Summary The early background of Robert Boyle, a leading advocate of the mechanical philosophy at the Restoration, helps to illuminate his later understanding of both the relationship between gentleman naturalists and artisans, as well as that of theoretical abstraction and practical application in experimental philosophy and the manual arts. Boyle's agenda for ethical reconstruction emphasized practical moral knowledge and a transformation in intellectual values which, reinforced by the general outlook of the Hartlib circle, postulated the desirability of knowledge gleaned from (...) scholars and artisans alike. The promotion of the manual arts, as contained in the general programme of Baconianism espoused by the Royal Society, helped Boyle's own unusual position as a chemist of high social rank. He hoped that chemical experiments could raise esteem for the ?useful art? of chemistry among naturalists if they would help establish the principles of the mechanical philosophy. (shrink)

This paper explores how, at the 1875 Royal Commission on Vivisection, the anaesthetised animal was construed as a boundary object around which “cooperation without consensus” Computer supported cooperative work: cooperation or conflict? Springer, London, 1993) could form, serving the interests of both scientists and animals. Advocates of anaesthesia presented it as benevolently intervening between the scientific agent and animal patient. Such articulations of ‘ethical’ vivisection through anaesthesia were then mandated in the 1876 Cruelty to Animals Act, and thus have had (...) significant downstream effects on the regulation of laboratory animals in Britain and beyond. Constructing this ‘consensus’ around the anaesthetised animal, however, required first excluding abolitionists and inhumane scientists, and secondly limiting the interests of experimental animals to the avoidance of pain through anaesthesia and euthanasia, thereby circumventing the issue of their possible interest in future life. This consensus also served to secure the interests of vivisecting scientists and to limit the influence of public opinion in the laboratory to administrative procedure and scheduled inspection. The focus on anaesthesia was connected with discussions of what supporting infrastructures were required to ensure proper ethical procedure was carried out by scientists. In contrast to the much studied polarisation in British society between pro- and antivivisectionists after 1876, we understand the 1875 Commission as a conflict amongst scientists themselves, while also being an intra-class conflict amongst the ruling class. (shrink)

In early life, the philosopher, theologian and scientist Robert Boyle wrote extensively on moral matters. One of the extant early documents written in Boyle's hand deals with the morality of our treatment of non-human animals. In this piece Boyle offered a number of arguments for extending moral concern to non-human animals. Since the later Boyle routinely vivisected or otherwise killed animals in his scientific experiments, we are left with the biographical questions, did his views change, and if so, why? as (...) well as with the philosophical questions, what were his arguments and how good are they? (shrink)

Despite Robert Boyle’s enthusiasm as a leading chemist in the early years of the Royal Society, his experiments on animals raised acute moral and theological issues in regard to animal suffering. Many years after Boyle’s experiments in the scientific field of pneumatics, Joseph Wright of Derby painted a complex representation of Boyle’s early experiment called An Experiment on a Bird in an Air Pump. I use an art historical methodology to resituate Wright’s imagined painting of group performance as a microcosm (...) of 18th-century morality against the backdrop of Boyle’s profound eschatological beliefs and earlier discourse on animal ethics. (shrink)