Nico Dario Müller
Biographic Data
| ID | 6501828 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Nico Dario Müller |
| GIVEN NAMES | Nico Dario |
| FAMILY NAME | Müller |
| SIGNATURE | MÜLLER N D |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Basel |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0866-8235 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 0 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 12 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 0 |
Harm-Benefit Analysis for Animal Experiments Is Not Utilitarian
The claim is commonplace that harm-benefit analysis (HBA), a weighing procedure widely used in ethics reviews of animal experiments, is utilitarian. We argue this is false and misleading for three reasons: (1) HBA does not compare, let alone maximize, utility across different options, but merely assesses whether the consequences of one option are net-positive, thereby ignoring opportunity costs; (2) HBA does not aggregate utility coherently, as i…
Planning without Banning
The call for a planned phase-out is at the forefront of the political debate about animal experimentation. While authorities like the European Commission start taking a strategic approach to regulatory animal testing, they refuse to develop specific roadmaps for the phase-out of animal research. I articulate the central argument that is advanced against phase-out planning in animal research, the argument from avoidable harms: By restricting resea…
Why Not Phase Out Animal Experimentation? Considering Objections from Freedom of Inquiry and Cross-Border Displacement
Animal experimentation raises value conflicts between animal protection and other goods, such as freedom of inquiry or health and safety. If governments can phase out the practice by non-prohibitive incentive-setting, the pro tanto moral rationale for doing so is obvious. So why should they not? This article first sketches a fictional scenario in which a government adopts a phase-out plan for animal experimentation. It then considers two moral ob…
How to Give Ethical Input on Animal Research Transitions
Research that harms animals raises the question of whether and how science should be transformed over time. To helpfully address this issue, ethical guidance needs to be sensitive both to ideals and to real-world constraints. This paper provides a structured approach based on Rawls’s notions of ideal and nonideal theory. First, ideal animal research ethics needs to account for just relations between the polity, the scientific community, and anima…
Why (and how) total numbers should matter for animal experimentation policy
In many countries, overall animal experimentation is not significantly decreasing or becoming less severe. Does this show that these countries' programs to promote alternatives and the "three Rs" of "replace, reduce, refine" are failing? Scholars and activists sometimes take this for granted, but representatives of "three Rs" programs have disagreed. This article makes two contributions to the debate: one conceptual and one normative. First, it d…
The Counterproductiveness Argument against Animal Rights Violence
Arguments against inflicting violence on people to defend animal rights have relied on the view that inflicting violence is always wrong. But these arguments end up prohibiting too much, as defensive violence should be permissible in certain extreme cases. We argue that considerations about the counterproductiveness of defensive violence are better at distinguishing permissible and impermissible instances of animal rights violence than a blanket …
Killing in the Name of 3R?” The Ethics of Death in Animal Research
Changing relationships with nonhuman animals have led to important modifications in animal welfare legislations, including the protection of animal life. However, animal research regulations are largely based on welfarist assumptions, neglecting the idea that death can constitute a harm to animals. In this article, four different cases of killing animals in research contexts are identified and discussed against the background of philosophical, so…
Animals, Atrocity, and Trivialization
Many philosophers have said that atrocities are being committed against animals, particularly in industrialized rearing and slaughter. But they have made little of this powerful description. This paper argues that atrocities call for a different response than minor wrongs or evils, including that one should not trivialize them. The paper offers a new framework for understanding the trivialization of atrocities against animals and discusses the mo…
Rational Hope for the Animal Rights Movement
Animal ethicists have worried that hoping for the success of the animal rights movement is epistemically irrational because it contradicts our best evidence and practically irrational because it makes animal rights advocates complacent. Against these worries, this article defends the claim that animal rights advocates can rationally hope for the success of their movement despite grim prospects. To this end, the article draws on Philip Pettit's (2…
Kantianism for Animals
This is an open access book. It presents a novel approach to animal ethics based on Immanuel Kant’s ethical thought
Innocentism
From here to Utopia
Animal ethics has often been criticized for an overreliance on "ideal" or even "utopian" theorizing. In this article, I recognize this problem, but argue that the "nonideal theory" which critics have offered in response is still insufficient to make animal ethics action-guiding. I argue that in order for animal ethics to be action-guiding, it must consider agent-centered theories of change detailing how an ideally just human-animal coexistence ca…
No prominent works on this page.
Kantianism for Animals
This is an open access book. It presents a novel approach to animal ethics based on Immanuel Kant’s ethical thought
Innocentism
From here to Utopia
Animal ethics has often been criticized for an overreliance on "ideal" or even "utopian" theorizing. In this article, I recognize this problem, but argue that the "nonideal theory" which critics have offered in response is still insufficient to make animal ethics action-guiding. I argue that in order for animal ethics to be action-guiding, it must consider agent-centered theories of change detailing how an ideally just human-animal coexistence ca…
Rational Hope for the Animal Rights Movement
Animal ethicists have worried that hoping for the success of the animal rights movement is epistemically irrational because it contradicts our best evidence and practically irrational because it makes animal rights advocates complacent. Against these worries, this article defends the claim that animal rights advocates can rationally hope for the success of their movement despite grim prospects. To this end, the article draws on Philip Pettit's (2…
The Counterproductiveness Argument against Animal Rights Violence
Arguments against inflicting violence on people to defend animal rights have relied on the view that inflicting violence is always wrong. But these arguments end up prohibiting too much, as defensive violence should be permissible in certain extreme cases. We argue that considerations about the counterproductiveness of defensive violence are better at distinguishing permissible and impermissible instances of animal rights violence than a blanket …
Killing in the Name of 3R?” The Ethics of Death in Animal Research
Changing relationships with nonhuman animals have led to important modifications in animal welfare legislations, including the protection of animal life. However, animal research regulations are largely based on welfarist assumptions, neglecting the idea that death can constitute a harm to animals. In this article, four different cases of killing animals in research contexts are identified and discussed against the background of philosophical, so…
Animals, Atrocity, and Trivialization
Many philosophers have said that atrocities are being committed against animals, particularly in industrialized rearing and slaughter. But they have made little of this powerful description. This paper argues that atrocities call for a different response than minor wrongs or evils, including that one should not trivialize them. The paper offers a new framework for understanding the trivialization of atrocities against animals and discusses the mo…
Planning without Banning
The call for a planned phase-out is at the forefront of the political debate about animal experimentation. While authorities like the European Commission start taking a strategic approach to regulatory animal testing, they refuse to develop specific roadmaps for the phase-out of animal research. I articulate the central argument that is advanced against phase-out planning in animal research, the argument from avoidable harms: By restricting resea…
Why Not Phase Out Animal Experimentation? Considering Objections from Freedom of Inquiry and Cross-Border Displacement
Animal experimentation raises value conflicts between animal protection and other goods, such as freedom of inquiry or health and safety. If governments can phase out the practice by non-prohibitive incentive-setting, the pro tanto moral rationale for doing so is obvious. So why should they not? This article first sketches a fictional scenario in which a government adopts a phase-out plan for animal experimentation. It then considers two moral ob…
How to Give Ethical Input on Animal Research Transitions
Research that harms animals raises the question of whether and how science should be transformed over time. To helpfully address this issue, ethical guidance needs to be sensitive both to ideals and to real-world constraints. This paper provides a structured approach based on Rawls’s notions of ideal and nonideal theory. First, ideal animal research ethics needs to account for just relations between the polity, the scientific community, and anima…
Why (and how) total numbers should matter for animal experimentation policy
In many countries, overall animal experimentation is not significantly decreasing or becoming less severe. Does this show that these countries' programs to promote alternatives and the "three Rs" of "replace, reduce, refine" are failing? Scholars and activists sometimes take this for granted, but representatives of "three Rs" programs have disagreed. This article makes two contributions to the debate: one conceptual and one normative. First, it d…
Harm-Benefit Analysis for Animal Experiments Is Not Utilitarian
The claim is commonplace that harm-benefit analysis (HBA), a weighing procedure widely used in ethics reviews of animal experiments, is utilitarian. We argue this is false and misleading for three reasons: (1) HBA does not compare, let alone maximize, utility across different options, but merely assesses whether the consequences of one option are net-positive, thereby ignoring opportunity costs; (2) HBA does not aggregate utility coherently, as i…
Political science (8 works) · Animal ethics (6 works) · Animal testing and alternatives (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Animal rights (4 works) · Law and economics (4 works) · Philosophy (4 works) · Psychology (4 works) · Context (archaeology (3 works)