Speciesism

History

Causal properties, functional properties, and moral properties

The biological world is “… constructed not as a smooth and seamless continuum, permitting simple extrapolation from the lowest level to the highest, but as a series of ascending levels, each bound to the one below it in some ways and independent in others. Discontinuities and seams characterize the transitions; `emergent’ features not implicit in the operation of the processes at lower levels, may control events at higher levels. The basic processes mutation, selection, etc. may enter into explanations at all scales…but they work in different ways on the characteristic material of divers levels.” [S.J. Gould, `Is a New and General Theory of Evolution Emerging?’, Evolution Now, J. Maynard Smith (ed.), (New York: Freeman, 1982), 132].

Put differently, biologically significant properties emerge from evolved hierarchical organization.

As Ernst Mayr explains it in rejecting the mechanistic atomism of the old physiology texts:

“Systems at each hierarchical level have two properties. They act as wholes (as though they were a homogeneous entity), and their characteristics 30 components, taken separately or in combinations. In other words, when such a system is assembled from its components, new characteristics of the whole emerge that could not have been predicted from a knowledge of the constituents…Indeed, in hierarchically organized biological systems one may even encounter downward causation.” [E. Mayr, Toward a New Philosophy of Biology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1988), 15]

Even where species exhibit close functional similarities with respect to normal energy-yielding metabolism, the effects of stimulation by chemicals foreign to normal metabolism exhibit considerable differences even between closely related species:

“Indeed, among rodents and primates, zoologically closely related species exhibit markedly different patterns of metabolism…e.g., the metabolism of amphetamines in the rat is very different from that in the guinea pig, and the marmoset is very different from the rhesus monkey.” [ J. Caldwell, `Comparative Aspects of Detoxification in Mammals’, Enzymatic Basis of Detoxification, I, W. Jakoby (ed.) (New York: Academic Press, 1980), 106]

The dilemma

Rachels argues that justifications conflict, at least for psychological research:

“The problem may be expressed in the form of a dilemma that can arise for any psychological research that uses animals for the human case. If the animal subjects are not sufficiently like us to produce a model, then the experiments may be pointless (that is what Harlow and Suomi went to such lengths in stressing the similarities between humans and rhesus monkeys.) But if the animals are enough like us to provide a model, it may be impossible to justify treating them in ways we would not treat humans. The researchers are caught in a logical trap: in order to defend the usefulness of research they must emphasize the similarities between the animals and the humans, but in order to defend it ethically, they must emphasize the differences. The problem is that one cannot have it both ways.” [J. Rachels, Created From Animals, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 220]

Bio-Cartesianism

To reiterate an earlier point, biological organisms, mammals in particular, are complex hierarchical systems constituted by sub-systems that exhibit strong relations of mutual functional interdependence:

“Subsystems are highly interlocked….[P]roteins are needed to make catalysts, yet catalysts are needed to make proteins. Nucleic acids are needed to make proteins, yet proteins are needed to make nucleic acids. Proteins and lipids are needed to make membranes, yet membranes are needed to provide protection for all the chemical processes going on in a cell… The whole is presupposed by all the parts. The interlocking is tight and critical. At the centre everything depends on everything.” [A.G. Cairns-Smith, Seven clues to the Origin of Life, (Cambridge: University Press, 1985), 39]

The connection between an animal’s cognitive abilities and its other biological functions, has frequently been noted by evolutionists:

“Thinking has conferred on us a priceless adaptive advantage. Evolutionarily speaking, we are successful because our ability to think has enabled us to remain physically unspecialized. We are the supreme generalists. We prove it by our ability to live anywhere and make our living in a hundred different ways. We don’t grow thick coats; we get them from other animals. We don’t grow long necks; we invent ladders. We don’t have teeth as big as apes do, nor are we as strong, pound for pound. We don’t see as well as hawks. We don’t run as fast as any large quadruped. But by our wits, and more recently by the devices we make, we can outperform all of them in every way.” [M.A. Edey, and D. Johanson, Blueprints: Solving the Mystery of Evolution, New York: Penguin, 1989), 383-384]

This point can be specifically illustrated even within closely related primates. Concerning primate EQs, zoologist Richard Dawkins notes:

“Monkeys are well above average, and apes (especially ourselves) even higher. Within monkeys it turns out that some types have higher EQs than others and that, interestingly, there is some connection with how they make their living: insect-eating and fruit-eating monkeys have bigger brains for their size, than leaf-eating monkeys. It makes some sense to argue that an animal needs less computing power to find leaves, which are abundant all around, than to find fruit, which may have to be searched for, or to catch insects, which take active steps to get away.” [R. Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, (New York: Norton, 1987), 189-190]

One animal research handbook cautions:

“When selecting non-human primates because of their close relationship to humans, choice of species of non-human primate is important. For example, a completely vegetarian species may not be as useful because of differences in microflora of the intestine, which may affect drug metabolism.” [B.M. Mitruka, H.M. Rawnsley, and D.V. Vadehra, Animals for Medical Research: Models for the Study of Human Disease, (New York: Wiley, 1976), 342]

Biological isolationism

As the AMA puts it in explaining why cell cultures are no substitute for experiments using whole animals:

“Cells in isolation, however, do not act or react the same as cells in an intact system…isolated systems give isolated results that may bear little relation to results obtained from the integrated systems of whole animals”. [American Medical Association (AMA), The Use of Animals in Biomedical Research: The Challenge and Response, (Chicago: American Medical Association, 1988), 27]

And more generally,

“No other method of study can exactly reproduce the characteristics and qualities of a living intact biological system or organism. Therefore, in order to understand how such a system or organism functions in a particular set of circumstances or how it will react to a given stimulus, it becomes necessary at some point to conduct an experiment or test to find out. There simply is no alternative to this approach and therefore no alternative to using animals for most types of health related research.”

This dilemma is equally potent against one form of argument frequently used by defenders of research: namely, that humans but not animals are members of a moral community. Michael Fox claims:

“[The moral community] … is a group of beings that shares certain characteristics and whose members are or consider themselves to be bound to observe certain rules of conduct in relation to one another because of their mutual likeness. These rules create what we call obligations and derive in some intimate way from the characteristics which the beings comprising the moral community have in common…. [T]he beings in question possess certain salient characteristics, are capable of recognizing these in other, similar beings, and acknowledge possession by other beings of the characteristics in question as grounds for following certain rules of conduct toward them.” [M. Fox, The Case for Animal Experimentation, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 49]

If we test for site specificity, this figure drops markedly:

“Based on this experimental evidence from the CPDB involving prediction from rats to mice, from rats or mice to hamsters, and from humans to rats or mice, we conclude that one cannot assume that if a chemical induces tumors at a given site in one species it will also induce tumors at the same site in a second species; the likelihood is at most 52%.” [ L. Gold, T. Slone, N. Manley, and L. Bernstein, `Target Organs in Chronic Bioassays of 533 Chemical Carcinogens’, Environmental Health Perspectives 23 (1991), 233-46. See also L.B. Lave, F.K. Ennever, H.S. Rosencrantz, and G.S. Omenn, `Information Value of the Rodent Bioassay’, Nature, 336 (1988), 245]