Howard J. Curzer

Toe Clipping of Amphibians and Reptiles: Science, Ethics, and the Law 1

Abstract Public concern for the humane treatment of animals in research has led to specific guidelines for appropriate treatment of study organisms. Field research poses special challenges that Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees find difficult to address based on existing guidelines. Toe clipping is a common but contentious example whose use has been called barbaric and whose efficacy has been questioned. We provide a brief review of the ethical bases for such positions, the legal framework they have engendered, and the scientific evidence regarding the impacts of the practice. Leading philosophical views vary but tend to focus on the suffering or distress of individual animals, primarily vertebrates. The law has adopted this individual-centered view. Biologists, in contrast, tend to more wholistic views that focus on populations and ecosystems. Scientific studies of the impacts of toe clipping, most of them relatively recent, have become increasingly sophisticated statistically. Most show little impact of toe clipping on study animals, the exception being the likelihood of recapture of toe-clipped individuals in some frogs. If unaccounted for, effects of methodology can bias scientific findings. The few studies focusing on physiological indicators of distress show no increase resulting from toe-clipping. Thus, toe clipping of reptiles and amphibians meets legal and ethical expectations and should remain acceptable where it meets study needs. Biologists have long been concerned about the possible ethical implications of their methods. Philosophical inquiry has been beneficial in improving our understanding of these methods, but the need of biologists for better philosophical elaboration of ecological ethics has only partially been addressed.

The Ethics Of Embryonic Stem Cell Research

In this article I rebut conservative objections to five phases of embryonic stem cell research. I argue that researchers using existing embryonic stem cell lines are not complicit in the past destruction of embryos because beneficiaries of immoral acts are not necessary morally tainted. Second, such researchers do not encourage the destruction of additional embryos because fertility clinics presently destroy more spare embryos than researchers need. Third, actually harvesting stem cells from slated-to-be-discarded embryos is not wrong. The embryos are not sacrificed for the good of others because they would have been destroyed anyway. Fourth, harvesting stem cells from embryos that are not doomed is morally acceptable, because preserving frozen embryos is futile therapy. Finally, creating embryos solely for the sake of harvesting stem cells from them is morally acceptable because the assumption that embryos have the right to life has very counterintuitive implications.

The Three Rs of Animal Research: What they Mean for the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee and Why

The Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) is entrusted with assessing the ethics of proposed projects prior to approval of animal research. The role of the IACUC is detailed in legislation and binding rules, which are in turn inspired by the Three Rs: the principles of Replacement, Reduction, and Refinement. However, these principles are poorly defined. Although this provides the IACUC leeway in assessing a proposed project, it also affords little guidance. Our goal is to provide procedural and philosophical clarity to the IACUC without mandating a particular outcome. To do this, we analyze the underlying logic of the Three Rs and conclude that the Three Rs accord animals moral standing, though not necessarily “rights” in the philosophical sense. We suggest that the Rs are hierarchical, such that Replacement, which can totally eliminate harm, should be considered prior to Reduction, which decreases the number of animals harmed, with Refinement being considered last. We also identify the need for a hitherto implicit fourth R: Reject, which allows the IACUC to refuse permission for a project which does not promise sufficient benefit to offset the pain and distress likely to be caused by the proposed research.

The Ethics of Wildlife Research: A Nine R Theory

The commonsense ethical constraints on laboratory animal research known as the three Rs are widely accepted, but no constraints tailored to research on animals in the wild are available. In this article, we begin to fill that gap. We sketch a set of commonsense ethical constraints on ecosystem research parallel to the constraints that govern laboratory animal research. Then we combine the animal and ecosystem constraints into a single theory to govern research on animals in the wild.

Tweaking the Four-Component Model.

By maintaining that moral functioning depends upon four components (sensitivity, judgment, motivation, and character), the Neo-Kohlbergian account of moral functioning allows for uneven moral development within individuals. However, I argue that the four-component model does not go far enough. I offer a more accurate account of moral functioning and uneven moral development. My proposal retains the account of sensitivity, divides the judgment component into a theorizing component and a reasoning component, and eliminates the motivation and character components.

Do ethics classes teach ethics

The ethics assessment industry is currently dominated by the second version of the Defining Issues Test (DIT2). In this article, we describe an alternative assessment instrument called the Sphere-Specific Moral Reasoning and Theory Survey (SMARTS), which measures the respondent’s level of moral development in several respects. We describe eight difficulties that an instrument must overcome in order to assess ethics classes successfully. We argue that the DIT2 fails to solve these problems, and that the SMARTS succeeds. The SMARTS was administered as pre-test and post-test during several semesters to ethics and non-ethics classes. Ethics students improved significantly more than non-ethics students in both moral theory choice and moral reasoning. Thus, ethics classes do indeed teach ethics.

Admirable immorality, dirty hands, care ethics, justice ethics, and child sacrifice

Using five different child-sacrifice cases, I argue that the relationship between the ethics of care and the ethics of justice is not that one is wholly right while the other is morally wrong or irrelevant, or that one somehow has priority over the other, or that one is supererogatory while the other is required, or that one is a role ethic while the other is a real ethic, or that they are equivalent. Instead, I propose that the ethics of justice and care are simply descriptions of the virtues of justice and care, understood richly and broadly. Each prescribes perceptions, values, self-conceptions, etc. as well as actions and passions in every sphere of human life. Like other actual (rather than idealized) virtues, justice and care sometimes conflict with each other. They demand incompatible actions, passions, perceptions, etc. The available options in conflict situations feel both right and wrong because they are admirably immoral acts and/or dirty hands acts. I argue that these conflicts do not undermine the primacy, practicality or consistency of morality.

BENEVOLENT GOVERNMENT NOW

Mencian benevolent government intervenes dramatically in many ways in the marketplace in order to secure the material well-being of the population, especially the poor and disadvantaged. Mencius considers this sort of intervention to be appropriate not just occasionally when dealing with natural disasters, but regularly. Furthermore, Mencius recommends shifting from regressive to progressive taxes. He favors reduction of inequality so as to reduce corruption of government by the wealthy, and opposes punishment for people driven to crime by destitution. Mencius thinks government should try to improve the character of the population by preventing or relieving poverty, by setting a good example, and by teaching people to respect and care for each other. He considers a government to be legitimate only if it has the support of the people. His recommended foreign policy is approximately the same as his recommended domestic policy: set a good example and enhance the material wellbeing and moral values of ones own people so that they will enthusiastically support their country, while foreigners will long to immigrate. These are policies of todays left. Mencius was a radical reformer in his own day. His description of benevolent government shows that he is an extreme liberal by contemporary standards, too.

Spies and Lies: Faithful, Courageous Israelites and Truthful Spies

The leader of a great nation ponders the invasion of a country in the Middle East. The majority report of his intelligence agency indicates that an invasion would be a bad idea, but the leader invades anyway, citing a minority report. As predicted, the invasion runs into trouble. Later, the leader gives a distorted history of the events leading up to the war, portraying himself as blameless, and accusing the naysayers of lacking courage and faith. Of course, the leader is Moses; the incident is the Israelites’ abortive first invasion of the Promised Land; and the intelligence agency consists of twelve spies. This article presents a novel interpretation of Numbers 13—14, a hermeneutical maxim for dealing with inconsistencies between Deuteronomy and the rest of the Torah, and a political moral.

Against Idealization in Virtue Ethics

Many virtue ethicists implicitly or explicitly make use of an ideal—the concept of a perfect character, a character that is at best approximated, but never realized. I shall argue against the use of ideals (idealization) in virtue ethics on both theoretical and practical grounds. The widespread, implicit assumption that ideals are necessary bits of theoretical machinery is not only false, but counterproductive. The widespread use of ideals as goals is not only unhelpful, but pernicious. I shall identify three familiar doctrines as idealizations: the corrective doctrine of virtue, the identification of right actions with characteristic actions of virtuous agents, and the reciprocity of virtues doctrine. I shall reject these doctrines and recommend alternatives.