Discourse about the use of animals in biomedical research usually focuses on two issues. The first, which I will refer to as the “necessity issue,” is empirical and asks whether the use of nonhumans in experiments is required in order to gather statistically valid information that will contribute in a significant way to improving human health. The second, which I will refer to as the “justification issue,” is moral and asks whether the use of nonhumans in biomedical research, if necessary (...) as an empirical matter, can be defended as a matter of ethical theory.If it is not necessary as an empirical matter to use animals in research, then there is no need to inquire about moral justification. Therefore, I examine the necessity issue first. The argument that it is necessary to use nonhumans in biomedical research, though flawed, is at least plausible, unlike our necessity arguments for other animal uses. I then discuss the justification issue and conclude that we cannot morally justify using nonhuman animals in research. (shrink)

This discussion focuses on veterinary practice as a form of service delivery. Based on data collected during a year of participant observation in a major veterinary hospital in the northeast, the paper examines the criteria veterinarians routinely used to define nonhuman patients as problematic and the means they employed to deal with troublesome animals. The conclusion frames veterinarians' tactics for evaluating and controlling patients within the larger context of how rule-breakers are identified in everyday interactional settings and the routine approaches (...) used in the exercise of social control. (shrink)