5 ms·

Why is it unethical to put chips in monkey brains?

by not-my-account 4y ago

Tomis02 4y ago
How did you get consent to put the chip in?
- xattt 4y ago
  You ask for consent through the brain-computer interface. /s
  - rvnx 4y ago
    Conclusion from scientists: "If monkey drinks the smoothie, then it means he wants a surgery."
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- elil17 4y ago
  Sound's like you're opposed to all animal research, not specifically brain-computer interface research. We also don't ask a monkey's consent before doing any other sort of experiment on it.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Tomis02 4y ago
    I'm not necessarily opposed to it, I simply answered OPs question. It's unethical because there's no consent being given. However, humans do animal research regardless because they view it as "the end justifies the means", and they usually try to use humane methods (which is also not really an excuse because you can't ask the animal if it feels pain, or depression, or anything else).
    - gptgpp 4y ago
      To be fair, technically it becomes ethical when your position is that "the end justifies the means." IMO Utilitarianism is a particularly dangerous ethical framework when wielded by narcissists who have a difficult time imagining that they might catastrophically fail (looking at you Sam Bankman-Fried), or might not be delivering salvation to the world (looking at you Elon, lol). If you tell yourself it's for "the good of humanity", or the alternative is destruction / widespread death, you can justify any action.
burnished 4y ago
Well, for one, the lived experience for most science monkeys is "torture, execution, autopsy", and the reason we tamper with their brains is due to the similarity. I suspect others are taking the wide view but I wanted to point out this direct answer to your question. p.s the use of "torture" is intended in contrast to the neutrality of clinical language on this topic, not as a hint at my judgement on the matter.
gptgpp 4y ago
Oooh I love moral philosophy. Here's one deontological perspective you could take: It is always wrong to cause unecessary suffering to others. Now, the subjective traits to be considered here are "unecessary" and "suffering." It used to be a common belief that animals lacked the capacity to suffer as humans do. They could feel pain, nocioception sure, but whether it caused complex psychological suffering (torment) used to be contenious. Today, this is certainly not contentious for our closest relatives. All primates possess a theory of mind, long memory, emotional states, complex social behavior like lasting bonds and altruism, and other traits necessary to suffer in significant ways. So the focus (as long as we are considering primates, obviously nobody cares about model species like drosophilia as they have a greatly dimished capacity to suffer (edit: although I should mention that ranking things based on capacity to suffer leads to pretty awful territories too. Eg, if a human is severely mentally disabled, is more permissible to experiment on them? I think most of us would say no, which raises the question why it's okay to do so for other species)) shifts to whether causing them immense physical pain and torture is necessary. And this is where I think things get pretty murky, and I will leave the rest up to you! I wish more people were curious about moral philosophy and creating their own consistent ethical framework for the world... I think it's especially important in science and engineering. Of course, you could use a different model like utilitarianism, but utilitarianism still requires some level of deontological principles or you end up with a pretty extremist moral philosophy (same goes for just having Kantian deontology with no room for utilitarianism, IMO). edit 2: come to think of it, Jainists would certainly have an issue with experimentation even on drosophilia, so I take that back that "nobody" cares. IIRC they even have a mouth covering to prevent swallowing and killing any insects that might accidentally fly into their mouths, as well as a specialized stick to gently move things like spiders and other insects out of the way. I know most people would scoff at that, but I think their deep respect for all forms of life is beautiful.
- YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
  Nice analysis, shame about the cop-out ("I will leave the rest up to you!"). You're like- here's how to use morality, actually using it is left as an exercise to the reader :P Re Jainism, adherents practice lacto-vegetarianism, but they, for example, don't eat tubers because they consider them too advanced, if I understand correctly. A deep respect for all forms of life is hard to get right in a world where every living thing eats some other living thing, or dies.

Why is it unethical to put chips in monkey brains?

Tomis02 4y ago

How did you get consent to put the chip in?

xattt 4y ago
You ask for consent through the brain-computer interface. /s
- rvnx 4y ago
  Conclusion from scientists: "If monkey drinks the smoothie, then it means he wants a surgery."
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
elil17 4y ago
Sound's like you're opposed to all animal research, not specifically brain-computer interface research. We also don't ask a monkey's consent before doing any other sort of experiment on it.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Tomis02 4y ago
  I'm not necessarily opposed to it, I simply answered OPs question. It's unethical because there's no consent being given. However, humans do animal research regardless because they view it as "the end justifies the means", and they usually try to use humane methods (which is also not really an excuse because you can't ask the animal if it feels pain, or depression, or anything else).
  - gptgpp 4y ago
    To be fair, technically it becomes ethical when your position is that "the end justifies the means." IMO Utilitarianism is a particularly dangerous ethical framework when wielded by narcissists who have a difficult time imagining that they might catastrophically fail (looking at you Sam Bankman-Fried), or might not be delivering salvation to the world (looking at you Elon, lol). If you tell yourself it's for "the good of humanity", or the alternative is destruction / widespread death, you can justify any action.

burnished 4y ago

Well, for one, the lived experience for most science monkeys is "torture, execution, autopsy", and the reason we tamper with their brains is due to the similarity. I suspect others are taking the wide view but I wanted to point out this direct answer to your question. p.s the use of "torture" is intended in contrast to the neutrality of clinical language on this topic, not as a hint at my judgement on the matter.

gptgpp 4y ago

Oooh I love moral philosophy. Here's one deontological perspective you could take: It is always wrong to cause unecessary suffering to others. Now, the subjective traits to be considered here are "unecessary" and "suffering." It used to be a common belief that animals lacked the capacity to suffer as humans do. They could feel pain, nocioception sure, but whether it caused complex psychological suffering (torment) used to be contenious. Today, this is certainly not contentious for our closest relatives. All primates possess a theory of mind, long memory, emotional states, complex social behavior like lasting bonds and altruism, and other traits necessary to suffer in significant ways. So the focus (as long as we are considering primates, obviously nobody cares about model species like drosophilia as they have a greatly dimished capacity to suffer (edit: although I should mention that ranking things based on capacity to suffer leads to pretty awful territories too. Eg, if a human is severely mentally disabled, is more permissible to experiment on them? I think most of us would say no, which raises the question why it's okay to do so for other species)) shifts to whether causing them immense physical pain and torture is necessary. And this is where I think things get pretty murky, and I will leave the rest up to you! I wish more people were curious about moral philosophy and creating their own consistent ethical framework for the world... I think it's especially important in science and engineering. Of course, you could use a different model like utilitarianism, but utilitarianism still requires some level of deontological principles or you end up with a pretty extremist moral philosophy (same goes for just having Kantian deontology with no room for utilitarianism, IMO). edit 2: come to think of it, Jainists would certainly have an issue with experimentation even on drosophilia, so I take that back that "nobody" cares. IIRC they even have a mouth covering to prevent swallowing and killing any insects that might accidentally fly into their mouths, as well as a specialized stick to gently move things like spiders and other insects out of the way. I know most people would scoff at that, but I think their deep respect for all forms of life is beautiful.

YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
Nice analysis, shame about the cop-out ("I will leave the rest up to you!"). You're like- here's how to use morality, actually using it is left as an exercise to the reader :P Re Jainism, adherents practice lacto-vegetarianism, but they, for example, don't eat tubers because they consider them too advanced, if I understand correctly. A deep respect for all forms of life is hard to get right in a world where every living thing eats some other living thing, or dies.