Since time immemorial we humans have thought of animals as "things", which can be used for food, clothing, sport, torturing for pleasure, scientific experiments, military research, etc. Let us hope that humankind is at last moving away from such a haughty "we're superior so we can do as we like" attitude. Even if we are intellectually superior to most animals, that brings with it not impunity to do as we like, but the obligation to care and protect.
I remember in 1969 when taking my preliminary degree exams (end of first year) that I answered a question on the ethics paper about the morality of heart transplants. Christiaan Barnard had recently done the world's first human heart transplant, so the topic was very recent. (I'm showing my age there, ha, ha!)
I answered that there were serious ethical problems with some aspects of transplants. Where a donor had given prior authorisation and had passed over, with the heart in a suitable condition to be transferred, I saw no objection. But I argued that such progress should not have been at the cost of the lives of 50 dogs used in the research (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christiaan_Barnard). I also questioned the ethics of proposals to use baboons or pigs as live donors (a baboon's heart was used in 1984 for a young child, who only survived 20 days). I queried the morality of killing healthy animals to extract organs for use in humans.
The result? I was called in to the practical ethics lecturer, who looked cross and upset. He said that the ethics issues affected only humans, not animals, and that the answer was therefore incorrectly focussed. He announced that he was going to mark that question very low indeed. He did add, somewhat sheepishly, that he would have a tough time justifying his marking to the professor of ethics, as all my theoretical ethics questions (which the professor himself had marked) were graded high.
Let us hope the world will soon take on the idea that animals have their own personhood and that we cannot do whatever we like with them.
I remember in 1969 when taking my preliminary degree exams (end of first year) that I answered a question on the ethics paper about the morality of heart transplants. Christiaan Barnard had recently done the world's first human heart transplant, so the topic was very recent. (I'm showing my age there, ha, ha!)
I answered that there were serious ethical problems with some aspects of transplants. Where a donor had given prior authorisation and had passed over, with the heart in a suitable condition to be transferred, I saw no objection. But I argued that such progress should not have been at the cost of the lives of 50 dogs used in the research (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christiaan_Barnard). I also questioned the ethics of proposals to use baboons or pigs as live donors (a baboon's heart was used in 1984 for a young child, who only survived 20 days). I queried the morality of killing healthy animals to extract organs for use in humans.
The result? I was called in to the practical ethics lecturer, who looked cross and upset. He said that the ethics issues affected only humans, not animals, and that the answer was therefore incorrectly focussed. He announced that he was going to mark that question very low indeed. He did add, somewhat sheepishly, that he would have a tough time justifying his marking to the professor of ethics, as all my theoretical ethics questions (which the professor himself had marked) were graded high.
Let us hope the world will soon take on the idea that animals have their own personhood and that we cannot do whatever we like with them.
