Troy Daum
November 8th, 2017
AEPS 110
The Moral Efficacy of Animal Experimentation on Invertebrates
Animal experimentation is a practice that spans thousands of years and has been crucial to the advancement of scientific knowledge in a broad range of disciplines from health and medicine to genetics. The earliest writings of scientific inquiry through this means traces back to the Ancient Greeks, which describe dissections of farm animals as an “experimental method of testing surgical procedures before applying them to human patients” (Greek & Greek 2004). In more recent history, philosophers, animal activists, and scientists alike have called in to question the virtue of certain controversial methods used by researchers to conduct experiments. Organizations such as PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) are well known on the world stage for their
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Due to the mounting pressure from PETA, and the growing body of legislation in favor of animal rights, scientists now strive to abide by a code of ethics called the Three R’s of animal testing. The Three R’s stand for replacement of outdated methods, reduction of experimental subjects, and refinement of pain reduction strategies (Lockwood 2015). The one that is most pertinent to our discussion here is the first R: replacement, which favors the use of “lower-order animals” i.e. invertebrates who are assumed to have less of a capacity to experience pain and suffering. This paper will attempt to synthesize the ethical arguments for and against the use of invertebrates, particularly insects, in the laboratory and analyze what the