Vivisection, Virtue Ethics, and the Law in 19th-Century Britain

Abstract

This historical study of early 19th-century opposition to vivisection suggests that the moral persona of the vivisector was an important theme. Vivisectors claimed they deliberately suppressed their feelings to perform scientifically necessary experiments: Where there was reason, there could be no cruelty. Their critics argued they were callous and indifferent to suffering, which was problematic for medical practitioners, who were expected to be merciful and compassionate. This anthropocentric debate can be located within the virtue ethics tradition: Compassion for animals signified a humane character. The 1876 Vivisection Act facilitated experimentation by separating the practice of vivisection from that of medicine.

Justifiability and Animal Research in Health: Can Democratisation Help Resolve Difficulties?

“…There is also historical precedent for similar actions in healthcare. For example, in early 19th century Britain, doctors who performed vivisection were subject to boycotts out of fear that they lacked sensitivity and compassion [ 63 ].…”

Vivisection, Virtue, and the Law in the Nineteenth Century

“…34 I have argued elsewhere that the ideal of gentlemanly medical conduct was, in modern terms, an expression of virtue ethics, a system first described in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and distinguished by its focus on motives and character rather than actions. 35 In the eighteenth century, in what has been termed 'the decline of virtue', character-based ethics began to lose ground to utilitarianism and deontology, but medicine still retained an old-fashioned attachment to the virtues and a strong emphasis on the good character of its practitioners. 36 For example, in the Fortnightly Review of (1882), the physician William Benjamin Carpenter (1813-1885) wrote that the morality of a pain-giving act lay not in the act itself (deontological ethics), nor in its result (utilitarianism), but in the motive for the act, a test that was also applied to vivisection.…”