Institute for Biomedical Ethics, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
Care and Public Health, Research Institute Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands.
Med Health Care Philos. 2024 Dec;27(4):497-512. doi: 10.1007/s11019-024-10221-y. Epub 2024 Aug 17.
Sacrificial dilemmas such as the trolley problem play an important role in experimental philosophy (x-phi). But it is increasingly argued that, since we are not likely to encounter runaway trolleys in our daily life, the usefulness of such thought experiments for understanding moral judgments in more ecologically valid contexts may be limited. However, similar sacrificial dilemmas are experienced in real life by animal research decision makers. As part of their job, they must make decisions about the suffering, and often the death, of many non-human animals. For this reason, a context-specific investigation of so-called "3R dilemmas" (i.e., dilemmas where there is a conflict between the principles of replacement, reduction, and refinement of the use of animals in research) is essential to improve the situation of both non-human animals and human stakeholders. An approach well suited for such investigation is experimental philosophical bioethics ("bioxphi"), which draws on methods similar to x-phi to probe more realistic, practical scenarios with an eye to informing normative debates and ethical policy. In this article, we argue for a need to investigate 3R dilemmas among professional decision-makers using the tools of bioxphi. In a first step, we define 3R dilemmas and discuss previous investigations of professionals' attitudes in such cases. In a second step, we show how bioxphi is a promising method to investigate the whys and hows of professional decision-making in 3R dilemmas. In a last step, we provide a bioxphi template for 3R dilemmas, give recommendations on its use, explore the normative relevance of data collected by such means, and discuss important limitations.
牺牲困境，如电车难题，在实验哲学（x-phi）中扮演着重要角色。但越来越多的人认为，由于我们在日常生活中不太可能遇到失控的电车，因此此类思想实验对于理解更具生态有效性背景下的道德判断的用处可能有限。然而，动物研究决策者在现实生活中会遇到类似的牺牲困境。作为其工作的一部分，他们必须就许多非人类动物的痛苦，甚至死亡做出决定。出于这个原因，对所谓的“3R 困境”（即研究中使用动物的替代、减少和优化原则之间存在冲突的困境）进行特定于背景的调查对于改善非人类动物和人类利益相关者的状况至关重要。实验哲学生物伦理学（“bioxphi”）是一种非常适合此类调查的方法，它借鉴了类似于 x-phi 的方法，以研究更现实、更实际的情况，以期为规范性辩论和伦理政策提供信息。在本文中，我们主张有必要使用 bioxphi 的工具来调查专业决策者的 3R 困境。在第一步中，我们定义了 3R 困境，并讨论了之前对这些情况下专业人员态度的调查。在第二步中，我们展示了 bioxphi 如何成为调查 3R 困境中专业决策的原因和方式的有前途的方法。在最后一步，我们提供了一个 3R 困境的 bioxphi 模板，给出了使用该模板的建议，探讨了通过这种方式收集的数据的规范相关性，并讨论了重要的局限性。
