A bit of blue sky thinking

As I have been progressing with my essay, in fits and starts, it seems that I have absorbed a great deal from the reading I was doing last summer. I have been writing about the need to pay attention, the need for curiosity and the requirement to try on other lenses - or to attempt to recognise the distortions imposed by one's own.

So, I am aware that I am largely antithetical to research on animals and that this leads me to read with pleasure and agreement philosophical papers that take that line. Likewise, I find the research suggesting that animal experimentation is unreliable far more convincing than research that goes on about how animals remain necessary.

But say I were in a position to talk to a researcher. How useful would arguments coming from these areas be? The researcher would have a completely different value system supported by different arguments and would be disinclined to see my data as a knock-down argument.

I realised that it would be better to level the playing field and just ignore our different views on how much protection animals should have and how much it is permissible to instrumentalise them for human benefit. Instead we focus on the specifics of the real-life decision to be made. I have to be aware that the researcher will see her work as important in the cause of alleviating human suffering and will feel that she has a moral purpose. I would antagonise her by telling her that her work is not ethical but I can seek to make headway by approaching the matter sideways, if you like.

To do that, I want to refer to harms she has not accounted for, benefits she may be exaggerating and alternatives that attain the same purpose without hitting ethical impasses.

I need to pay close attention to what is, not what I wish it to be. I need to find a way in which we can both win and the animals don't lose.

But I need to be able to argue for it. To be 'to the point' and 'logical'. I need to show not tell and I need to select only the best weaponry and use it well.

Ah. I need.