Free Planet of the Apes and Philosophy by John Huss Page B

to the logical positivists, moral discussion is empirically meaningless. But that is not the whole story. Positivists felt compelled to explain why intelligent people continued to make moral judgments and continued to argue about them. Their explanation goes like this. When people say things like “killing is wrong,” which seem to be statements about reality, they are in fact describing nothing. Rather, they are “emoting,” expressing their own revulsion at killing. “Killing is wrong” really expresses “Killing, yuk!” And when we seem to debate killing, we are not really arguing about ethics (which we can’t do any more than you and I can debate whether we like or don’t like the Tim Burton remake), but rather disputing each other’s facts. For example, a so-called debate over the morality of capital punishment is my expressing revulsion at capital punishment while you express approval. What we can debate are factual questions such as whether or not capital punishment serves as a deterrent against murder.
    It’s therefore not surprising that when scientists were drawn into social discussions of ethical issues they were every bit as emotional as their untutored opponents. According to positivist ideology these issues are nothing but emotional ; therefore, the notion of rational ethics is an oxymoron, and he who generates the most effective emotional response “wins.”
    So in the 1970s and 1980s debate over the morality of animal research, most scientists either totally ignored the issue, orcountered criticisms with emotional appeals to the health of children. For example, in one film entitled “Will I Be All Right, Doctor?” (the question asked by a frightened child), made by defenders of unrestricted research, the response was “Yes, if they leave us alone to do what we want with animals.” So unabashedly mawkish was the film, that when it was aired at a national meeting of laboratory animal veterinarians, whom you’d expect to be about the most sympathetic audience you could find, one veterinarian exclaimed that he was “ashamed to be associated with a film that is pitched lower than the worst anti-vivisectionist clap-trap!”
    Other ads placed by the research community affirmed that ninety percent of the animals used in research were mice and rats, animals “people kill in their kitchens anyway.” Sometimes questions raised about animal use, as once occurred in a science editorial, elicited the reply that “Animal use is not an ethical question—it is a scientific necessity,” as if it cannot be, and is not, both.
Stop Thinking You Can Think!
    Denying the relevance of values in general and ethics in particular to science has blinded scientists to issues of major concern to society. But that’s not all. There is another major component of scientific ideology that harmonizes perfectly with the value-free dictum. That was the claim that science can’t legitimately talk about consciousness or subjective experiences—since they are unobservable—which led to a question about their existence—even pain! (John Watson, the founder of Behaviorism came close to saying that we don’t have thoughts, we only think we do!)
    As you can imagine, agnosticism about animal pain quickly devolved into atheism. During the 1970s and 1980s, two veterinarians, an attorney, and I conceptualized, drafted, and ultimately persuaded Congress to pass two pieces of 1985 federal legislation assuring some minimal concern on the part of researchers for the welfare of laboratory animals. In the course of my discussions with Congress, I was asked why a law regulating animal research was needed. I replied that the scientific community did not use analgesics (painkillers) for animals used in the most painful experiments. Congress replied thatthe research community claimed it did use painkillers very liberally, and it was my job to