How Should Clinician-Researchers Model Regard for Nonhuman Animals Bred for and Used in Human-Centered Science?
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: If we assume that nonhuman animals experience pain or distress, then ethically justifying human-centered research with only nonhuman animals as subjects likely requires that the research's benefits to humans must, at least, outweigh harms suffered by the nonhuman animals. Yet this reasoning does not seem to account well for the ethical view that nonhuman animals are morally valuable in their own right. This commentary on a case considers this ethical tension and discusses how clinician-researchers should navigate it. This commentary also suggests why clinician-researchers' reasoning about the nature and scope of their obligations to nonhuman animals extends beyond governing regulations and federal oversight, which is silent on or ambiguous about nonhuman animals as morally valuable in their own right.
Source: The AMA Journal of Ethic
Author: Rebecca L. Walker
Institution: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Language: English
Subfield: Small Animals
Field: Veterinary
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4402298498