[rlanday]

He’s not saying it should be done on human beings, he’s arguing it’s also wrong to do it on monkeys for the same reason it’s wrong to do on humans. You, and many other people, are making an argument that I find at least somewhat uncomfortable that it’s OK to treat animals, even those very similar to humans, much worse than humans because they’re of a different species. Can you articulate why you believe that, and how comfortable are you with your reasoning?

[nospecinterests]

Under that line of reasoning there could be no science done involving any type of living creature, both big and small (like bacteria), unless it was purely non-contact observational.

[rlanday]

Monkeys are much more similar to humans, and presumably much more able to experience suffering, than bacteria are. People like to draw an arbitrary line between humans and other animals, and there are good reasons for that in a lot of cases (e.g., should we give chimpanzees the right to vote in government elections, or start giving them drivers’ licenses?), but that might not be the most relevant line to draw in terms of ability to experience suffering. Many people clearly experience some cognitive dissonance when deciding how to treat animals: for example, many people treat pet dogs as family members but eat other animals like pigs, even though dogs and pigs probably aren’t really very different in any ethically relevant way.