This article addresses the embodied nature of laboratory human—animal practices in order to understand the notions of care that take place within an institution of domination — the apparatus of animal experimentation. How is it possible to both love and harm in this context? Building on animal studies and feminist ethics, the theme of emotionality is explored in the section ‘loving animals’. Here it is demonstrated that empathy and affection for individual animals, as well as species, are strong components of (...) an experimental ethos expressed by the informants. The second empirical section deals with the issue of ‘killing well’. The good kill is supposed to be done with care: quickly and compassionately. This is performed by way of bodily measures of care, technological refinement and personal skills and, sometimes, with the help of a division of labour. In the concluding section, the empirical findings are read through the framework, where the feminist theoretical analysis of love, dependency and care from an embodiment perspective understands the dialectics of instrumentalisation and exploitation of — and care for — animals, not as something that goes on above or outside of relations, but rather as something that can be understood from within. ‘Mortal love’ is the attempt to capture and theorise this dialectic, arguing that emotions of love and friendship are not mere justifications for the harm and killing performed, but rather intrinsic dimensions of the embodied animaling of experimental human—animal relations. (shrink)

BackgroundCurrent policies regulating the use of animals for scientific purposes are based on balancing between potential gain of knowledge and suffering of animals used in experimentation. The balancing process is complicated, on the one hand by plurality of views on our duties towards animals, and on the other hand by more recent discussions on uncertainty in the probability of reaching the final aim of the research and problems of translational failure.MethodsThe study combines ethical analysis based on a literature review with (...) neuropsychiatry-related preclinical research as a case study.ResultsBased on the analysis and the case study we show that neuropsychiatry-related preclinical research is an especially interesting case from an ethical perspective. The 3R principles are used to minimize the negative consequences for the animals used in research. However, neuropsychiatric research is characterized by specific challenges in assessing the probability of success of reaching the final aim, due to our limited mechanistic knowledge of human neuropsychiatric illness. Consequently, the translational value of the currently used animal models may be difficult to prove, which undermines the validity of these models and complicated the ethical assessment.ConclusionsWe conclude that a combined approach that deals with both science and the ethical dimensions is necessary to address the problems of validity and translation in neuropsychiatry-related preclinical research. We suggest this approach to comprise first, improved experimental methods, e.g. by using systematic reviews, second, a more patients-based approach that leads to models that reflect interindividual variation better, and third, more interdisciplinary cooperation. (shrink)

In medical research, patients are increasingly recognized with ‘lay knowledge’ but their views are poorly researched. The study objective was to investigate patients’ attitudes to medical research. This is in comparison to lay and expert members on ethical review boards, as their task is to evaluate the risk−benefits of research, which are ultimately grounded in attitudes and values. From focus-group interviews with patients suffering from chronic inflammatory diseases, a postal questionnaire was developed and sent to patient members of the Swedish (...) Rheumatism Association and to all ERB board members in Sweden. Response rates were 65 percent and the surveys were conducted in Jan−May 2011. Agreement across the groups included priority for medical research on diagnostic and early detection of disease. A key difference was expert and lay ERB members giving higher priority to basic research/research on lifestyle and prevention, whereas patients prioritized research on daily function. On this significant point, lay members did not share the opinion of this patient group, indicating that they may be poor representatives for patients’ views. These results call for further research: how can patient perspectives be included in ERB discussions and in what way should patients’ values influence the research agenda. (shrink)

In the United States of America, and in much of the world, corporations are afforded a great deal of rights to both protect themselves and others against legal action and mistreatment. To gain these rights, they defended themselves or were defended many times throughout the years in courts under the framework of “legal personhood”—but this same legal personhood is not afforded to most actual living creatures. There is enough similarity in the legal framework afforded to corporations that should be afforded (...) to animals as well, and more than enough evidence to show that it is increasingly necessary to protect and expand animal rights in this way. The argument is simple: because of their sentience, cognition, and emotional intelligence, animals deserve legal personhood. If we can make the argument that a corporation, which is incapable of these things listed above, should have certain unalienable rights, then it is illogical for us to make the argument that animals should not. (shrink)

How do ethics show up in the everyday behaviors and conversations of researchers in a scientific laboratory? How does the microcosmic culture of the laboratory shape researchers’ understandings of scientific ethics? We, an interdisciplinary team representing anthropology, computer science, and rhetorical studies, investigated these questions in two university STEM labs. Similar to previous work mapping out the epistemic cultures, we sought to understand the ethical cultures of these research groups. We observed their lab meetings for several months and conducted interviews (...) with members of the research laboratories. Ultimately, we recognized two distinct ethical cultures within the two laboratories: one focused on the relationship between science and social justice, and the other focused on clean data and accuracy as an ethical issue. These two distinct ethical cultures were discernable through ethnography, close reading of laboratory members’ language, as well as broad-scale topic modeling. Our project complements previous studies of ethics in science that have focused on codes of ethics or student curricula as ways in which scientists develop an understanding of scientific ethics. Our project demonstrates that everyday interactions between the members of scientific research labs additionally shape, at a decidedly local level, how scientists understand and ultimately approach ethical decision-making in the scientific research process. (shrink)

Committee composition is a recurrent theme within the literature on Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUCs). The ability of IACUCs to ensure the ethical treatment of nonhuman research subjects depends upon who makes up these committees. Non-scientists and those not affiliated with the research institution have been deemed indispensable for the democratic, objective review of protocols and, thus, for ethical treatment. IACUCs’ critics and partners alike have persistently offered suggestions for how to further optimize committee composition towards these ends. (...) This paper contributes to the ongoing conversation by advocating for the addition of holistic species experts to IACUCs, arguing that holistic species experts are as indispensable for the political and epistemic viability of protocol reviews as non-scientists and non-affiliates. Holistic species experts are defined here as members of the larger community who have extensive firsthand experience with animals living and dying under relatively ideal conditions. If we accept that non-scientists and non-affiliates are crucial for IACUCs' ethical treatment of animals, then we have every reason to embrace holistic species experts. The values, welfare expertise, and productive epistemic dissonance that these experts bring to the table would prove invaluable. (shrink)

Animal models are used in experiments in the behavioural neurosciences that aim to contribute to the prevention and treatment of cognitive and affective disorders in human beings, such as anxiety and depression. Ironically, those animals that are likely to be the best models for psychopathology are also likely to be considered the ones that are most morally problematic to use, if it seems probable that (and if indeed they are initially selected as models because) they have experiences that are similar (...) to human experiences that we have strong reasons to avoid causing, and indeed aim to alleviate (such as pain, anxiety or sadness). In this paper, against the background of contemporary discussions in animal ethics and the philosophy of animal minds, we discuss the views that it is morally permissible to use animals in these kinds of experiments, and that it is better to use less cognitively complex animals (such as zebrafish) than more complex animals (such as dogs). First, we criticise some justifications for the claim that human beings and more complex animals have higher moral status. We argue that contemporary approaches that attribute equal moral status to all beings that are capable of conscious strivings (e.g. avoiding pain and anxiety; aiming to eat and play) are based on more plausible assumptions. Second, we argue that it is problematic to assume that less cognitively complex animals have a lesser sensory and emotional experience than more complex beings across the board. In specific cases, there might be good reasons to assume that more complex beings would be harmed more by a specific physical or environmental intervention, but it might also be that they sometimes are harmed less because of a better ability to cope. Determining whether a specific experiment is justified is therefore a complex issue. Our aim in this chapter is to stimulate further reflection on these common assumptions behind the use of animal models for psychopathologies. In order to be able to draw more definite conclusions, more research will have to be done on the influence of cognitive complexity on the experience of (human and non-human) animals. (shrink)