Bioethics and “Vulnerability”
On an intuitive level, it would seem to make perfect sense that nonhuman animals held for animal research would be considered “vulnerable subjects.” Held captive, against their will, in situations that cannot be fully explained and for reasons that can’t be articulated to them, using nonhumans for experimentation places them in the very definition of a vulnerable position. However, when it comes to bioethics, animal ethics committees (AECs) and animal research, the term “vulnerable subject” is almost exclusively reserved for humans, and is only rarely applied to animals.
This study looks at how “vulnerability,” both as a official classification and as a concept, can be expanded and applied to nonhuman animals in research. The idea is that doing so could “help identify problems in the current system governing animal research,” and that “better articulation of these problems can assist in their resolution.” In other words, by being able to classify nonhumans as “vulnerable subjects,” it opens them up to a much broader range of protections and ways that their interests can be counted in the ethical calculations of laboratories.
The authors begin by noting that, not only are nonhumans vulnerable subjects, they are made “pathologically vulnerable” due to workings of ethics committees. The article outline some reasons why animals are not considered vulnerable, such as due to human exceptionalism, which not only places humans above animals in terms of sentience but also “directly dismiss[es] the possibility that [vulnerability] applies to nonhuman animals.” It could also be due to deeper philosophical failures to give consideration to animals and because the concept of vulnerability is not well fleshed out, meaning that “it may be unclear who or what belongs within its scope.” Finally they surmise that ethics committees may also be influenced by “an aversion to consideration of the body in Western philosophy generally,” meaning that a lot of the discussion of vulnerability revolves around human concepts of intelligence and psychology, and not on bodily harm.
How are animals vulnerable? The authors outline three “types” of vulnerability that humans exhibit, that animals would share: inherent, situational, and pathogenic. Inherent vulnerability refers to “the sense in which as embodied human beings we all share a latent susceptibility to pain, suffering, illness, and disease.” We have basic needs that must be met, and a kind of social nature that demands attention and care. Situational vulnerability arises from “the specific situation of an individual or group. The context or circumstances that make this individual or group vulnerable could be personal, social, political, economic, or environmental.” Pathogenic vulnerability is a subset of the situational category and arises in a couple of different ways: “(i) from personal or social relationships that are in some way morally dysfunctional, i.e., involving discrimination, injustice, oppression, and the like; or (ii) when attempts to remedy existing vulnerabilities actually worsen these or in fact create new ones.” In describing this, they note that relationships between human and nonhumans can be thought of as pathogenic because of the power imbalance weighted towards humans, and humans’ “frequently discriminatory attitudes and practices toward animals.”
Through all of this, the authors note that the power to classify animals as “vulnerable” is largely in the hands of animal ethics committees (AECs), and that they are the ones most strongly positioned to make a difference in this regard. This study, though philosophical in nature, shows that there are some instances where philosophy, ethics, and practical applications meet, and this is one of them. Though animal welfare in laboratories is often conceived and applied in a bureaucratic way, many welfare decisions are made by AECs that choose based on more philosophical concepts and after group discussion and decision. If the concept of “vulnerability” was expanded by AECs to include nonhumans, it could have a profound impact on the number of species that are considered “acceptable” for experimentation, and what kinds of experiments are allowed to be done with them and in what kinds of settings. For anti-vivisection advocates, this could be a new avenue for policy-level campaigns that are geared towards particular institutions.