Animal Rights

H U 245 Et hics U nit 9 Project Animal Rights Option A by Kaplan U. Student A subject that is very controversial is animal rights. One important animal right s issue is the concern about animal experi mentation, especially the experiments th at cosmetic companies do on the eyes of rabbits to test cosmetic eye products fo r women. The testing is painful and requires large doses of chemicals to be injected into the eyes of the se rabbits. This type of te sti ng can be shown to be unethical from the standpoint of various ethical the ories. The first ethical theory is Kant’s practical imperative (Thirou x, 2009) . When an animal experience s pain, the animal may not be able to tell yo u how much pain they are in ; however, they c an still fee l the same type of pain as a h uman . T herefore , according to Kant, we would have an ethical obligation to treat animals in the same manner as humans are treated . A second ethical theory is the moderate position regarding animal experimentation (Thirou x, 2009) . This theory explains that medical testing should only be done on animals when it is absolutely necessary. However, cosmetic testing is not abso lutely n ecessary as t he purpose of this type of animal experimentat ion is not to prevent or cure diseases or cancer (which could be c onsidered necessary experiments ). Many ethical theories could be used to argue against animal experimentation for testing cosmetic products. On the other hand, an argument in favor of anim al experimentation would be that wi thou t animal expe rimentation many medical and scientific disco veries could not have occurred and that animal experimentat ion help s provide cures for human beings who suffer from many of the same diseases that are also found in animals. S ome s cientists even argue for the necessity of anima l exp erimenta tion because doing these experim ents on humans is not legal. However , if it is illeg al to do this typ e of testing on humans, then why should it be legal to do this type of experimentation on animals? Just because it is currently legal to do these painful experiment s on animals does not mean that it is ethical to do so . Indeed, a s we have learned in this ethics course this term , it is possible fo r somethi ng to be legal and yet for it to stil l be very un ethical! Reference Thirou x, J.P. & Krasemann, K. W . (20 09). Ethi cs: Theory and pra ctice (10th Ed.). Upp er Sa ddle Riv er, NJ: Prentice Hall.