The Ethical Argument, and Where the Law Stops

In one line

The ethical argument about experimenting on animals has three positions, Indian law has adopted parts of two of them, and the gap between what the ethics demands and what the statute delivers is the answer the University is asking for.

In exam wording: the legal and ethical issues arising out of experimentation on animals are: whether an animal's interests count at all, and if so how much; whether a benefit to human beings can justify a harm to an animal that cannot consent; who decides, and on what information; how a prohibition is enforced when the person who benefits is the person who conducts the experiment; and whether the Indian statutory framework, which makes such experiments lawful under section 14 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1960 and controls them through sections 15 to 20 and the Rules of 1998, is adequate given that the penalty for cruelty under section 11 has not been revised since 1960.

The three ethical positions, stated fairly

The utilitarian position. What matters morally is the capacity to suffer, and suffering counts equally whoever suffers it. On this view an experiment is justified if the total benefit outweighs the total harm, but the harm to the animal must be counted at full weight rather than discounted because the sufferer is not human. Most animal experimentation would fail that test, because the benefit is speculative and the harm is certain.

The rights position. An animal with a life of its own has interests that may not be traded away for the benefit of others, however large. On this view experimentation is not a matter of balance at all, and no benefit justifies it.

The welfare position. Human interests may prevail, but only where the animal's suffering is minimised and the purpose is serious. This is the position of nearly every legal system, India included, and it is what the three Rs express.

The instrumental position, which is not really an ethical position, holds that an animal is property and its treatment is a matter for its owner. Indian law rejected it in 1960 by imposing a duty in section 3 on every person having care or charge, and the Supreme Court rejected it in terms in 2014.

What Indian law has adopted

The welfare position, in the statute. Section 14 permits experiments for four purposes; sections 15 to 20 and the Rules of 1998 control how they are done; and section 17(2) writes the three Rs into the rule making power.

Something closer to the rights position, in the case law. In Animal Welfare Board of India v. A. Nagaraja, decided on 7 May 2014, the Supreme Court held that sections 3 and 11 of the Act confer no right on the organiser of an event but impose duties and confer corresponding rights on animals; that all living creatures have inherent dignity and a right to live peacefully and to protect their well-being, which encompasses protection from beating, kicking, over-driving, over-loading, torture, pain and suffering; and that Article 51A(g) of the Constitution, the duty to have compassion for living creatures, is the magna carta of animal rights. It recommended that Parliament elevate the rights of animals to constitutional rights.