35 pages • 1 hour read
Peter SingerAnimal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1977A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 2 Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 2 Summary: “Tools for Research”
Chapter 2 of Singer’s Animal Liberation describes the world of animal experimentation. At the beginning of the chapter, Singer mentions the 1987 film Project X, which exposed the American people to idea of animal experiments carried out by the military. The film is fictional, but the experiments mentioned within are not. The reality of the experiments is far harsher than depicted in the film. According to Singer, the Brooks Air Force Base in Texas conducted a gambit of tests on monkeys; after the chimps were taught how to use a control stick in a platform that mimicked the turbulence of a plane, they were then exposed to radiation and chemicals to see how these would affect their ability to “fly.” Singer lists the starvation, electric shocks, and psychological and physical torture these animals receive throughout the experiment. The data gathered is published to higher-ups without their knowing that animals are the primary subjects of the experiment.
In 1973, the American people are made aware that the United States Air Force purchased two hundred beagle puppies for the purpose of performing experiments on them, and there is a public outcry against it. After receiving an influx of letters and complaints, the Department of Defense announces that they will be postponing the tests. Singer speculates that people responded so strongly to the news because “people tend to care about dogs because they generally have more experience with dogs as companions” (28). Singer also reports other similar experiments; at the Fort Detrick laboratory, scientists test the effects of TNT on animals, while at the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute, monkeys are forced to run on treadmills while being shocked and irradiated.
The chapter continues on to describe the push for the end of animal experiments in the cosmetics industry, where products are dripped into the eyes of animals in high amounts to determine toxicity. This process echoes that of many experiments on new and known chemicals: Animals are exposed to large amounts of often poisonous material to gauge the level at which they begin to display terrible symptoms in response. The problem with these tests is that the level of toxicity one species can take is not necessarily that of another; Singer quotes a toxicologist who said it best: “If penicillin had been judged by its toxicity on guinea pigs, it might never have been used on man” (33). Singer believes that alternatives to animal testing can be developed, and until then, the first step should be to utilize fewer “new but potentially hazardous substances not essential to our lives” (35).
The United States has fallen behind European countries on the regulation of animal experimentation. Singer believes the reasons for this are a combination of the public’s ignorance of these types of experiments, the media’s disinterest in covering animal experimentation, scientists’ need to gain funding, and their tendency toward an ethical blindness born out of years of schooling.
Chapter 2 Analysis
Singer combines ethos and pathos to communicate his point. Ethos is an ethical appeal to the reader, where the author attempts to establish authority and credibility. This can be seen when Singer utilizes reports written by scientists responsible for the experiments rather than by sources who share his own position:
In descriptions of experiments in this chapter up to now, I have limited myself to summarizing the reports written by the experiments themselves and published in the scientific journals. That evidence cannot be accused of being exaggerated (90).
This allows Singer to establish himself as a credible source.
Singer also uses pathos, an appeal to the emotion of the reader For example, Singer recounts an experiment on baby monkeys and the experimenters’ attempts to achieve psychopathology in the animals through methods such as taking babies away from mothers at an early ages, forcing the animals to imprint on synthetic surrogate mothers that would hurt them, and birthing babies from violent monkeys. Harlow and Suomi, the scientists responsible for the experiments, state that the isolated and morose moods of the monkeys born out of the trials resemble the helplessness of depressive episodes in humans but that the claims of such would have to be studied even further with a greater number of tests. According to Singer, over 250 experiments surrounding maternal deprivation have been repeated in the United States. Singer estimates that at the time, taxpayers have paid over $58 million for this line of research.
Singer lists several gruesome experiments on animals such as rats, monkeys, and dogs. A number of patterns emerge in his research: The types of experiments done on these animals are often repeated. Continued research due to a lack of conclusive data is often recommended. The data gathered from these animal experiments are often not enough to form a conclusion or are entirely irrelevant to addressing human illnesses or conditions. Singer believes that scientists’ detachment to their cruelty comes from a process that begins with reading, studying, and emulating experiments done by equally apathetic doctors. The medical terms used by the scientists to describe animals’ pain or fears are extremely clinical, lest they anthropomorphize the creatures; “negative stimulus” and “avoidance” are examples of this. Singer points out that the avoidance of anthropomorphism tells us that the experiments on animals “cannot teach us anything about human beings” (30).
The intense emotional response to these cases is juxtaposed sharply with the medical language that Singer quotes from scientific journals. The dissonance between the two tones and attitudes is clear, and serves to make Singer and his argument favorable to the reader. While Singer’s use of pathos undoubtedly aids his point and allows him to sway a greater number of readers to his cause, his use of empathy and emotion can also be perceived as hobbling him in some aspects of his argument. In the following passage, for example, Singer’s use of emotion is set aside in order to appeal to an “anti-speciesist” logic that many of his readers may not yet completely share. Singer writes:
Since a speciesist bias, like a racist bias, is unjustifiable, an experiment cannot be justifiable unless the experiment is so important that the use of a brain-damaged human would also be justifiable. This is not an absolutist principle. I do not believe that it could never be justifiable to experiment on a brain-damaged human. If it really were possible to save several lives by an experiment that would take just one life, and there were no other way those lives could be saved, it would be right to do the experiment (94).
After Singer’s use of pathos, he return to logos, without addressing the possible implications of emotion in the decisions and experiments he lists above. The flip back to logos on topics that are inherently emotionally charged from the mistreatment and abuse these minority groups have undergone and continue to fight against may read to some as less compelling for the animal rights cause.
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