The negative impact of scientific ideology on education about the moral status of animals

Abstract

The article presents an analysis of the ethical views of Bernard Rollin, an American zoologist and philosopher who examined how the education about the moral status of animals has been affected by the so-called scientific ideology. This way of thinking denies animal suffering and consciousness in stark contrast with our commonsense knowledge and collective human experience. Rollin points to positivism and behaviourism as twin philosophical and psychological sources of this scientific ideology. Positivism rejected the concept of consciousness as a subjective, metaphysical, unscientific, non-measurable state and separated science from values and ethics. Behaviourism further obstructed moral reflection on the acceptable methods of treatment of animals not only by eliminating the category of animal consciousness, but also by replacing the vocabulary to describe its experimental manifestations with one of observable actions (reinforcement and aversion). Behaviourism denies animal suffering and other states of consciousness on the epistemological principle that they are difficult to verify. This paradigm continues to be successfully applied in modern biomedical laboratories and blinds scientists to both the pain inflicted on animals and the moral repercussions of animal consciousness. Positivism and behaviourism alike cast animals as models and biological mechanisms to distort our understanding of their nature and justify their harm. The article presents an analysis of the ethical views of Bernard Rollin, an American zoologist and philosopher who examined how the education about the moral status of animals has been affected by the so-called scientific ideology. This way of thinking denies animal suffering and consciousness in stark contrast with our commonsense knowledge and collective human experience. Rollin points to positivism and behaviourism as twin philosophical and psychological sources of this scientific ideology. Positivism rejected the concept of consciousness as a subjective, metaphysical, unscientific, non-measurable state and separated science from values and ethics. Behaviourism further obstructed moral reflection on the acceptable methods of treatment of animals not only by eliminating the category of animal consciousness, but also by replacing the vocabulary to describe its experimental manifestations with one of observable actions (reinforcement and aversion). Behaviourism denies animal suffering and other states of consciousness on the epistemological principle that they are difficult to verify. This paradigm continues to be successfully applied in modern biomedical laboratories and blinds scientists to both the pain inflicted on animals and the moral repercussions of animal consciousness. Positivism and behaviourism alike cast animals as models and biological mechanisms to distort our understanding of their nature and justify their harm.