by R.G. Frey

About the author: R.G. Frey is a professor of philosophy at Bowling Green State University in Ohio.

From teaching to research, the use we make of animals in human health care is vast. Although it is always possible that the animals themselves may benefit from this use (in fact, they rarely do), the search for health-care benefits for ourselves motivates it. This raises an ethical problem: What justifies this systematic use of animals for human gain"...

First, however, a word on why some obvious ploys to avoid our question carry little conviction. Animals use each other, so why should we not use them? Because we are reflective creatures capable of moral thought and moral assessment of our actions; nothing follows about the rightness of killing creatures who are not thus capable (babies...