The Fallacy & Barbarism of Owl Research in the Dr. Shreesh Mysore Lab at Johns Hopkins University

Today, we'd like to engage in some reflection about the typical "cost-benefit" approach toward research that involves animals.?What this means is that there is an initial assumption that animals do not have intrinsic value.?In contrast, deontological approaches to ethics assume that humans have intrinsic value.?The watered-down version of this is that both humans and animals have intrinsic value but that the value of animals is always below that of humans.?We call this "ontological disparity."?A system that recognizes that humans and animals have equal value we call "ontological parity."

The cost-benefit approach is actually a harm-benefit approach.?In this system, the harm to research animals is weighed against the potential benefit to humans, including probability and degree of benefit balanced against the severity and duration of harm to the research animals.?What we will hopefully see is that this approach involves the fallacy of "begging the question." We will offer some preliminary ideas--which need to be fully explored and worked out--about the structural hiding in this kind of thinking that allows researchers to nearly always conclude that they are morally justified in doing a particular research project even if it severely harms research animals.?Thus, a researcher can easily show moral justification for research even though the argument is specious from the outset.

Within a cost-benefit or harm-benefit analysis, it seems essential and preferred to then assign numerical values so that we have some rational basis of comparison.?We call this the "objective" interpretation.?However, in fairness to those individuals who prefer not to use a numerical comparison, we will also offer a few statements about the "dialectical-subjective" approach which basically means to engage in discussion about harms and benefits and come to conclusions in a qualitative fashion and not a quantitative fashion.

We need, therefore, to assign values to humans, research animals, potential benefits to humans, and harm to research animals. Again, this statement today is only preliminary and must be carefully worked out; however, it will convey the sort of logical considerations the cost-benefit analysis utilizes (which assumes ontological disparity) in contrast to the deontological approach (which assumes ontological parity).?Here is the sort of thinking that might ensue:

I.?Ontological Valuation (on a continuum from 1 - 10 where 10 represents the highest value)

9 - humans

8 - monkeys

7 - other

6 - dogs

5 - horses

4 - cats

3 - rabbits

2 - mice

*We recognize that these values are arbitrary. However, the system fits within the model of a cost-benefit analysis, especially its deep assumption that humans have more ontological value than non-humans.

II. Assigning Value to the Research to Humans: Because of budget cuts at the NIH (National Institutes of Health) only the most promising experiments are awarded grant money.?This creates a new assumption that these experiments always have a very high expected value to humans.?Thus, even if the research is labeled "basic" (which is tantamount to a fishing expedition), and won't lead to immediate benefits to humans, researchers typically argue that basic research is necessary for the building of a long-term research program that they HOPE will eventually lead to benefits to humans.?In fact, sometimes they do; sometimes they don't.?So it is problematic to assign a number here at this stage of our analysis.?But let's go with our intuition that research that is funded by the NIH is of high value to humans.?Therefore, in line with this intuition, we assign a value of 10 to the research.?Note that this means that no other value in the equation will ever be greater than the value of the research to humans.

III. Assigning Value to the Harm to the Research Animals: This part of the equation can be adequately assigned values.?For example, when harm to research animals is most severe it would be rated at a 9 or 10.?When it is minimal or non-existent it would be rated at a 0, 1, or 2.?The cases that are the most controversial are those in which the harm is severe, so let's assign a value of 10 for the harm to the research animals.

IV.?Explanation: What we can easily see is that the controversial cases are the ones where the scientific value of the research, which is at the highest level of expected benefit to humans meets the highest level of harm to research animals in the most troubling and conflict-ridden way.?These are the most difficult cases to morally justify.?Let's proceed, however, with our discussion about the assignation of values:

In hypothetical research experiment A, there are 40 monkeys, each with an individual value of 8, which is their quasi-intrinsic value for the research.?It is not really an intrinsic value; instead, it is a place-holding value that operates for the sake of the cost-benefit calculation.?The total is 320.?Then we multiply 320 by the expected harm to each which is 10, for a negative value of -3,200.?There may be additional harms unaccounted for, but for the sake of this short, preliminary reflection, we will exclude them.?In contrast, each human that might be benefited from the research has an intrinsic value and assigned value for the research of 9.?Each human individual who would be hopefully benefited by the research--in some way, some day--would experience a value of 10.?This equals 90.?Thus, if even 36 individuals benefit from the research, this equals a positive value that quantitatively exceeds the numerical assigned value of the harm to the research animals (90 X 36 = 3,240, which is greater than the harm to the animals under this system).?It is then easy to argue that in most research of this type, perhaps thousands if not millions of humans would be benefited.?As such, it is easy under this analysis to argue that the benefit to humans--even though vague, speculative, and uncertain--outweighs severe harm to the research animals.

By review, two of the main points of contention include 1) that animals have either no intrinsic value or only a quasi-value that is always less than the value of corresponding human beings and 2) that speculative and uncertain benefits to human beings are subtly equated with actual and demonstrable harm to research animals.?However, even if the benefits to human beings are certain, the value of the research CAN always outweigh the value of the harm to animals under this objective approach.?One can easily see, then, that the subjective approach has even more of a subtle, structural approach that allows for the conclusion to follow: this is the conclusion that the research is morally justifiable.?It is our belief that this approach "begs the question."?That is, it assumes what it intends to prove, that the potential benefit to humans always outweighs the harms to research animals.?*We also note that this analysis does not address the easy cases, including cases that are obviously irrational, i.e, where there is no colorable argument that the research would be beneficial or that the harm to the animals is sadistic and not just a by-product of the research.

Again, we state that these are preliminary and introductory reflections about the cost-benefit approach to the moral justification of performing painful and harmful research on animals.?There is much to work out about these ideas, and no doubt, some corrections to the thinking.?Nevertheless, if animal researchers wish to continue their experimenting, they ought to be required to dialogue in a friendly and cooperative way with individuals who consider the moral dimension in a careful way.?These would be individuals who have not drunk the Kool-Aid involved in bio-ethics education, training, curricula, and study.?These would be individuals who do not have personal interests involved in their very ethical thinking.

V. "Begging the Question": This is a logical fallacy in which the arguer assumes to be true, sometimes in a very clever, subtle way, that which he purports to prove with his argument.?We believe that the cost-benefit approach to the ethics of animal research is guilty of this fallacy.

VI. Bird “Research” in various labs that destroys brain tissue:?We believe that this so-called research is a perfect example of humans purporting to have greater ontological value than member of other species.?This research causes extreme pain and then the researcher kills his subjects after he has destroyed enough brain tissue.?This is an extreme form of violence, yet the researcher’s lab supports it based on all protocols required in animal-model research.?In human terms, imagine that your children were kidnapped, imprisoned, tortured, and then killed – all for highly dubious research. In fact, some researchers have publicly mentioned that their research model is flawed. They sometimes indicate that their research outcomes may not provide any predictive information that could help humans.?However, there is an implication that they thinks his studies could eventually contribute to an understanding of human attention.?

VII. Follow the Money: The Mysore Lab is funded by NIH.?Your taxes pay for this lab.?Thus, you are supporting this kind of ill-conceived, dubious, moral catastrophe.?The lab obtains grant monies, employs workers, and goes on a fishing expedition for information that might ameliorate the human condition.?However, in doing so, seriously and painfully harms members of another sentient species.?Given the ontological analysis above, it is clear that this animal research and any like it, is an instance of speciesism. This has the same logical structure as racism and sexism. The math is simple, and we are sure that Mr. Mysore, with a background in computational mathematics will not only understand the operational elements, but that he will perhaps also understand the ontological assumptions and value assumptions that are a part of his research.?

VII. Nihilism & Violence: The animal welfare protocols involved in animal model research were designed by researchers and medical professionals with the express intention to provide a path toward 1) as much animal model research as they could even if harmful to animals and 2) gaining as much research dollars as possible.?Having true regard for animal interests and the natural rights of animals is specious at best, a function of a linguistic sleight of hand.?Ultimately, human interests win over animal interests even when the harm to animals is severe and fatal.?This is nihilistic because, through “clever-speak,” it appears that animal interests are regarded as important. However, when it really matters, the interests of animals are subjugated to the interests of educated humans who seek fame, research grants, and professional advancement over moral thinking and behavioral expression.

Dr/Prof Kevin Boileau?