions than rational analysis.

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Perfect.

[bernie]

[ QUOTE ]
I must add that some experiments that have been done on humans -- including work done in major universities quite recently -- is morally very questionable.

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Aren't these using volunteers?

b

[mackthefork]

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Aren't these using volunteers?


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Rhetorical question?

Mack

[Bodhi]

[ QUOTE ]
many of the arguments made against animal research are based more on emotions than rational analysis.

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Many, but not all. And it's even more irrational to dismiss all arguments against animal testing with the quip "they're being emotional."

An adult chimpanzee has greater cognitive abilities than a human infant, and if awareness of pain and suffering is our criterion for an animal's suitability for testing, then the adult chimpanzee is clearly not.

[David Sklansky]

"And then you get to the NECESSARY requirement for FDA approval. The control group gets a placebo. Is it justified? I don't know, but I do know that you can't be sure that a drug works without testing for the placebo effect."

If the drug being tested is for a disease or condition that previously had other drugs tested for that disease, we already know what results a placebo will produce. So for serious conditions, avoiding placebos for ethical reasons is OK. And if the disease has never had a previous drug tested for it you could STILL conduct a test without a placebo. I wrote about that once. Suppose a devastating type of cancer was cured 70% of the time by both the drug and the placebo. Societies that rigorously tested would throw out the drug and tell everybody it didn't work. Societies that didn't use placebos in their testing would cure 70% of their citizens.

[Hermlord]

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Suppose a devastating type of cancer was cured 70% of the time by both the drug and the placebo.

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If this happens it tells me we should spend less time researching drugs and more time researching the placebo effect.

[fimbulwinter]

[ QUOTE ]
Ok, so the post about animal experimentation got me thinking, but mostly because of the myopic majority of replies.

The civilization argument says that human practice X was (or is) necessary for the advancement of culture, technology or human life. Aristotle argued that slavery was justified because it was an economic necessity. Today we say it's an economic necessity that some people be born poor and some born rich. Some suggest that animal testing falls somewhere on the same continuum.

Now, I can't prove that any of the above positions are false. What I do have a problem with is when people say that because we could not have arrived at where we are today without human practice X, human practice X is therefore OK and anyone who doesn't like it is a soft little wimp (who obviously would've been rooted out by natural selection in the cold, cruel world that would exist today without the offending human practice X).

The excluded alternative is that human practice X was necessary for acheiving civilization as we know it, but we no longer need it today and we've found good reason to call it morally reprehensible. I think a lot of human history falls into this category. There's nothing decadent, illogical or hand-wringing about the observation that a human practice has reached this point of obsolescence.

Btw, I do think a lot of animal experimentation is morally wrong, but maybe not all of it. I'm not an expert on the topic, obviously, but primate experimentation is an abomination, imho.

[/ QUOTE ]

swing and a miss.

fim