Discuss the use of Animals in research and The ethical issues associated with it?

Authors Avatar

Discuss the use of Animals in research and

 The ethical issues associated with it?

 

The question of whether or not it is useful or even necessary to experiment on defenceless animals is the product of a lively debate amongst psychologists. This storm of controversy is mirrored by the ambivalent attitudes of the public towards scientists, who are often seen as cold and objective, deliberately causing pain to innocent animals when this is not necessarily the truth. So why does the issue of animal research stimulate such impassioned opposition?  The represented underlying uneasiness towards science in my opinion is due in part to a classic misconception, which is underlined by Singer (1974,cited in Olen & Barry 1994, p.404) that in all research using animals “intolerable pain is caused”. However in respect to psychology like all sciences, causing unnecessary pain to animals in research is not always the case. Likewise the BPS code of conduct (1998, cited in coolican 1999) states that no procedures causing unnecessary pain to certain species can be carried out. But this is not the only side to the argument Singer (1993) also suggests that the use of animals is a discrimination against their species, and that we should value the suffering of nonhumans in the way we would view our own. This is fair enough to believe but what if the principle of using animals in research, can be justified by the importance of the findings? According to Coolican (1994, p.485) “comparisons across the phylogenetic scale are invaluable in helping us develop a framework for brain analysis based on evolutionary history”. He also states that, “a seemingly useless or mystical piece of the nervous system may serve or have served, a function disclosed only through the discovery of its current function in another species”.

Join now!

In the study by Moniz (1949, cited in Pinel 2000) a cure for mental illness through prefrontal lobotomy was discovered, his findings were based on a chimp that frequently became frustrated when making errors during a food rewarding task, and did not so following the creation of a large bilateral lesion (damage to both sides of the brain) in the prefrontal lobes. Following this observation Moniz persuaded a neurosurgeon to operate on a series of psychiatric patients and was proved to be a therapeutic success with no side effects. However these findings were generalised on the basis of one desired response ...

This is a preview of the whole essay