After considering the many different roadblocks that seems to appear when people try to discuss research with animals (as we did in parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 of this series), it might be tempting to throw up your hands and say, “Well, I guess there’s no point in doing that, then!”
Resist this temptation!
As we noted in part 7, there are good reasons that we (by which I mean scientists and the public) ought to be engaging in dialogue about issues like research with animals. Avoiding dialogue altogether would mean cutting off the flow of information about what actually happens in animal research and about how animals actually matter to scientists and non-scientists alike. Given that what the public knows and cares about has some influence on how much public money is allocated to support scientific research and on what kinds of laws and regulations govern the treatment of animals (including the treatment of animals in scientific research), opting out of dialogue altogether is a risky move.
Therefore, in this post, I offer suggestions for how to have a productive dialogue about animal research.
Category Archives: Ethics 101
Impediments to dialogue about animal research (part 7).
In this post, it’s time to pull back from the specific kinds of dialogue blockers we’ve been examining (here, here, here, here, here, and here) to start to consider other ways we might get around them. Here, I want to start with some insightful remarks from a friend of mine, philosopher Vance Ricks:
When you describe “dialogue” in that post, it sounds as though you’re mostly focusing on communication between A and B. One wrinkle in the animal research case (and many ethical cases generally) is that A and B aren’t just (not) talking to each other; they’re talking to each other AND to an indeterminate audience they’re hoping to reach.
I know (from my own experience) that there are plenty of times when I have not trusted my actual dialogue “partner” in the ways that you mention, but where at the same time I knew that behind/beside/near that person, there were other people who I did trust slightly more — and so, I wasn’t really addressing my ostensible partner so much as I was addressing a range of people including that person.
Do you think that that makes a difference to what we count either as “dialogue” or as impediments?
I think Vance raises a really important point.
Impediments to dialogue about animal research (part 6).
So far in this series, we’ve talked about ways that attempts to have a dialogue about animal research can be frustrated by inability to agree on a shared set of facts as a staring point or by unclarity about the positions people are trying to put forward. Today’s featured impediment to dialogue has less to do with the mechanics of laying out and engaging with a clear argument and more to do with reasons people might be fearful even to voice their positions:
Ignoring the impact of the tactics used to advance a position.
Impediments to dialogue about animal research (part 5).
Today we discuss an impediment to dialogue about animals in research that seems to have a special power to get people talking past each other rather than actually engaging with each other:
Imprecision about the positions being staked out.
Specifically, here, the issue is whether the people trying to have a dialogue are being precise in laying out the relevant philosophical positions about animals — the position they hold, the position they’re arguing against, the other positions that might be viable options.
Impediments to dialogue about animal research (part 3).
As with yesterday’s dialogue blocker (the question of whether animal research is necessary for scientific and medical advancement), today’s impediment is another substantial disagreement about the facts. A productive dialogue requires some kind of common ground between its participants, including some shared premises about the current state of affairs. One feature of the current state of affairs is the set of laws and regulations that cover animal use — but these laws and regulations are a regular source of disagreement:
Current animal welfare regulations are not restrictive enough/are too restrictive.
Impediments to dialogue about animal research (part 2).
Today we continue our look at the reasons that attempts to have a dialogue about the use of animals in scientific research routinely run aground.
Dialogue, you’ll remember, involves the participants in the dialogue offering not just their views but also something like their reasons for holding those views. In addition, in a real dialogue, participants engage seriously with each other’s positions. Serious engagement doesn’t necessitate that one of the positions on offer ends up persuading everyone in the dialogue, but everyone is supposed to be open to considering each view — and open to critically examining one’s own view. A dialogue is not a high school debate where the point is for your side to win. Instead, “winning” here is really understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the competing view, and ideally, all of the dialogue’s participants can achieve this sort of win.
Research with animals seems to be a topic of discussion especially well-suited to shouting matches and disengagement. Understanding the reasons this is so might clear a path to make dialogue possible. Yesterday, we discussed problems that arise when people in a discussion start with the assumption that the other guy is arguing in bad faith. If we can get past this presumptive mistrust of the other parties in the discussion, another significant impediment rears its head pretty quickly:
Substantial disagreement about the facts.
Trying to get people to accept (or even seriously consider) your conclusion, no matter what that conclusion might be, is a lot harder if those people do not accept your premises. In discussions (or shouting matches) around animal rights, animal welfare, and the use of animals in research, there are plenty of premises that are hotly disputed by participants. Thus, I’m going to focus on three types of facts that are usually points of contention and give them each a post of their own. In the next post, I’ll discuss contention about what animal welfare regulations allow or require. In the post after that (part 4 of the series), I’ll take up disagreements around the facts as far as animal discomfort, distress, pain, or torture when animals are used in scientific research. We will start, though, by considering a pretty basic clump of claims over which various sides have trouble agreeing to the same facts:
Is animal research necessary or unnecessary for scientific and medical advancement?
Impediments to dialogue about animal research (part 1).
In a post last month about an animal rights group targeting a researcher’s car with an incendiary device, I closed by expressing my profound pessimism at the prospects of having a serious dialogue about animal rights:
Morality, outrage, and #amazonfail: a reply to Clay Shirky.
A bunch of people (including Bora) have pointed me to Clay Shirky’s take on #amazonfail. While I’m not in agreement with Shirky’s analysis that Twitter users mobilized an angry mob on the basis of a false theory (and now that mob is having a hard time backing down), there are some interesting ideas in his post that I think merit consideration. So, let’s consider them.
Some thoughts on #Amazonfail.
Those of you on Twitter yesterday probably noticed the explosion of tweets with the hashtag #amazonfail. For those who were otherwise occupied carving up chocolate bunnies or whatnot, the news spread to the blogs, Facebook, and the traditional media outlets. The short version is that on Easter Sunday, a critical mass of people noticed that many, many books that Amazon sells had their Amazon sales rank stripped, and that these books stopped coming up in searches on Amazon that were not searches on the book titles (or, presumably, authors).
What fanned the flames of the frenzy were certain consistencies in what kind of book was getting deranked. Many were books with LGBT subject matter. Some were classic books (like Lady Chatterly’s Lover) or more recent titles with what might be classified as adult themes. Some were books about disability and sexuality. A partial list of the deranked titles can be found here.
The effect of the derankings angered lots of people, indignant that a search on “homosexuality” on the behemoth etailer’s website brought up as top results guidebooks to curing your child’s homosexuality but omitted titles aimed at helping prevent suicide in gay teens. The question to which people wanted an answer was whether these changes reflected concerted policy on Amazon’s part, and whether the problem (as seen by the angry Twitterfolk) was going to be addressed.
As I write this post, the response from Amazon has been anemic to non-existent. The news outlets are reporting that Amazon blames a “glitch” for the derankings. Publisher Weekly reports:
The moral thermostat and the problem of cultivating ethical scientists.
Earlier this week, Ed Yong posted an interesting discussion about psychological research that suggests people have a moral thermostat, keeping them from behaving too badly — or too well: