The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has become the first Big Ten school to draft policy governing when and how professors can require students to perform animal dissection as part of a course. The policy, which was supported by such groups as PETA, was passed Monday after a two-year campaign by Students Improving the Lives of Animals. It states that professors including dissection in general ed courses must offer alternatives (software, videos, 3-D models, and so on) to students who oppose dissection, while students taking upper-level courses that include dissection may appeal to the department if the professor does not provide alternatives. A professor in the molecular and integrative physiology department objected strongly to the proposed policy on grounds of academic freedom; he was refuted by others who cited "students' rights":

He said his main concern with the approval of the original proposal was that it sets a precedent in which students might think they can challenge anything an instructor teaches that they disagree with.

"It's being discussed in the context of animal dissection, but I don't see why other students with other interests, no matter where their issues are, could also file grievances against professors if they don't approve of the course content," Anastasio said.

He likened the animal dissection issue to a student who supports capitalism challenging a professor who taught the ideology of Karl Marx in economics.

However, associate professor of library administration Kathleen Kluegel said his analogy didn't take into account the strong convictions of some students opposed to dissection.

"Perhaps a more suitable analogy (to the animal dissection issue) would be to require students who are taking biology courses to drink alcohol instead of studying or reading about how alcohol affects the brain functions," she said.

Anastasio also said he believes the proposal challenges a professor's academic freedom.

However, Vilas Dhar, president of the student senate caucus, said he didn't believe that was a valid claim.

"This doesn't restrict academic freedom," he said. "It just shows that while professors have freedom to teach whatever they want, the students' rights should also be considered."

It's worth noting that it is a librarian who is not only telling the scientist how to teach his specialty, but is also using fallacious physiological analogies to do it. It's also worth noting that the political sensibilities of (what I assume is) a vocal minority of students have been allowed to trump the professor's authority to determine what his students must know. And it is worth speculating, too, on the longer-term implications of such a policy--which tells aspiring scientists and doctors that they can avoid those aspects of their chosen field that make them squeamish, and which requires professors to collude in their students' politicized curricular gamesmanship by lowering their standards to accomodate them. What the people at UIUC should be saying: If you can't tolerate the prospect of dissecting a frog, perhaps you should not be taking a course where frog dissection is required (or, perhaps you should graciously accept an "F" for the portion of the coursework that you decided not to complete). More broadly, if you cannot tolerate the prospect of dissecting a frog, perhaps you should not be contemplating a career in medicine or the life sciences (unless you plan to go on to study at UIUC, where policies providing dissection alternatives to medical and veterinary students are already on the books).

The nature and limits of academic freedom have been the subject of much debate on Critical Mass of late, most recently in the context of the case of Dennis Dailey, the University of Kansas social welfare professor whose human sexuality course has come under fire for including sexually explicit material. In that debate, the questions of whether Dailey is or is not a pervert, and of whether his course does or does not have genuine academic value, have made it difficult at times to take seriously the larger questions about academic freedom raised by his case. The dissection issue as it has been handled at UIUC should help clarify the issues, I think. On the one hand, dissection does have genuine educational value. On the other hand, professors at UIUC have effectively been barred from requiring students to dissect by a group that casts dissection as perverted (and cruel, and abusive).

As Dorothy Rabinowitz has eloquently shown in another context, accusations of abuse tend to lower the standard of proof for the accusers. Academic ideologues understand this well, and are discovering that a fine way to force unruly faculties to bend the curriculum to their will is to package their agenda in allegations of abuse (sexual harassment, racial harassment, or even, in this case, cruelty to animals). This is why, I think, Kansas state senator Susan Wagle is pairing her attempt to give the state legislature final say in how sex enters the classroom with a personal attack on Dailey himself. And it's why animal rights activists at UIUC can hijack the biology curriculum by casting themselves as conscientious (even religious) objectors to science's reprehensible assault on the quality of animals' lives.

Susan Wagle and Students Improving the Lives of Animals make strange, but strangely fitting, bedfellows.

Remind me not to have surgery from any doctor who took his premed at Uof I.

And only last week they were calling my alma mater Moo U. Illinois lost its basketball coach to Kansas, and this was supposed have been a diss to the Champaign/Urbana community. The South Farms are manured every spring and fall, just in time for the football and basketball recruits to visit campus. Local legend has it that many a recruit from Chicago has taken one whiff and boarded the bus for home.

Here's that link to technology. Take a walk up to Green Street and visit The Beckman Institute and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. Both are working on virtual environments that will one day allow students to dissect a virtual frog. This technology will be so realistic (and you can cut up the frog in forward, reverse and freeze frame) that using real frogs will seem pretty old fashioned.

This day is not far away. So, the real question is, what to do until then?

My parents were the first generation of my family not to have a concrete block slaughter house right on the property. Back in 1950, eating a ton of meat was an announcement that you'd achieved middle class existence. Killing the cows was a festival. My wife's traditional culture, Filipino, is the same. When her dad goes home to Luzon, he makes sure to arrange for that moment when he can pull up his shirt and display the true breadth of his belly. This is the statement that he made it in America.

My Dad used frogs for fish bait.

Amazing how ideas of class and prestige change.

GO ILLINI!

Now this is commodification. Stay in the comfort zone, learn what you want, and get your science as you wish. . .I am going to write a sketch on this, with the Python touch.

Jack, yes "get your science as you wish" is an apt point here.

Perhaps the Univeristy can bring Trofim Lysenko back from the dead to chair the department.

Stephen says..."Beckman Institute and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications...are working on virtual environments that will one day allow students to dissect a virtual frog. This technology will be so realistic (and you can cut up the frog in forward, reverse and freeze frame) that using real frogs will seem pretty old fashioned."

But, no matter how realistic the technology, there is an important difference.

Science, ever since the Renaissance, has been based on the principal that you can "see for yourself"...you don't need to appeal to authority. Today's emphasis on simulations, etc, is a reversal of that trend. If you dissect the frog for yourself, you are seeing for yourself...if you explore a 3-D model in virtual space, you are taking someone's word for it.

The trend away from lab science toward simulation exists in many fields (such as physics), not just biology, and I think it is a troubling one. It tends to subtly undercut the entire scientific notion of how truth is determined.

Well, how can we square this post with the other posts that decry the indoctrination of students? At what point does a student's beliefs give way to the teacher's lesson plan? When should the professor accomodate deeply felt beliefs?

There are time-honored moral systems that believe that cutting animal flesh is immoral. If a student subscribes to that belief, is she ineligible to take freshman bio at college? Suppose that same student believes strongly in the Iraqi War, and her communications professor asks her to write one letter to the editor condemning the war and another praising it -- neither letter is to be sent to the paper but rather is written for didactic classroom purposes only, so the student learns to construct persuasive arguments.

In other words, when does a required exercise in "learning by doing" become improper indoctrination?

As a (tentative) Wagle supporter in previous comment sections, I'll concede that both issues are in the same realm, but the differences are palpable.

If a literature professor chose declared, on the basis of some story or other, that students would have to cut open a frog, I think objections might be in order.

I don't find your post persuasive; could you please elaborate a bit?

Your counter-example -- where the lit prof demands a dissection -- is objectionable on its face because the exercise is not at all related to course.

My post pits deeply held beliefs against standard "learn by doing" exercises. My larger purpose is to test Erin's intellectual project. I am a big fan of the site, and it has really opened my eyes, but I have some reservations.

I can't imagine that Erin's larger thesis is "academic freedom and students' freedom from indoctrination are to be supported when their views align with contemporary conservatives." In other words, I take as given that Erin is espousing a view that she would expect all reasonable people, upon reflection, to adopt wherever they may fall on the political spectrum.

I find her thesis attractive, but I am worried about consistency. So I wanted to pit two "learn by doing" exercises against students' views to see if where we come out depends solely upon what politics we brought to the discussion or whether there is a broader principle to adopt.

We do need to gain a little perspective, I think, on this policy.

First of all, the strictest version of the policy only applies to general ed classes. These are not necessarily the future doctors or biologists of tomorrow.

And under the version of the policy for majors, the implication of the "appeal to the department" is that the department may refuse. I would therefore expect that medical track students will be required to dissect, just as they are now.

The notion of a "conscientious objector" to a particular practice isn't new. Why should it be so objectionable to academics, especially since we're talking non-major-track classes here for the most part?

An Important Point

Although probably wrong-headed, this makes an important point: Professors do not have carte blanche in setting their curiculum. There are others at the university who not only have the responsibility, but who routinely set limits on what will be done and taught.

"a reader,"

Sorry about that... commenting on the run with a barking dog and the workday going by more quickly than I'm able to juggle.

My point with the lit. professor (which wasn't specifically addressed to your comments) was that there are reasonable grounds for questioning professors. I had an extra line about masturbation not being a science that I couldn't make clever enough quickly enough, so I just deleted it. Objections to dissection in Dissection 101 would be absurd; dismissing objections to (literal) dissection in Mark Twain 207 would be absurd. What about for The History of Biology or The Cultural Significance of Frogs? I don't know.

To a degree, this is a question of who gets to decide what's appropriate and in what capacity they get to do so, and more factors bear on the answer than allow for broad categorization of "people objecting to what professors want to teach." If a bio professor had his students perform a study of the difficulty of hitting a live mouse thrown in the air with a live (defanged) snake, I think there would be grounds for the state legislature to say, "hey, fund that with your own money!"

Now, I'm still withholding judgment about my opinion of what should be done in the case of Wagle v. Dailey until I've got more explicit information (not to imply that my opinion matters either way). However, I do think certain people have been too quick to declare that he ought to be able to do whatever he wants and maintain his state funding.

Two thoughts.

First, you are correct that "masturbation is not a science." It's an *art*. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

Second, yes I agree there are tough cases. As someone said, free speech ain't free; it's hard work.

I wanted to pit two "learn by doing" exercises against students' views to see if where we come out depends solely upon what politics we brought to the discussion or whether there is a broader principle to adopt.

A Reader, a very good question and one I will think about for a while. My immediate inchoate (if that is not redundant) reaction is to assert the belief that where I come out on any given issue must be dependent to a degree on the politics (which I think you must be using in the broadest sense). It must also be dependent to a degree on whether there is, in fact, a broader principle to adopt. It then becomes a question of percentages or how much one takes precedence over the other.

As one example, the politics I bring to the table leaves me abhorred by anti-semitic op-ed pieces on college campuses. It is the broader principle that has me falling on the side of protecting that speech.

As I said, I will have to think about the application of that dichotomy to the specific example you presented.

What will also require time for me is the effort to determine whether our politics so determines the broader principles we adopt that we will believe that whatever conclusion we adopt to a specific matter is, in fact, supported by those broader principles.

This is not as coherent a response as I would have liked - - - but I did want to get something on paper before I lost the thought.

Certainly,

A reader wrote:

"I find her thesis attractive, but I am worried about consistency. So I wanted to pit two "learn by doing" exercises against students' views to see if where we come out depends solely upon what politics we brought to the discussion or whether there is a broader principle to adopt."

Interesting ... if consistency is an issue, then what of the consistency of the student who views the dissection of flesh as being objectionable? Is consistency to the principle of (presumably) non-violence to animals something that the student demonstrates in other parts of her life?

For example - does she condemn eating vegetables grown and harvested using machines, which do really terrible things to the flesh of animals and birds living in the growing fields?

What I'm asking is this: does the student believe that it is okay to pay someone to dismember the bodies of live animals so that you can enjoy the convenience of eating store bought vegetables, but not okay to dissect an animal for the purposes of education?

Loren

I'm relieved to learn that the dissection rules might be relaxed only for nonmajors. I'd hate to have my kitty spayed by a brand-new vet who'd never been able to bring herself to dissect a cat. I can see it now - "Oh, is this what that looks like?" I remember from my zoology class dissections that things in animals do not look like pictures in books. What if she found that she had moral objections to spaying? It's an unnecessary cutting-open of a healthy animal, after all, and an animal that can't really give informed consent. And God help her the first time she runs across a patient that truly needs euthanasia.

I suppose that my thought experiment still works whether or not the hypothetical student consistently opposes physical harm to animals.

If she is a vegan who takes great efforts to eat organic food, wear no leather, etc., does the academic have the right to say, "you cannot receive credit for biology studies unless you cut the animal cadaver?" My intuition says that a reasonable accomodation ought to be made for that student.

I think an accomodation ought to be made as well for the inconsistent student, so long as she really does morally object to cutting the cadaver, and as long as the "inconsistent" actions she takes are not grossly inconsistent. For example, if she willingly carves up roast turkey, I don't see why we need to accomodate her desire not to dissect a frog. But the supposedly inconsistent actions at some point become rather remote from the example of dissection, and I don't think we generally disqualify moral objections for remote inconsistencies. (For example, if the vegan store she frequents has a manager who wears leather belts and shoes, I don't think the student's objection to dissection ought to be ignored.) Frankly, I don't know enough about what damage (if any) is done to animals by harvesting machines to decide whether or not that inconsistencies disqualifies the moral objection.

Of course, if her objection is insincere or pretextual, then I wouldn't accomodate her request.

Kluegel's analogy may be poor, but Anastasio's is worse. You don't have to kill and dissect a member of the ruling class to learn about Marxism. I'm glad the guy's not teaching logic, anyway. If I were a student in his class, I would object to being required to dissect an animal killed for this purpose, and I would object to being downgraded if I refused. My problem is not with dissection per se, but with animals being killed for this purpose. I sympathize with these objectors, and I think the phrase "political sensibilities," while perhaps not inaccurate, does not get at the heart of the motives for such objections. The prime motive is more basic and, ahem, visceral: simple compassion for other sentient creatures, a desire that they not go through pain (or violent death) I myself would not want to go through. There's no getting around the abject cruelty of vivisection, whatever wonderful utilitarian justifications might be offered.

If the earth were visited by a race of beings who excelled us in strength and intelligence to the degree that we excel frogs and chickens, I doubt that many of us would say that conferred on them some ethical justification for killing and dissecting us (or eating us), even if their doing so immeasurably improved their quality of life.

Dissection of human corpses is pivotal to a good medical education, but we don't kill people for this purpose. It would be very difficult and expensive to begin to rely on animals dead of natural causes for dissection, but if enough people wanted this, it could happen. Strange as it may seem in this culture, many of us hold spiritual beliefs that assert the sanctity of both human and animal life. Such beliefs do not have to conflict with a serious pursuit of knowledge, biological or otherwise. I'm not abridging anyone's academic freedom by objecting when he frames the issue so that such a conflict looks inevitable.

Bob Finegan,

I was a little concerned when I read your post (which seems to go beyond whether or not students ought to be offered alternatives to dissection) because you seem to imply a moral absolute that may not hold: that there is nothing worse than causing an animal to suffer.

It's as if the cost of causing suffering (the definition of which can be quite broad) to a few animals is never balanced, or over-balanced, by the benefits to vast numbers of humans and other animals. And, as if the "doing" of vivisection always has a negative moral or ethical consequence, but that the "not doing" of vivisection always has a positive moral or ethical consequence.

Am I over-reading you?

Regards,

Brian

I am wondering if the discussion is missing the major point here. What we have in both Illinois and Kansas is yahoos of various persuasions having something more than complete failure in attempting to manipulate what's taught in universities. Certainly their success hasn't been complete, but what they're showing is that the standing of the academic world has deteriorated enough that their efforts aren't dismissed out of hand. (Are any of these things popping up on Leno or Letterman?)

I think this is mainly testimony to how far the standing of the academic world has fallen. While there is something like an urban myth of McCarthyism, the fact is that attempts to control the academic environment by the far right were denounced by Dwight Eisenhower during the 1952 Presidential campaign. Nobody seems to be quite as concerned about the nut cases now.

I don't really think things have degenerated completely here, but I think there will be a cure only when the academy gets its house in order and abandons much of the silliness that is currently acceptable in that world. At that point universities will be back to earning and retaining the respect they had in the 1950s and 60s.

I just discovered Erin's posts and the comments on the Dailey-Wagle controversy. I live in Lawrence, attended KU, and have attended a couple of Dailey's lectures focusing on sexuality and disabled populations. He addressed sexual abuse
during these lectures, as well as the whole concept of "normal" sexual behavior and so on. I have communicated with students at the school of Social Welfare regarding the course content and teaching style.

Justin wrote:
"I do think certain people have been too quick to declare that he ought to be able to do whatever he wants and maintain his state funding."

Well Justin, there are at least a few people who are willing to instantaneously respond to Wagle's mere allegations by axing all funding to the School of Social Welfare who clearly have no reasonable concept about what the purpose and content of the course actually is.

And Justin, there are a few more people who have been too quick to declare as valid all sorts of absurd, outrageous and patently false allegations made about Dennis Dailey and his conduct in class.

From what I can tell, Wagle has just recently filed a formal complaint with the University who are now investigating to see if ANY of the mostly anonymous allegations she has charged have any merit whatsoever. The context and manner in which this has been reported on has largely focused on the sensational allegations, rather than substantive questions about the course, and that is what those in favor of the amendment have said they based their support on.

I feel safe in saying that the great majority of the current students say that Zahn is completely full of it, some of what she says NEVER happened at all, and her interpretations and characterizations of his message and statements are distorted and ridiculous beyond belief. "Porn night" at the dorms or frat houses, "pedophilia day", "Wheelchair sex day" in the class etc. - none of these exist at KU despite what Bill O'Really told us. Dailey does cover pedophilia and paraplegic sexual activity though. Crucify him for it, why doncha?

"Laura's" comment in previous thread:
"Even us rednecks don't need explicit instructions in doin' what comes natchurly."
and
"nobody important's" remark that s/he was glad he hadn't attended college because of the lack of morals or ethics or whatever that University Professors (don't) have...

shows us all how Wagle's crusade is working...they have absolutely NO IDEA what the content and objectives of this class are, other than what was reported by this insincere right-wing crackpot on O'Really's show and repeated by "traditionalvalues.org" et al and why it is necessary for social workers to be exposed to the materials and information this class provides.

Dailey has taught this class for over 30 years. The fact that its content and his conduct has never been publicly called into question by the more than 15,000 students he has taught up to this time seems to me to indicate that those students understood his intent to be strikingly different than what you are being told by this Stepford Senator and her winged-monkey assistant. As for the speculation that Dailey could just now be going off the deep end, his current students overwhelmingly support his approach and have repeatedly told the local media that that his presentation of the course material is respectful, thoughtful and sensitive, as have numerous former students, and his fellow faculty members at the school. Maybe Wagle believes social workers should be judgemental, intolerant and unaware of the variety of sexual experiences and attitudes that exist instead, and that is what she would advocate my tax dollars to be used for.

The University could be described laying low, being professional about it by issuing statements of support, but avoiding addressing the media frenzy, and the local paper - which most here describe as Republican slanted could be characterized as being neutral or somewhat supportive of Dailey because they know how utterly ridiculous and over-the-top this campaign is. (see http://www.ljworld.com/section/kusexclass/story/131228
Sex course ends in applause
Dailey offers sympathy to students who were singled out in criticisms )
On the other hand, some may be intimidated. ( see http://www.udk.com/stories.asp?id=200305080031
All faculty must support Dailey)

The complaints about Dailey and the course should have been taken up with the university before Wagle took to peddling what appears to be slander on the airwaves and the senate floor - no question about it, it was a broadside, a total sneak attack. The Legislature has no PLACE in determining course content or enforcing disciplinary action against a University employee, and that is exactly what this is about.

And "Laura" questions the "maturity" of University Administrators and Professors. LOL.

The religious right-wing contingent of the KS Legislature propose to "fix" the wholly manufactured and absolutely delusional problem of "an out of control Professor" (as Bill O'Really called him) by imposing unprecedented measures in the state legislature to control curriculum on the grounds of "moral decency".

In short, they were willing to convict and punish the university on a bunch of trumped up and completely fabricated anonymous allegations, before even approaching the University with the perceived problem.

jdrax wrote:
"The real issue here arises from the charges of his conduct in the classroom the student made--making obscene gestures to students who left the classroom, for example. Those charges are pretty cut and dried. Either she's wrong, or she's right. If she's right, this guy is in big trouble.

Actually, it seems to me the legislature is doing a pretty good job of dealing with a very situation--they know the university isn't doing squat to regulate faculty behavior at any level whatsoever, so they're contemplating giving in and trying to force them to do so, not by intervening in the internal process, but by making ominous noises of the sort that typically have university administrators go into a craze rabbit mode."

jdrax, you are right on the first part, and I firmly believe that Dailey will be completely exonerated, (except in the minds of those who are so blind...) and hope he and the University sue the heck out of Wagle and her team of anonymous shadowy informants for slandering him and the University if legally tenable case is there. (Just what IS the "equivalent" of giving somebody the finger anyway, Ms. Zahn? Did he say F-you or F-off to a student?)

On the second part...a portion of the Legislature (rural Republicans) is NOT acting reasonably here. They behaved as a crazed, bigoted lynchmob passing the initial legislation as they did, and it is unprecedented to legislate that the Board of Regents be provided by the University specific policy on curriculum content in "certain courses". That can be debated, but should not be instituted as a kneejerk reaction to an outrageous and completely unfounded smear campaign by uninformed, extremist zealots.

And please explain why I should believe anything other than that YOU are obviously not reasonable when you assert that:
"they know the university isn't doing squat to regulate faculty behavior at any level whatsoever,"

You have been duped. Most of the commenters here have been duped. (Purcell excluded, for one). Much of America has been duped by this McCarthyite witch-hunt. Wagle should be impeached, and the legislators who backed her crusade should be ousted. Fauxnews should be boycotted for routinely engaging in promoting such ridiculous idiocy...pushing such harmful disinformation...broadcasting such lies.

Alas, the SCLM* allows this sort of absolute crap to be fed to the American people on a daily basis and only gets accused of being whiny, immoral, permissive and the contributing to the decline of society if they dare defend principle and truth.

*So Called Liberal Media

Kudos Erin for the intelligent perspective and non-partisan consideration of the issues at stake in this sordid episode. Feel free to post any/all of this to your blog as you continue coverage, or forward to others interested.

Tara-ist (12:57am):

Long post, oops, wrong thread. Maybe you could email Erin and ask her to move it to the right postÖ

Öand now that youíre calmer, you might consider toning down the ad hominem attacks it contains. They donít strengthen your case, at least for us ëundecidedsí.

a reader (May 9, 7:19pm) asks good questions about accomodating studentsí deeply felt beliefs, such as the position that cutting animal flesh is immoral. Bob Finegan (May 9, 11:26pm) puts matters in a slightly different light, wondering "When does a required exercise in ëlearning by doingí become improper indoctrination? many of us hold spiritual beliefs that assert the sanctity of both human and animal life. Such beliefs do not have to conflict with a serious pursuit of knowledge, biological or otherwise."

The outline of one answer comes out of David Fosterís point (May 9, 4:24pm): "Science [is] based on the principal that you can "see for yourself"...you don't need to appeal to authorityÖIf you dissect the frog for yourself, you are seeing for yourself...if you explore a 3-D model in virtual space, you are taking someone's word for it."

As a working (and squeamish!) biologist, I would offer that understanding the workings of ëanimal fleshí through dissection is a small but pretty central part of the science of biology. Yes, itís possible to have an overall appreciation of the field without such experience. Nor is it fatal to lack exposure to molecular biology, botany, or bacteriology. But such ignorance is not a good thing, and a curriculum that permits opting out of such areas will be weaker for it.

Jeff Licquia (May 9, 8:00pm) says that most parts of this policy apply to general ed classes rather than to biology majors. Given the broad and generalist scope of survey courses, Iím more troubled by the "slippery slope" question than by the policy itself (though Iíd be interested to hear what teachers of such courses have to say). And it bears remembering that the slippery slope is a feature, not a bug, to the "animal rights" groups advocating this change.

But, a reader and Bob Finegan, the central struggle is over who gets to define a science curriculum--the scientists doing the instructing, or the students? (Or, on which side should the Department and Administration enter the fray?) Contra your opinions, I think that the C.O. (or squeamish) student should choose another subject area, or be willing to accept a lowered grade and a lesser understanding of the material.

As an aside, I brought this up with a Hindu biologist I work with, who trained and taught in India. The issue didnít come up there: students were required to do their lab dissections, period.

Perhaps a relevant thought experiment is to consider a student with Creationist beliefs. Evolution is the paradigm that allows the scientist to make sense of our field (dissenters are an iconoclastic minority with disproportionately loud voices). Should this Creationist be excused from the study of evolution? Perhaps the faculty be expected to tailor the coursework to her particular faith, after judging the sincerity and depth of her convictions?

I'd propose, instead, that she should be expected to put her disbelief aside, and learn evolutionary theory as an intellectual exercise.

The same line of reasoning would be applicable to dissections.

OK, you say the professor can require the dissection, but let's apply the rule even-handedly. Can't the professor in critical disciplines require the student, as you say, as "an intellectual exercise," critique US culture? I think that critiquing culture is as central to social disciplines as dissection.

Brian: Thanks for the question. Yes, you're over-reading me. I'm not positing an absolute of the sort you mention. I don't think that animal life and welfare are equivalent to human life and welfare. But neither do I think it is right to treat animals as mere resources in the many cruel ways we do in order to advance our knowledge, especially when there are alternative ways to gain such knowledge, if we'd just put a little effort and imagination into devising such alternatives. As Isaac Bashevis Singer said, for the animals all men are Nazis, and this world is an eternal Treblinka.

AMac: I don't think the Creationist analogy works very well here, since the objections of the students in the Illinois case don't arise from a disagreement with faculty about what's true or what's a scientifically valid paradigm. No student should be excused from studying a subject merely because the student disagrees with its tenets. But styudying evolution or Marxism doesn't harm anyone. The Illinois students are objecting to a method of investigation that involves harming and killing sentient beings. They do not want to participate in causing such harm. I'd bet that many if not most of these students would not object to dissecting animals who are not killed for this purpose. If sufficient effort were put into making such an alternative available, no curriculum changes would be necessary.

a reader (6:26am):

Good question re. consistency, I've been thinking about it and will try to post later. Short answer: the requirement to "critique US culture" as you describe it sounds ok to me. (Question--what is/are "critical disciplines"?)

Your first 2 posts concern 'consistency'. In your third (5/9, 10:54pm), you return to the topic here, animal dissection. You state that professors should evaluate students who object to dissection. Those judged to be sincere in their beliefs couldn't then be penalized for not dissecting.

I argued against this proposal (5:51am). Comments? In the name of consistency, don't you have to extend your opt-out proposal to the study of evolution? To critiques of US culture? To every area of inquiry subject to strongly-held beliefs?

Bob Finegan (2:44pm):

Good point on my creationist analogy. I do think it has some value in considering the questions that a reader raised.

Since you mention Treblinka -- I wouldn't accede to participating in unethical human experimentation. You find animal experimentation to be comparable to the murder of people; I think there is a world of difference. Based on this perceived moral equivalence, it seems obvious that the "animal rights" movement must object to any dissection, whether or not animals had been killed for that purpose. Dissection is a target of opportunity--political calculations aside, how can the movement object less fiercely to leather clothes or to eating meat? The slippery slope, again.

I don't have a resolution to our different moral perspectives.

AMac, but it's so much easier to pose questions than answer them!

OK, I already said that for the non-major I would accomodate a deeply held CO on dissection, and I laid out the parameters of how I'd decide who was a CO and who wasn't.

As for evolution, I guess it's legitimate for a professor to require students to reiterate and apply a standard Darwinian framework if that student wants a bio credit. Why? Because the student can say, "According, to Darwin, yadda yadda yadda," or "The standard evolutionary accounts provides that blah blah blah." In other words, you can test the student's accumulation of knowledge without making them commit to it. By the same token, I could see a bio prof teaching history of science require students to elucidate the creationist perspective or the Lamarckian perspective -- on the theory that understanding those discredited theories is part of the course.

Now, on the harder part, which is the focus of so much of Erin's writing. And I will say that I struggle with this because I teach professional ethics at the post-graduate level, and I have deeply held views on some of the topics I teach.

To what extent can a social sciences prof require the student to understand, to express, to apply, or even to adopt theories in those fields? I have no trouble with the professor requiring the first three activities (understand, express, apply), but balk at the third (adopt). I feel that the social sciences are not exact, that much of their application is essentially political and uncertain -- and that, as Aristotle said, the wise person demands of a topic only as much precision as that topic allows.

My examination essays come in different kinds. Some are fairly objective in that I ask the student to apply an ethics code to a fact patter, to spot the issues raised, to identify the rule(s) that would govern the issue, and to briefly state facts that would steer the result toward one result or the other.

But I also ask a normative question, such as "what should the rule be regarding the relative powers of the professional and the client/patient to decide the objectives and tactics of the relationship/treatment?"

On that one, I tell the students they must anticipate and wrestle with anticipated counter-arguments to their proposed rule. This takes some of the subjectivity out of the grading, because I think I can predict what those objections would be in the real world if the student's rule were proposed.

But the nub of the question comes down to the student's reply to the counter-arguments. Given my own views, can I say that the student's reply is inadequate because it doesn't square with my own deeply held views? I sure hope not. In fact the highest grade last year was from a student proposing a rule I have spent considerable time speaking against.

Here, for me, is the tough answer to Erin's toughest posts. Suppose a humanities prof is faced with some suburban kids who really haven't experienced much of the world, and who want to major in, say, economics. Isn't it fair in the second or third level classes to expect the students to take in and be able to replicate sophisticated normative arguments? I do. That's a key part of economics. Can the professor profess her normative beliefs in the class room? I hope so. But I hope that professor finds a way to grade such that the student with thoughtful, deeply committed viewpoints to the contrary is at no disadvantage for top grades. For me, that takes hard work by the professor, but it would create an atmosphere where students would encounter different views in a non-coercive setting -- and where the student who disagrees witht the professor is a valuable part of that diversity of views.

That's hard to pull off, but that's my goal.

Vanity, Vanity, All is Vanity

Most of the posts on this thread are vain and pointless. They address the issue of whether there should be dissection and under what circumstances.

The debate is whether the professor should determine this for his class or whether somebody else should determine it for him. If only the professor determines it, then the students will be handed knives and told to get to workóno matter what opinions are thrown around. The debate over dissection only matters once it has been determined that the professor does not control his own curriculum.

By the way, who is expected to pay for the animalsóalive or deadóthe instruments, and the laboratory? Has that somebody been consulted on how to spend his money?

AB, I don't follow your argument. If, as it seems, you are suggesting that the professor decides, then I think the professor can engage in radical left-wing indoctrination excercises --and radical right-wing ones for that matter.

But then you veer off and raise the "who pays?" issue. Well, I don't think the university professor buys the frogs and scapels himself, does he? The taxpayer does, through the legislature. If we follow that train of reasoning, then the professor should control the curriculum only to the extent she pays for it -- i.e., not at all, in most cases.

So I am having trouble following your argument.

AMac: I'm not trying to speak for the whole animal rights movement here; there's too much philosophical diversity within this movement, too much I disagree with, too many embarrassing allies, like Peter Singer, for me to do that. And again, I'm not positing a moral equivalence between human life/welfare and animal life/welfare. I cited the I.B. Singer quote not to assert such equivalence but to dramatize the terror and suffering that millions of animals have to live and die with as a consequence of what human beings do to them. Most people prefer to eat their steaks or advocate animal experiments without giving serious thought to what goes on in the factory farm, the slaughterhouse and the laboratory. Similarly, some commenters here want to completely sidestep the ethical issues involved in causing harm to animals and reduce the Illinois case to a simple matter of upstart students trying to usurp a professor's authority to determine course content, as if such authority were somehow absolute and above ethical scrutiny. But these animals are not like some theory you can master without subscribing to it. When you take a scalpel to an animal that's been killed so you can dissect it, there's a kind of commitment and approbation in your cutting.

I don't believe animals should be killed for food or leather or dissection. But I have no problem with dissecting animals who die of natural causes, or whose owners euthanize them to spare them suffering, then donate their bodies to science. I don't understand why even animal rights advocates who believe in the moral equivalence you mention should condemn dissection of such animals. Who objects to dissection of human cadavers?

Bob:

First off, thanks for answering my question. I'm a former researcher, now retired, and I've done my fair share of vivisection. I also sat on the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of a major medical school for several years.

"I cited the I.B. Singer quote not to assert such equivalence but to dramatize the terror and suffering that millions of animals have to live and die with as a consequence of what human beings do to them."

But that is the effect, Bob. The only way the drama works is through moral equivalency - one must conjure up an idea of what happened to human beings in Treblinka, and measure your characterization of what happens to animals by it.

Beyond this, I don't trust my emotions to lead me to the best answer on matters like this. My emotions are fallible, and they've led me astray too many times for me to depend upon them without measuring them against what my head tells me.

So, in my opinion, dramatizing an issue like this stokes emotions perhaps more than is best. For example, you talk of terror and suffering of animals. It's been my experience that Animal Rights advocates sometimes expand the definition of "suffering" to include being caged, indeed, even to include being controlled by human beings.

Now - if by suffering you mean "feeling pain," then most animals used in the experiments I'm familiar with do not suffer very much at all - mostly the pain of injections, and blood draws.

There are exceptions, of course, but IACUC's require researchers to minimize pain and suffering as much as possible. And, in 25 years of doing animal based research, I've never seen any animal that I could honestly say was terrorized - at least no more so than our two cats who accompanied us from the midwest to the west coast by airplane (they cowered for awhile in after being freed from their transport cages, but recovered fully within a couple of days).

When you talk of pain and suffering, at least in research and biomedical testing, it would be good to recognize the benefits of research. If you'd like, I can elaborate on some things that simply couldn't be done without the use of animals (including microsurgery, product batch testing, the effects of interacting body systems, and tissue and organ culture).

"Most people prefer to eat their steaks or advocate animal experiments without giving serious thought to what goes on in the factory farm, the slaughterhouse and the laboratory."

Perhaps that's true. But - to confine my comments to what goes on in the research laboratory - I don't think most people would be at all shocked by what they saw in a typical lab. Most of what happens is pretty banal. Now - if you are talking about animal sacrifice, once again, IACUC's require that to be done as humanely and pain-free as possible. In fact, I just hope that when it is my turn to go, I will leave this world as quickly and easily as the animals I put down!

And when you talk about raw numbers, consider the number of animals that the SPCA, Humane Society and Pound put down every year! I'd bet a lot that that number far exceeds the total number of animals used in research every year (and most of the research animals are rodents, not dogs or cats).

I think it's very important to balance the cost of doing animal research (including the ethical cost) against the cost of not doing animal research. By the way - I don't think it's any more correct for those who support the benefits of research to ignore the costs of it than for those opposed to research to ignore it's benefits.

I see animal research, regulated as it presently is, to be an important tool in the armamentarium of medicine, and for me, the health of my family trumps the cost of this kind of research.

Just my thoughts - thanks for reading, and forgive me if I seem defensive.

Regards,

Brian

University Governance

Most of the comments on this thread have gone off the issue of university government. It can be taken as a given that some support and some oppose dissectionóthe animal-rights debate is irrelevant. The question raised here is who makes the decision on whether it will be done: the professor, or somebody else?

My comment on funding is a round-about way of pointing out that the professor does not operate in a vacuum, but is part of an institution.

I would argue that the question of whether or not a student should be required to perform a particular action - one that they find strongly objectionable - is very much a case-specific one.

The central issue here, it seems to me, is really a variant cost/benefit analysis. Is performing an actual frog dissection critical to an understanding of the principles that the course is attempting to convey? Would a more palatable alternative have roughly the same educational value? Finally, could such an accommodation be procured at a reasonable expense?

Although I have less experience in this particular field than others, I find it difficult to believe that a single animal dissection has particularly weighty value to a general biology course, and that either observing another student's dissection (or even simply observing a simulation) wouldn't have a similar pedagogical value.

Obviously, this equation changes depending on the specificity of the class; a veterinary student refusing to dissect a frog might miss out on very relevant course material. Similarly, a medical student who refused to study cadavers would lose arguably the most important study aid available and would rightly be suspect as a practitioner. But for a simple introductory class, it seems like this issue is really a tempest in a teapot.

a reader,

If you're going to use a fake email address, you should make it more obviously so.

Bob Finegan (7:02pm):

Concerning the treatment of lab animals, my own experiences in academic biology and in the biotechnology industry parallels those described by Brian (10:07pm) to a very great extent. At the risk of 'ditto', here are some of the comments I couldn't post earlier today.

>I cited the [Treblinka] quote ... to dramatize the terror and suffering that millions of animals have to live and die with as a consequence of what human beings do to them. Most people prefer to eat their steaks or advocate animal experiments without giving serious thought to what goes on in the factory farm, the slaughterhouse and the laboratory.

People who work in laboratories do think about these matters. If animal use could be brought to zero, it would be. Ameliorating pain and suffering is taken very seriously. Other people not reaching the same conclusions as you isn't evidence of lack of reflection on their part!

>Similarly, some commenters here want to completely sidestep the ethical issues involved in causing harm to animals and reduce the Illinois case to a simple matter of upstart students trying to usurp a professor's authority to determine course content...

Every person has their own perspective, I don't see it as sidestepping.

>I have no problem with dissecting animals who die of natural causes...

If only that would suffice for teaching, research, and medical training. Alas, it would not.

Again, I see the chasm between us, and I can disagree with your position while respecting its integrity. I can't see how to bridge the gap.

a reader (4:41pm):

>AMac, but it's so much easier to pose questions than answer them!

Well, I hope you don't see my questions as cheap shots; most of my posts are reflections on issues raised by other folks, including you. Anyway, your responses are elegant and illuminating.

Imagining myself as a biology professor, I would resent the burden of having to judge the merit of students' "C.O."-style claims for exemption from lab dissections. Providing an appeals process with due process would seem to be an administrative nightmare. However, from your vantage as a college prof, you think it could work, at least for non-majors. Perhaps it's a good thing that UIUC is giving it a try; we can learn from their experience.

Bob Finegan (2:44pm) pointed out some limits to my evolution analogy. Along those lines, you highlight the difference between students having to learn and understand an objectionable theory ("evolution", "Marxism"), and perform actions that they find morally repugnant (dissection). This strikes me as a valid distinction.

I Googled for a closer analogy, and found one right at UIUC, at the**Animal Sciences webpage** (and notice the slab of beef in the photo backdrop). Here is the description of ANSCI 119, "Meat Technology":

"Student participation in the transformation of live animals through slaughter and carcass fabrication into food products for human consumption; includes laboratory."

Based on reasoning I've given earlier (5:51am), I think it's a stretch to reconcile an anti-dissection ideology with the best teaching practices for biology--but, per a reader, perhaps it's feasible.

It is beyond me to see how ANSCI 119 and similar courses in the UIUC catalog can make such an accomodation. These courses are designed to educate prospective farmers to understand and manage agricultural businesses. To the extent they raise animals or sell meat, are farms, farmers, farm families, and rural economies immoral? It seems to me that Animal Rightists must answer "yes" (politically unpalatable though that is), and judge the education offered by Ag schools accordingly.

On the harder part, consistency. Thanks, a reader for your eloquent exposition of your teaching philosophy. I think most commenters here would be delighted to be your students.

I think most professors aspired to ideals such as yours when I was an undergrad (disco era). In the physical sciences, I think this is still the case.

Judging from the links that Prof. O'Connor provides, and cases at web-sites like FIRE.org and noindoctrination.org, I find it hard to believe that your ideals of free inquiry are the dominant ones throughout the humanities and social sciences. This impression is strengthened by a few unfortunate incidents at my own alma mater, and by my general reading in history and politics. A single example: I'd invite readers to look over **Daniel Pipes' essays**, and form their own opinions of how Pipes develops his arguments, and of his opinions themselves. Then, regard the hostility to his opinions and his person in large swathes of the academic community. Here is a recent example, a student paper article on **his reception last month at U. Wisc.**. A Google search will bring up others.

From my vantage point, some who reap the benefits of tolerance and freedom (academic, religious, of the press) do not see these characteristics of Liberal society as virtues, but rather as weaknesses to be exploited in their quests to grasp and hold power. This is hardly a novel problem (e.g. Kerensky/Lenin 1917; Wiemar/Hitler 1933). Nor is it wholly unacknowledged by its "Cultural Marxist" practitioners, or the Frankfurt School from which this movement sprang (sorry, lost links).

The dark looks from my impatient son are increasing in intensity, so I'll need to end here for the weekend. I've appreciated the opportunities to read some great expositions (a reader, Bob Finegan, Brian, Justin Katz, Stolypin, and others). I hope I've contributed more light than heat in my own postings.

AMac: I meant that comment to be a small joke at my own expense -- not at yours. I was suggesting that it was easier for me to post questions than to give a complete protocol as to when I would or would not accomodate student objections.

Thanks to you and the other posters for discussing this issue. As you can tell from my posts, I don't think free speech in the classroom (or anywhere else) is the normal state of affairs that occasionally gets ruined by wayward professors. I think free speech is the exception and can be created only through hard, persistent work.

I also agree with the implication of Erin's posts that a true "diversity" of views in the classroom is likewise quite difficult to achieve, and that nowadays the term "diversity" is usually a political bludgeon for achieving a monotonous viewpoint.

Brian and AMac: I didn't mean to imply that all people who disagree with my conclusions about these issues have not given them serious reflection, or that people who work with lab animals all do so in callous disregard of the animals' suffering. I wouldn't make a judgment about an individual's actions without hearing his or her rationale. It's just been my experience that most people I talk with about such issues haven't given them much reflection. Many prefer to actively avoid such reflection, since thinking carefully about the issues might result in developing scruples about eating meat or supporting research that harms animals, and they don't want the discomfort such scruples might give them (plus they like their hamburgers). I wasn't saying anything specific about people who do such research. Actually, I think eating meat is much less defensible than most of this research. Not many even try to defend the cruelty and carnage of factory farms and slaughterhouses anymore.

I think I.B. Singer's quote about Treblinka is useful because it renders vivid the terror the animals live and die with in a way that makes the animals' experience hard to ignore. I don't agree that such drama works mainly by asserting equivalence -- similarity, certainly, but not exact equivalence. Good drama appeals to both the emotions and the intellect in a way that base demagoguery, with its cheap manipulation of the emotions, does not. I agree that we have to be careful to balance emotions and intellect when we parse difficult or painful issues like these. Dramatic examples need to be accompanied by strong philosophical argument. But a hypertrophied intellect that derogates "affect" and dismisses the wisdom that emotions like empathy can bring us is pretty dangerous also.

I don't have any easy answers to these dilemmas regarding research, and I also struggle with weighing the benefits of doing the research against the benefits of not doing it. I think GB makes some good points about case-by-case evaluation and cost/benefit analysis being wise approaches to these issues.

When I mentioned the sidestepping, I was referring mainly to AB's comments, not either of yours. Unlike your posts, AB's posts claim the ethical considerations regarding harm to animals are simply irrelevant, and that professorial authority and institutional funding are the only issues worth considering here. This is oversimplification and sidestepping. I teach in a university, so professorial authority is not unimportant to me. But my autonomy is not absolute. It's circumscribed by, among other things, the ethical standards of the community. My students are part of that community, so they should have some say about the ethical standards that place limits on what I can do, or what I can require them to do, in the courses I teach.

Whether it's waiting to see as precisely as we can what went on in Dailey's classroom, or dissecting and seeing for yourself what the inside of an animal looks like, what's really at stake here, I think, is the defense of the empirical tradition and its institutions. One way of thinking about a university is that it's a place where for four years you attempt to take empiricism seriously - you attempt, even if it's just a thought-experiment -- to put in abeyance the non-empirical modes of thought you've brought to the university. You allow the basis of your religious beliefs, for instance, to be questioned on the basis of that tradition. Not destroyed, but jiggled a bit, so you can get clearer about the nature of your own affiliations -- how to go about understanding them in the context of secularity, and indeed how to go about defending them.

I think, in other words, that what's at stake here is the ability to enter into a world committed to empiricism (and, yes, I'm aware that some departments in universities aren't committed, like Women's Studies, which exist precisely to confirm women in self-flattering prejudices; but even in the humanities most courses involve the close reading of texts and careful attention to historical context, for instance) for a period of time, to take it seriously and learn from it, and then to go on your way. You're free to continue to believe all sorts of non-empirical or empirically shaky things, but at least you've been able to enter into another discourse, a discourse that happens to be one crucially important philosophical basis of the country you're living in.

The American university, that is, represents a certain sort of thing, a certain sort of reflection of a culture committed to neutrality in regard to the most deeply held private beliefs. American primary and secondary school looks like this too. If you don't like this sort of thing, home schooling or private schooling is the way to go; you can then go on to a private college or university founded by people who share your particular beliefs.

purcell (10:16am), an eloquent statement on the proper role of empiricism in the academy:

>The American university, that is, represents a certain sort of thing, a certain sort of reflection of a culture committed to neutrality in regard to the most deeply held private beliefs.

What has stayed with me from college: Intellectually, the best experience is to engage with others, and change my opinion as a result ("I'm alive.") Second is influencing those I respect ("My view must have elements of morality, logic, and completeness.") Then comes learning to honor opposing viewpoints ("I don't agree, but I can understand and respect this different perspective.") Still worthwhile is achieving simple comprehension ("This point of view is indeed based on faulty logic, incompleteness, or an alien morality.")

On this web-log, Prof. O'Connor presents links and commentaries on campus activities, and invites readers to consider intentions and effects. In many cases, the highest aspirations are beneath those I mention above, thus far below the standard proposed by purcell.

My "gutter award" nominees would be the Teach-in (as practiced at Columbia), the Tunnel of Oppression, and campus newspaper theft.

On dissection: this thread leaves me unswayed as to the Animal Rights position. Nonetheless, some thoughtful and logical arguments have been presented by the 'other side', and I can envision some limited compromises that would uphold academic principles.

Purcell: Your post about empirical traditions in education begs some important questions. First, exactly what sort of empiricism are you talking about? Do you mean simply a method of investigation that proceeds from hypothesis through experiment to a conclusion which is itself provisional upon further hypothesis and experiment, or are you referring to the radical empiricism that holds that all real knowledge comes exclusively through the senses?

Since you speak about the humanities, I assume you mean the first sort of empiricism. In that case, I don't see why you place university scholarship inside the empirical circle and religion outside, or on the margins. Religion has its own sort of empiricism, with approved methods of investigation employing hypothesis, experiment, and various modes of confirmation. Religion operates by evidence and knowledge as well as by faith. Science and other sorts of scholarship operate by faith as well as by evidence and knowledge.

I don't think the sort of secular empiricism you're referring to can fully address such questions as "How should we live?" or even, "What should we study?" Since a part of what's being discussed in this thread is the ethical dimension of animal dissection, it's important to acknowledge the limited usefulness of the empirical method in determining values and ethics. Empiricism can't ever fully explain whether a certain course of action is right or wrong. In fact, empiricism can't even tell us why it's the best philosophical orientation by which to guide learning. To determine the best such orientation, first you need to define your desired outcome, which you can't do without positing values. Empiricism can't tell me why I should help people rather than exploiting them. Useful as empiricism is, it's really just a bag of tools -- I can use these tools to fix your car, to swindle you by turning back the odometer on a lemon I'm trying to sell you, or to disable your brakes so you crash. But the tools themselves will never tell me which of these options would be the wisest for me to pursue. Religion, another crucially important philosophical basis of the country we're living in, will provide the guidance that pure empiricism can't for a decision like this, and for many other decisions inside and outside the university.

Here's a plug for my favorite philosopher on issues like this one -- few thinkers parse such subjects more sensibly than William James.

Purcell gets to the bottom of what is really at stake here quickly and concisely ñ ìempirical traditions and its institutionsî ñ echoing an earlier warning by David Foster that the UIUC policy ìsubtly undercut[s] the entire scientific notion of how truth is determined.î The most predictable complaint against this argument is the obvious self-reference and privilege of human over animal interest. Bob Finegan counters both Purcell and Fosterís human-specific argument with a more egalitarian and universal regulation of power by pointing out that humans would object to a more evolved outer space species that would kill, dissect, or eat humans to improve alien quality of life ñ a true but, nevertheless, irrelevant tidbit about the food chain.

I experimented with vegetarianism a long time ago and failed miserably largely because of my overwhelming appetite for meat. The guilt faded away much, much later when I literally rediscovered on the Animal Planet something that I may have purposely forgotten ñ that animals eat other animals.

The sad truth about my rediscovery is that further power comes from initial power. It is irrelevant that the gazelles and the deer object to being eaten by the tigers. The tigers make a tiger-specific argument about eating weaker animals, and the weaker animals make a self-centered argument about eating even weaker animals. Demanding equal treatment for animals would then only be demanding for the unequal treatment of humans since no other animal besides humans can even attempt to carry the burden of not eating other animals. This essentially does more than equate humans with animals: it subordinates humans to animals since it denies humans what it cannot deny other animals.

Unfortunately, power is the original source of power. But fortunately, through civilization, we realized that initial power is an accident of nature and chance. And that given the chance, unequals can become equals. This is now part of our social contract. But unlike the slaves, the reason animals cannot be a part of this social contract is because even with chance, they could never build society; therefore, they are forever relegated as means to it. That is why killing a frog for science is not the same as killing another human being for the same reason.

Nevertheless, I donít see any harm in humanely treating animals.

--

A reader, I think stipulating sincerity or consistency, as a factor in evaluating the necessity of vivisection would entail an intrusive investigation on the studentís personal life. I agree with AMAC on this: students should just set aside their political beliefs.

pok: Gazelle and deer don't object to being eaten by tigers on any philosophical or ethical basis. Nor do tigers try to justify their predation. Animals cannot judge or be judged for such things since they're not equipped with the requisite moral faculties.

This tired old food-chain argument that since animals eat other animals, and since human beings are also animals, it must be all right for us to eat animals seems to me very bad logic. Do we really want to look to the animal kingdom for moral exemplars? Alligators eat their young. Male lions routinely kill the progeny of other males with whom they compete for females they want to mate with. All of this is natural, as it's natural for human beings to eat meat. But murder and rape and theft are quite natural, too -- that doesn't make them morally permissible. And the fact that someone's moral character might prevent him from taking up bank robbery does not subordinate him to bank robbers, though he might not turn out be as wealthy as they are.

But if I'm reading you right, I guess our disagreement is more fundamental. I believe that morality has a transcendent source, that it's not merely the product of a utilitarian social contract. You say you believe that "initial power is an accident of nature and chance," whereas I believe it was an immortal hand or eye that framed the tiger's fearful symmetry -- and that he who made the lamb made thee. He gave the tiger his stripes, the lamb his wool, and to us he gave moral and spiritual faculties to understand that we're called to a higher responsibility and destiny.

pok...just to clarify, my post does not address the "animal rights" issue at all. My point was that "virtual" dissections are not equivalent to "real" dissections from a pedagogical standpoint. This does not prove that they are justified from an ethical standpoint. I believe that they are, but the reasons must extend beyond the scope of the argument that I made in the referenced post.

Bob Finegan (9:07pm, 12:03am) and pok (9:49pm) discuss the morality of using animals, specifically dissecting them and eating them. We all agree: if it's immoral, we (eg UIUC) shouldn't do it, empiricism (purcell, 10:16am) and pedagogy (David Foster, 3:42am) be damned.

Of course, we don't agree. The Animal Rights view is a minority one; how should our institutions balance respect for its adherents while at the same time respecting the carnivorous (etc.) practices of the majority?

I'm convinced that Bob Finegan's mention of Treblinka posits a false moral equivalence. [Thought experiment: if you had the chance to dynamite a Nazi death camp (killing its guards), or a slaughterhouse (killing its employees)--would that really be a tough choice?] It is a useful reminder that the Animal Rights folks perceive their struggle in that stark light.

Adherents of other religous and philosophical trends, past and present, have also been clear on the superiority of their ideals. A few of these movements have triumphed, notably Abolitionism. Most haven't (anti-death-penalty, pro-life, anti-GM foods, and prohibitionism come to mind).

The debate benefits from struggling openly with the concepts involved. Institutions like UIUC need to strike a balance between their core missions and the passionate opinions of a minority. Animal Rightists and the wider public alike should acknowledge that lab rats and dissected frogs are targets of convenience, nothing more. The real issue is the practice of eating meat.

Animal Rights adherents must also realize that their beliefs conflict with other ideals. They have a long and uncertain road to travel in convincing other citizens of the justice of their cause. It's hard to be tolerant when you know that you're right.

>It's hard to be tolerant when you know that you're right.

I should make clear that this isn't directed at correspondents on this thread, or parties to the UIUC dissection debate. I meant to reflect on the absolutist strain within the animal rights movement, as represented by the Animal Liberation Front.

Bob:

"I think I.B. Singer's quote about Treblinka is useful because it renders vivid the terror the animals live and die with in a way that makes the animals' experience hard to ignore. I don't agree that such drama works mainly by asserting equivalence -- similarity, certainly, but not exact equivalence. Good drama appeals to both the emotions and the intellect in a way that base demagoguery, with its cheap manipulation of the emotions, does not. "

The problem with dramatizing situations is that the drama can present an activity in a good light or a bad light, depending on the inclinations of the dramatist.

By it's very nature, drama is bias, which is why drama is useful for advertising, entertainment and propaganda.

When we make a comparison of the very worst sort of human conduct towards other humans (Treblinka), and liken it to what human scientists (to keep this in my area of expertise) do to small numbers of non-human animals, we are using drama to reach a predetermined conclusion - an incorrect one that places science in a particularly unfavorable light.

As AMac has pointed out, such a comparison is a false equivalency on 2 levels. When we consider how little most people know about science and scientists (itself a scandal!), the false Treblinka/scientist comparison is more likely to guide folks away from what science truly is than to help them understand it.

For the reader who wishes to be enlightened rather than persuaded, unadorned facts might be more useful than a dramatization of the facts. When we intend to persuade rather than to enlighten, drama can be a very useful tool.

Finally, having vivisected for over 25 years, and having served on my IACUC for the last 3 years of my career, I disagree with any implication that research animals typically live in terror, suffer much pain, or that they die grotesque deaths.

Just some thoughts - I'm enjoying the process of putting some ideas together. Thank you for reading and responding.

Brian

This has been a very good thread. I took a lot out of it. Thanks.

Bob,

ÿ This tired old food-chain argument that since animals eat other animals, and since human beings are also animals, it must be all right for us to eat animals seems to me very bad logic. Do we really want to look to the animal kingdom for moral exemplars? Alligators eat their young. Male lions routinely kill the progeny of other males with whom they compete for females they want to mate with. All of this is natural, as it's natural for human beings to eat meat.

Except that this argument relies on confusing nature with interchangeability ñ since humans can suppress in them the natural appetite of alligators and lions for their young, then, surely, humans must also suppress their own natural appetite for meat. In actuality, there isnít a real suppression of alligator and lion instincts in humans simply because these instincts, though natural for alligators and lions, are in fact inconsistent with human nature.

Furthermore, humans donít have to pattern their moral codes after animal behavior because their similarities in some donít require that they be similar in all. Their common traits donít necessitate a negation of their specific differences. Ironically, animal-rights activists concede this. But they take it even further with the reverse: humans must apply back to animals what makes them unlike animals, essentially making humans not quite like animals and makes animals quite like humans. And this is possible only because humans, by virtue of their reason, are objectively different from animals.

Thus, for some, it is immoral for humans to do to animals what they wonít do to each other. In the first place, this is only true if the essence of morality is the equal treatment of humans and animals, a point animal-rights groups could only concede yet fail to argue. In the second place, humans are objectively different from animals, so morality between humans and between humans and animals donít have to be objectively the same.

In fact, for many, the ultimate essence of morality is the wellbeing of humans. And they reject the subduction of their wellbeing under the welfare of animals as a great immoral. This is utilitarian, indeed, but not inconsistent with morality. Rather, it guarantees the highest morality of all ñ the preservation of human life.

I think even hardcore PETA radicals will concede that animal deaths can serve the purpose of a higher goal. Ali G gave a moral dilemma to some British activists: What if someone said hereís a chicken, eat it or weíll kill more chickens.

I think itís an interesting question.

pok and Bob Finegan:

You guys agree on the question: "Is it moral to kill animals in pursuit of things we want?"

I don't think we'll arrive at a consensus answer any time soon.

Two points I take from this thread--

1. Per a reader (5/10, 4:41pm), asking students to participate in an activity they find immoral (dissection) is not comparable to asking students to study ideas they find immoral (evolution, Marxism). UIUC is working to devise alternatives to dissection labs. But beware the slippery slope: some students find entire fields of study to be repugnant. How will UIUC respond to the animal rightist who enrolls in **ANSCI 119, Meat Technology**, then demands that its lab requirement be altered to accomodate his beliefs?

2. To the extent that the issue is the morality of killing animals, dissection is a sideshow. Dissectors are a small and easily caricatured group of callous Dr. Frankensteins, indifferent to the terrified whimpers and beseeching eyes all around them. Oops, sorry, I meant to say "group of scientists, doctors-in-training, and educators." Picketing the butcher shop, Burger King, and the shoe store might not yield many converts, but it would have the virtue of making the stakes of the Animal Rights debate clear to all parties. It's a clarity most of us could use, if we don't live on a farm or hunt. It's too easy to neglect how meat gets from the hoof to the grill. On this subject, I'll add "A Day No Pigs Would Die," by Robert Peck, to Bob Finegan's earlier recommendation of William James.

Oh Lord, Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood

Iím pressed for time today and canít respond to all the responses to my posts. But a couple of things: AMac, why not just believe me when I say that my use of the I.B. Singer quote was not intended to posit the sort of moral equivalence you mention? A comparison like Singerís is a rhetorical technique that can, and in this case does, yield results other than such assertions of equivalence. Of course Iíd never kill slaughterhouse employees, and Iím made very uncomfortable by the way that paragraph of yours appears to lump me in with the sort of extremists who, as you say, ìperceive their struggle in that stark light.î I appreciate your follow-up disclaimer, and Iíd like to urge all readers of this forum to guard against the very common tendency to think of animal rights advocates in caricatured or monolithic terms.

Brian: My use of the Singer quote was not emotionalism or demagoguery. Good drama, like good polemics, can enlighten as well as persuadeówitness Shakespeare, G.B. Shaw (to cite another vegetarian dramatist). In fact, if the only intention of drama is to persuade, you can bet itís not very good drama.

Bob Finegan (8:26pm)--

Re. the Singer quote:

I take your point that there are diverse viewpoints within the animal rights movement. I don't think my post was a caricature of the extremist A.R. position as much as description of it. Readers can try this Google search and browse the results--

Bashevis Singer Treblinka animals -eternal

But it was careless of me to tar with a broad brush, even by implication (4:44am), which is why I wrote that short clarification (5:30am). Each of us is responsible for our own words, not what others write in our names.

And, yep, it's frustrating to want to post when the time isn't there.