(Also of course a lot of the critics don't eat meat, and it's also true that the rest of us should stop, starting from factory farmed meat)
(I currently eat meat.)
Our entire decision system relies on endings justifying meanings. I want a steady job that pays well, so I concede to going to a 4-year institution and paying a decent amount in order for that end to be so. The end justifies the sacrifice in time and finances, so the decision is justified in my mind. If the end were that I had only obtained unemployable skills or knowledge, then that particular end would not have justified the means for me.
So I suppose that when people say the ends don’t justify the means, they’re not really saying it categorically—just that the particular ends being argued don’t justify the particular means.
With the case of animal testing to improve human quality of life, it’s hard to say. Dogs were routinely experimented on and killed to first link diabetes to the pancreas, and later to discover insulin was a substance that could be transferred to preserve life. These medical results have saved hundreds of thousands of lives in the past hundred years. Whether the neuralink experimentation is justified in its potential for quality-of-life improvements in paralysis victims years into the future really depends on where you weigh animal well-being and life in relation to future improvements to human life, as well as whether you believe their experiments are too gratuitous and could be carried out more safely/ effectively on fewer animals.
I thought my argument was clear, but I can try to make it more clear:
- I eat pork. Unfortunately because of people like me there are many many suffering pigs.
- I believe that it is more justified to make a pig suffer for neuroscience research than to be made into a McRoyal. (Let's assume that the suffering is comparable. Please also assume that the suffering is necessary for the particular research and that research has actual potential for useful applications. If there is evidence of unnecessary abuse then I'm not defending such abuse.)
- Therefore it seems silly to me to attack neuroscience researchers instead of me, an omnivore who could be vegetarian/vegan.
I understand that one can argue for both positions at the same time -- argue against research on animals and argue against eating meat. But I think the latter one is much more important than the former. And yet you probably wouldn't attack me for my meat-eating habit. (Maybe because doing so would be impolite.)
To use an extreme example, say I have a theory that the brain is an unnecessary organ. Can I go around removing pig brains in the name of “neuroscience research” and get a free pass?
Okay, now suppose I want to test if my new brain implant that I intend to attach with known acutely neurotoxic binding agent is safe for long term use. I then observe that the acutely neurotoxic binding agent causes acute brain damage like it said it would and thus my implant is unsafe for long term use. Do I get a free pass for that even though I killed an animal to learn something the manual already told me?
Okay, now suppose I want to test if implant A is safe for long term use. But when I go to do the surgery I insert implant B because I took the wrong implants out of the storehouse because I did not follow standard practice and go through my checklist as any competent doctor should. I then repeat this say 24 more times before realizing that I have inserted the wrong implants into around half of the test subjects. I then kill the animals when I realize my mistake because no useful data can be drawn due to my mistake. Do I get a free pass for “experiments” that even I acknowledge are worthless because I made a mistake because I ignored standard practice that has practices explicitly designed to cheaply and easily avoid the class of mistake I made?
Killing a pig for high-quality neuroscience research can be worth more than eating it. However, there are plenty of forms of “neuroscience research” that are objectively useless that confer less benefit than eating it or are even actively harmful and thus confer only harm. These forms of “neuroscience research” can still be unethical even if we, as a society, continue to eat meat.
Of course there are proposal review processes for research involving animals, that considers the potential benefits versus the harm done.
> However, there are plenty of forms of “neuroscience research” [involving animals] that are objectively useless
Says who?
You may disagree with the standards and decisions of review processes, but they are ubiquitous today.
No, but Neuralink has proven results and proven useful applications. If you believe that they should publish more data or that there has been a specific misconduct then that is a different argument.
Animal testing has existed for centuries and will continue to do so until we can fully sinulate a human being.
