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Abstract:
Imagine if you will the following experiment. Two monkeys, an actor and a receiver, are placed in adjacent rooms. The actor can see the receiver through a one-way mirror. Every time the actor presses a button to receive food, a painful shock is delivered to the receiver monkey. Will the actor stop pressing the button when he sees another monkey in pain? What if the actor were starving? If the actor does stop pressing, will he extend his sympathy to an unfamiliar monkey, or even to another species? Why should he? A parallel can be drawn between the monkey actor's dilemma and the dilemma presented to us as members of a civilized society: what are the costs and benefits of hurting another living being and how far should we extend our sympathies? There are no easy answers to these questions, and battle lines have been drawn between those of us who believe that knowledge and the minimization of human suffering is worth the cost and those that believe humans are barbarians for having such beliefs.
