Again with Nussbaum

Her book, Justice For Animals, (Simon & Schuster, 2022) continues to irk me. It would not get a high mark if it were being graded. Consider this passage (p 180-181 passim):

More recently, Aysha Akhtar brings a growing body of scientific literature to bear on this question, arguing that we know for sure by now that a lot of animal-based research is unreliable and in that way imposes large costs on humans, through misguided treatments and the abandonment of others that might have proven superior.... In the same special issue [from 14 September 2015] ... Andrew Rowan concludes that the predictive value of animal testng is on average only 50 to 60 percent, but that in rodent studies it falls to below 50 percent, less accurate than a coin toss.

If this new line of argument is correct, research using animals does not pose a tragic dilemma, because nothing is gained from it. [my emphasis] But it seems unlikely that such a sweeping conclusion is correct.

Jeepers. Giving her the benefit of the doubt, maybe this is just a case of extremely poor editing. But the absence of scholarship displayed in the characterization of Akhtar's [important] documentation of the failures of animal models as a "new line of argument" exposes Nussbaum as simply an unread neophyte.

For instance, Henry Salt, in his 1894 Animals' Rights [Macmillan & C.] quotes Lawson Tait, "one of the most eminent surgeons of our time": "The conclusions of vivisection are absolutely worthless."

Antivivisection groups and independent scholars have challenged the purported science underpinning the use of animal models of human illness and drug response for well over a century; how could she, a lauded scholar, not know this? See too: https://web.archive.org/web/20070203114620/http://www.curedisease.com/resources.html

Justice For Animals, a review

Martha Nussbaum's new book, Justice For Animals, Our Collective Responsibility (Simon & Schuster 2022) has gotten some notice. It seems to be a gift of sorts to her recently deceased daughter who was active in the animal rights movement.

It's an interesting book with much to say about our treatment of animals. A considerable bit of it rubbed me the wrong way.

Suggestions about how we ought to treat animals from people who eat them have to be taken with a grain of salt. Nussbaum claims that she "tried" a vegan diet, but it made her tired. Poor her. It's like someone saying that they tried to give up pedophilia.

Another thing that really irks me is college/university faculty members like Nussbaum who voice some concern for animals yet don't serve on their institution's Animal Care and Use Committee(s), the legally required animal experimentation oversight committees. If they did, I don't think we'd see claims like Nusbaum's that the 3R's (reduction, refinement, and replacement) have "become the watchwords of all regulatory bodies." Even a cursory review of what's being done in the labs exposes the naivety of such claims. For instance, Nussbaum is a Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago. At her institution, vivisectors are putting electrodes in monkeys' brains. These "watchwords" mean little to the animals in the labs. See:

The interplay between kinematic and force representations in motor and somatosensory cortices during reaching, grasping, and object transport Project Number 5R01NS125270-02 Contact PI/Project Leader HATSOPOULOS, NICHOLAS G Other PIs
Awardee Organization UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

She also challenges the use of arguments that point to the ethically salient similarities between us and other animals. She thinks that doing so appeals in some way to the scala naturae or Great Chain of Being. But no one pointing to the similarities between us (the only species with legal rights) and other species does so because they believe that there is some devine ordering of creation. Oddly, she, at times, makes this argument herself. Indeed, it can't be avoided when arguing on behalf of animals, just as I have done.

In spite of these and numerous other criticisms I have, her prominence might help draw some attention to the terrible things we do to other animals. The book is worth reading if for no other reason than to be able to talk about her claims with those who might read the book and want to talk about something she says.

PS: Another thing that really irked me was her use of Jonathan Balcombe and Peter Singer to defend her mixed-up position. In the case of Balcombe, author of What a Fish Knows, she claims that he eats fish. He doesn't. She points to Singer's comment that experimenting on 100 monkeys to help 40,000 humans with Parkinson's could be justified. She makes these claims to defend her fish-eating and support for some animal research.