Animal Testing in the Risk Society and Violation of the Principle of Equal Consideration of Interests

Abstract

This paper seeks to analyze the practice of animal testing under the paradigm of the Risk Society, Animal Rights, and in which point such research hurts the principle of equal consideration of like interests advocated by Peter Singer and other moral philosophers. On the one hand, this paper calls into question the attempt to transfer the results of an experiment with animals to reactions in humans, and the security criteria (or insecurity) adopted by science. On the other hand, an evaluation is made of how much these animal models are considered speciesist practice, which does not take into account the interests of non-human sentient species (which are capable of suffering). The historical, comparative and deductive methods have been used in order to reach the intended goals. The sources of research used are mostly bibliographical: books, papers and journals. Theoretical references adopted were the risk society theory proposed by German sociologist Ulrich Beck and the animal ethics theory advocated by the Australian philosopher Peter Singer.