Ethics as an area of knowledge involves the use of thought experiments. Here is one possible thought experiment that has been used as an argument to say that animal experiments are ethically justied.

Imagine you see a small van with 500 mice in it rolling slowly towards the edge of a cli. There is no driver in the van. In its way there’s a stroller with a human baby in it.

There are two possible outcomes.

● You push the stroller away and let the van roll slowly o the cli, killing the mice.

● You do nothing and the stroller prevents the van from going over the cli, but this kills the human baby.

Defenders of animal experimentation say that everyone would choose the rst option because human life is more valuable than animal life. They also say that using animal studies to develop potentially life-saving medicine is equivalent to this thought experiment.

What do you think about this argument?