Research studies and interventions sometimes offer potential benefits to subjects that compensate for the risks they face. Other studies and interventions, which I refer to as “nonbeneficial” research, do not offer subjects a compensating potential for benefit. These studies and interventions have the potential to exploit subjects for the benefit of others, a concern that is especially acute when investigators enroll individuals who are unable to give informed consent. US regulations for research with human subjects attempt to address this concern (...) by mandating strict protections for nonbeneficial research with subjects who cannot consent. Typically, humans who cannot consent, such as children, may be enrolled in nonbeneficial research only when it poses low risks and has the potential to gather information of sufficient value to justify the risks, an appropriate surrogate gives permission on the individual’s behalf and the individual agrees (assents). In contrast, US regulations for nonbeneficial research with nonhuman primates do not include these protections, even though it too involves subjects who cannot consent and who face risks for the benefit of others. Is this difference in regulatory protections justified? Or does the principle of fairness—treat like cases alike—imply that regulations for nonbeneficial research with nonhuman primates should include protections similar to those that apply to nonbeneficial research with humans who cannot consent? (shrink)

In the subsequent pages, I want to develop a distinction between wanting and valuing which will enable the familiar view of freedom to make sense of the notion of an unfree action. The contention will be that, in the case of actions that are unfree, the agent is unable to get what he most wants, or values, and this inability is due to his own "motivational system." In this case the obstruction to the action that he most wants to do (...) is his own will. It is in this respect that the action is unfree: the agent is obstructed in and by the very performance of the action. (shrink)

Using an approach developed in the context of human bioethics, we argue that chimpanzees in research can be regarded as vulnerable subjects. This vulnerability is primarily due to communication barriers and situational factors—confinement and dependency—that make chimpanzees particularly susceptible to risks of harm and exploitation in experimental settings. In human research, individuals who are deemed vulnerable are accorded special protections. Using conceptual and moral resources developed in the context of research with vulnerable humans, we show how chimpanzees warrant additional safeguards (...) against harm and exploitation paralleling those for human subjects. These safeguards should include empowering third parties to act as surrogate decision makers for chimpanzees, ensuring participant “assent,” and avoiding recruitment of animal subjects based merely on convenience. (shrink)

This essay argues that non-linguistic animals qualify not just for externalist notions of rationality (maximizing biological fitness or utility), but also for internal ones. They can act for reasons in several senses: their behaviour is subject to intentional explanations, they can act in the light of reasons - provided that the latter are conceived as objective facts rather than subjective mental states - and they can deliberate. Finally, even if they could not, it would still be misguided to maintain that (...) animals are capable only of (mechanical) behaviour, not of (intentional) action. (shrink)

In the wake of the chimpanzee genome publication, Pascal Gagneux, James J. Moore and Ajit Varki consider the ethical and scientific challenges for scientists who work on captive great apes.

In the relatively short time since 2006—when Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics published an issue on moral issues relevant to the use of nonhuman animals in research [1]—significant changes have occurred for nonhuman animals in many quarters. Public sentiment, new policy initiatives, and scientific studies of nonhuman animals’ capacities have all influenced the ways in which nonhuman animals are perceived and treated in research. Today, a large body of information is available for use in decision making about the acceptability of using (...) nonhuman animals in research. The articles in this issue assess how moral argument and empirical studies stand to guide animal research policies and practices in future years.Many in bioethics have come to regard issues of animal research as a subfield of research ethics, bringing it closer to human research ethics. Animal ethics, like public health ethics, has struggled for recognition in bioethics. As the contributions to this issue show, some in bioe. (shrink)

Literature on the mental capacities and cognitive mechanisms of the great apes has been silent about whether they can act autonomously. This paper provides a philosophical theory of autonomy supported by psychological studies of the cognitive mechanisms that underlie chimpanzee behavior to argue that chimpanzees can act autonomously even though their psychological mechanisms differ from those of humans. Chimpanzees satisfy the two basic conditions of autonomy: (1) liberty (the absence of controlling influences) and (2) agency (self-initiated intentional action), each of (...) which is specified here in terms of conditions of understanding, intention, and self-control. In this account, chimpanzees make knowledge-based choices reflecting a richly information-based and socially sophisticated understanding of the world. Finally, two major theories of autonomy (Kantian theory and two-level theory) are rejected as too narrow to adequately address these issues, necessitating the modifications made in the present approach. (shrink)