Response to Kelsey

Kelsey asked if it is morally justifiable to genetically engineer animals if they are not harmed. I assert that it absolutely is not in any way. I justified this a little bit in my Q&A and also in a previous discussion we had about levels of animal harm.

With any level of genetic engineering, there has to be pain and discomfort involved. We discussed in an earlier class that while there are different levels of pain and discomfort, these levels still exist. Studies proved that removing an animal from its habitat and/or subjecting it to any sort of "experimentation" caused the animal's stress level to rise significantly. Now unless genetic engineering can now be done on the open field, which I highly doubt that it can, then you would have to subject the animal to these conditions. The animal would no doubt have discomfort and stress, thus making the act unjustifiable.

Also, I think we are abusing our moral agent status by doing this to animals. It's probably safe to say that no animal would actually desire to be genetically engineered in any way. They have lived happy and content lives for thousands of years without such interference. It's ludicrous and pretty arrogant to think we could help in any way.

In addition, altering species like this simply leads to a bad place. We supplant creation for existence. We decide that we can not cope with existing animals and so we modify them as we see fit. We could poison our food system. Maybe we could even alter them so far as to make ourselves the hunted.

It all goes scary places and the benefits of it are not justifiable in any way. At least to me.

Question: Is transgenesis and animal experimentation an abuse of moral agent status?