Anti-Vivisection and Anti-Violence
A strong ethical case against medical vivisection using the principle of non-violence.
I have recently become involved in an
anti-vivisection organization at the University of Toronto. I
have done a few talks on anti-vivisection for them. This
informal paper makes a strong ethical case against medical
vivisection using non-violence as a principle. As in "Animal
Rights in Essence," listed above, I do not offer a meta-ethical
justification for non-violence, which I intend to do in a
forthcoming book. Rather, I build on the fact that each of us
normally insists on non-violence towards ourselves.
Vivisectionists on campus often imply that anti-vivisectionists
are cranks who are not worth debating, but I show how the most
established versions of many ethical theories entail
non-violence, which must be extended to nonhuman animals too if
we are to disavow speciesism.
I sincerely hope that you will do the special part you have to
offer for getting AV & AV out into the public domain to do
its job.
The paper is available as a pdf download.
