If one wishes to accept that some painful animal experimentation can be justified on grounds that benefit is conferred, one is faced with a difficult moral dilemma argues the first author, a philosopher. Either one needs to be able to say why human lives of any quality however low should be inviolable from painful experimentation when animal lives are not; or one should accept that sufficient benefit can justify certain painful experiments on human beings of sufficiently low quality of life. (...) Alternatively, one can reject the original premise and accept antivivisectionism. Replies to his paper follow from an antivivisectionist philosopher and an eminent pharmacologist long involved in animal experimentation. Dr Frey responds to both replies. (shrink)

Even to begin discussing the ethics of animal experimentation we must locate our place in the “ethical three‐ring circus” of the debate among “human welfarists,” “animal rightists” and those in the “troubled middle.” A philosophy of “nature alive,” recognizing that some animals are more equal than others, can inform the troubled middle and ethically justify judicious animal research.