Article

Enjeux historiques et philosophiques de l’expérimentation animale

Historical and philosophical issues in animal experimentation

¹ Institut du Cerveau (ICM), GH Pitié-Salpêtrière, 47 boulevard de l’Hôpital, 75013 Paris, France
² Institut d’Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques (IHPST), CNRS, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, 13 rue du Four, 75006 Paris, France

^* Auteur correspondant : georges.chapouthier@sorbonne-universite.fr

Reçu : 18 Avril 2018

Résumé

Les ébauches de l’expérimentation animale peuvent être trouvées dans l’Antiquité, mais sa pratique moderne s’amorce à partir de la Renaissance. C’est Claude Bernard qui en analyse au XIX^e siècle les bases, fondées sur le concept philosophique cartésien de l’animal-machine. Mais le développement même de la biologie bernardienne a révélé que les animaux, notamment les animaux dits « sentients », disposent de processus de sensibilité et de conscience proches de ceux des êtres humains. D’où un souci moral qui se glisse, de nos jours, dans l’expérimentation animale et qui conduit à diverses améliorations du traitement des animaux d’expérience.

Abstract

Initial practices involving experimentation with animals can be found in ancient Greece, but animal experimentation as understood in the modern world first emerged in the Renaissance. In the 19^th century, the French scientist Claude Bernard analysed the basis for animal experimentation using the Cartesian philosophical concept of animals being equivalent to machines. Yet as Claude Bernard’s work on biology developed, it showed that animals, in particular the so-called sentient animals, did have forms of sensitivity and consciousness similar to humans. This led to the present-day moral concern with animal experimentation. The moral argument is expressed in philosophical terms in the Universal Declaration of Animal Rights and the law known as the “Three Rs”, while the practical measures for implementation are set out in the European Directive 2010/63/EU on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes, and then as transposed and enforced in the different European Union Member States. This has led to improvements in the treatment of animals used for experimentation, and also allows scope for further improvements to be added in the future, particularly with alternative methods.