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Reevaluating Benefits in the Moral Justification of Animal Research: A Comment on “Necessary Conditions for Morally Responsible Animal Research”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2019

MATTHIAS EGGEL ,
CAROLYN P. NEUHAUS  and
HERWIG GRIMM
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Abstract:

In a recent paper in Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics on the necessary conditions for morally responsible animal research David DeGrazia and Jeff Sebo claim that the key requirements for morally responsible animal research are (1) an assertion of sufficient net benefit, (2) a worthwhile-life condition, and (3) a no-unnecessary-harm condition. With regards to the assertion (or expectation) of sufficient net benefit (ASNB), the authors claim that morally responsible research offers unique benefits to humans that outweigh the costs and harms to humans and animals. In this commentary we will raise epistemic, practical, and ethical challenges to DeGrazia and Sebo’s emphasis on benefits in the prospective assessment of research studies involving animals. We do not disagree with DeGrazia and Sebo that, at the theoretical level, the benefits of research justify our using animals. Our contribution intends to clarify, at the practical level, how we should understand benefits in the prospective assessment and moral justification of animal research. We argue that ASNB should be understood as an assessment of Expectation of Knowledge Production (EKP) in the prospective assessment and justification of animal research. EKP breaks down into two further claims: (1) that morally responsible research generates knowledge worth having and (2) that morally responsible research is designed and executed to produce generalizable knowledge. We understand the condition called knowledge worth having as scientists’ testing a hypothesis that, whether verified or falsified, advances an important interest, and production of generalizable knowledge in terms of scientific integrity. Generalizable knowledge refers to experimental results that generalize to a larger population beyond the animals studied. Generalizable scientific knowledge is reliable, replicable, and accurately descriptive. In sum, morally responsible research will be designed and carefully executed to successfully test a hypothesis that, whether verified or falsified, advances important interests. Our formulation of EKP, crucially, does not require further showing that an experiment involving animals will produce societal benefits.

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Departments and Columns
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Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , January 2020 , pp. 131 - 143
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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Footnotes

CQ welcomes readers’ comments on papers published in the journal, please send submissions to T. Kushner at kushnertk@gmail.com.

References

Notes

1. DeGrazia, D, Sebo, J. Necessary conditions for morally responsible animal research. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 2015;24(4):420–30.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

2. European Parliament. Directive 2010/63/EU (22 May 2010); available at http://eurlex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2010:276:0033:0079:en:PDF (last accessed on 20 Feb 2018).

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4. See note 2, European Parliament 2010, at Article 38d.

5. Animal Welfare Act (US) 2017, 54 C.F.R Sect. 2131–59.

6. National Research Council of the National Academies (US). Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. 8th ed. Washington, DC: National Academies Press; 2011.

7. IACUCs also assess whether alternative research methods could be used instead of animals, and ensure that research animals are provided proper care, food, and housing, in compliance with the AWA. It is interesting to note that AWA does not cover the use of rodents, the most commonly used animals in research. See note 5, Animal Welfare Act (US) 2017.

8. This requirement is reminiscent of the notion of ‘replacement’ in the ‘three Rs’ approach to the ethics of animal experimentation. ‘Replacement’ calls for the substitution of animals whenever the research objective can be obtained in nonanimal models. See Russel, W, Burch, R. The Principles of Humane Experimental Technique. London, UK: Methuen; 1959.Google Scholar

9. See Note 1, DeGrazia, Sebo 2015, at 423.

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16. For an excellent example, see CAMARADES. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Centre for Clinical Brain Studies; c2017; available at http://www.dcn.ed.ac.uk/camarades (last accessed 5 Aug 2019).

17. See note 3, Eggel, Grimm 2018; note 11, Grimm et al. 2017; note 14, Grimm, Eggel 2017.

18. See note 3, Eggel, Grimm 2018.

19. See note 2, European Parliament 2010, at Article 37b.

20. See note 13. Grimm, Eggel 2017.

21. See note 13. Grimm, Eggel 2017.

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26. This point is also made in note 3, Eggel, Grimm 2018.

27. We’ve stipulated this to underscore the distinction between knowledge that advances an interest from knowledge that advances an important interest. However, it is also possible to imagine that the knowledge that would be gained from Experiment A is more valuable than the knowledge that would be gained in Experiment B insofar as the knowledge gained in Experiment A would impact more scientists’ decisions. We might think of the ‘knowledge worth having’ as a threshold requirement. Knowledge must be shown to advance an interest to meet the basic requirement. But knowledge would have to be shown to advance an important interest, or at least a more important interest, as a matter of prioritizing research agendas.

28. This point is also made in note 3, Eggel, Grimm 2018.

29. This point is also made in note 11, Grimm et al. 2017.

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31. See note 3, Eggel, Grimm 2018.