F.L.B. Meijboom

Values at stake: autonomy, responsibility, and trustworthiness in relation to genetic testing and personalized nutrition advice

Personalized nutrition has the potential to enhance individual health control. It could be seen as a means to strengthen people’s autonomy as they learn more about their personal health risks, and receive dietary advice accordingly. We examine in what sense personalized nutrition strengthens or weakens individual autonomy. The impact of personalized nutrition on autonomy is analyzed in relation to responsibility and trustworthiness. On a societal level, individualization of health promotion may be accompanied by the attribution of extended individual responsibility for one’s health. This constitutes a dilemma of individualization, caused by a conflict between the right to individual freedom and societal interests. The extent to which personalized nutrition strengthens autonomy is consequently influenced by how responsibility for health is allocated to individuals. Ethically adequate allocation of responsibility should focus on prospective responsibility and be differentiated with regard to individual differences concerning the capacity of adults to take responsibility. The impact of personalized nutrition on autonomy also depends on its methodological design. Owing to the complexity of information received, personalized nutrition through genetic testing (PNTGT) is open to misinterpretation and may not facilitate informed choices and autonomy. As new technologies, personalized nutrition and PNTGT are subject to issues of trust. To strengthen autonomy, trust should be approached in terms of trustworthiness. Trustworthiness implies that an organization that develops or introduces personalized nutrition can show that it is competent to deal with both the technical and moral dimensions at stake and that its decisions are motivated by the interests and expectations of the truster.

Thoughts on the ethics of preventing and controlling epizootic diseases

a Centre for Applied Bioethics, School of Biosciences, Veterinary Medicine and Science Building, Sutton Bonington Campus, University of Nottingham, LE12 5RD, UK b Ethics Institute & Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Utrecht University, Heidelberglaan 8, NL-3584 CS UTRECHT, The Netherlands c Department of Large Animal Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Life Sciences, Grønnegårdsvej 8, DK-1870 Frederiksberg C, Denmark

Ethical issues associated with the use of animal experimentation in behavioral neuroscience research.

This chapter briefly explores whether there are distinct characteristics in the field of Behavioral Neuroscience that demand specific ethical reflection. We argue that although the ethical issues in animal-based Behavioral Neuroscience are not necessarily distinct from those in other research disciplines using animal experimentation, this field of endeavor makes a number of specific, ethically relevant, questions more explicit and, as a result, may expose to discussion a series of ethical issues that have relevance beyond this field of science. We suggest that innovative research, by its very definition, demands out-of-the-box thinking. At the same time, standardization of animal models and test procedures for the sake of comparability across experiments inhibits the potential and willingness to leave well-established tracks of thinking, and leaves us wondering how open minded research is and whether it is the researchers established perspective that drives the research rather than the research that drives the researchers perspective. The chapter finishes by introducing subsequent chapters of this book volume on Ethical Issues in Behavioral Neuroscience.

The end of animal life: a start for ethical debate : Ethical and societal considerations on killing animals

Killing animals is common practice, yet it is not normal. The end of animal life is related to many societal and ethical questions and concerns. Questions such as how long should we continue to treat an animal before killing it? But also the question whether it could be legitimate to kill individual animals for the welfare of the herd or future generations. The ongoing public and academic discussions on these, and on other well-known questions like those related to the killing of animals for food or scientific purposes, show that there is no one standard evaluation of animal life. This book is an edited volume that enables the reader to get grip on that plurality of views with regard to animals. I helps to deal with the many questions related to the end of animal life. The chapters show how the plurality of views on killing animals is related to moral presuppositions by providing a clear overview on the ethical views on end of life decisions. Furthermore, the book contains a number of applied studies of the ethical questions related to killing animals in various practices including wildlife management, fishing and fish farming, animal experimentation and livestock farming. These chapters can help veterinarians, scientists, policy makers and many other professionals working with animals to easily get a good overview of the issues at stake and contribute to responsible decisions with regard to the end of animal life.

From just using animals to a justification of animal use: the intrinsic value of animals as a confusing start

Recently the Council for Animal Affairs issued a report, entitled the ‘Agenda for Future Animal Policy’. One of the topics in this report is the emphasis on the need for the government to come to a more explicit and transparent justification for animal use. It is claimed that arguments that refer to tradition or existing practices of animal use are, or at least will be no longer a sufficient justification for the use of animals for a number of goals including, company, sports, science, and food. This need was recognized by the government and resulted in a project of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture, and Innovation on the ethical justification of keeping animal (2011). One of the elements of this project was a series of focus group discussions with stakeholders on the moral values that underlie their practices of keeping animals. A second part of this project is an analysis of the problem of moral justification of keeping animal. This paper is the result of and presents some parts of this project. I start with a discussion of the question of why justification is needed. At this point the answer can both start from respect for public opinions and from specific views on the moral status of animals. In the latter case there are regular references to the intrinsic value of the animal. A notion that is even included in the law. The problem is that this concept is not used in a clear and univocal way. This is problematic, because a reference to intrinsic value may include different points of view on the moral position of animals and the acceptability of keeping animals. In this short paper, I try to distinguish three different views on the moral value of animals and the related view on the justification on animal use. And I propose to reserve only one interpretation to the reference of intrinsic value, i.e. the view that animals, based on some (higher) cognitive capacities, are worth of due respect as individuals and thus should be considered as end in themselves and not merely as means to human goals. This does not disqualify the other views. On the contrary, by using a more strict definition of the intrinsic value view, I think it is possible to understand and value the other moral position better.

One Health as a collective responsibility

In spite of the fact that in recent years many steps have been taken in the control of zoonotic diseases, we are still confronted with recent outbreaks of, for example Ebola and Avian Flu (H5N8) and with public debates on the preferred way to deal with zoonoses. Such debates can easily get polarised. Therefore, we argue that a more integrated approach is needed. In this paper we propose an integration on three levels. First, the One Health initiative could serve a fruitful approach to take the interrelatedness of human and animal health into account. Second, we argue that it might be fruitful to approach societal controversies about how societies should respond to zoonotic risks not by focusing on conflicting interests, but as conflicts between broadly shared values. Finally, an effective approach of and a discussion on zoonoses require a more sophisticated view on moral responsibilities, which goes beyond the level of the question �who is to blame?� for a specific outbreak. In this paper we claim that although finding acceptable and well-justified policies will remain a difficult task, these three steps towards a pluralistic approach to thinking about prevention of and response to zoonosis outbreaks may create possibilities to overcome conflicts.