Sean Whitcomb clearly identified the moral issues related to vivisection (Letter to the Editor, Dec. 4). Unless human beings are more valuable than other life, then sacrificing animals for the benefit of humans lacks moral justification, and boils down to the stronger imposing its will on the weaker.

Mr. Whitcomb views the vivisection as a moral wrong that we must not allow. I would like to know what his basis is for applying this moral judgment to others to society as a whole. Moral judgments imply a definitive right and wrong that transcend any one individual, mankind as a whole and even the entirety of the physical universe. Any lesser basis degenerates to my preference vs. your preference, my ability to impose my will on others. Mr. Whitcomb rightly decried the cruelties done in the Holocaust and the syphilis experiments. Unwittingly, however, his stating that we must not allow vivisection boils down to the same attempt to impose his preference on others, appealing to some moral imperative that he fails to define or support.

Is the pervasive sense that humans are somehow more valuable than other life an evolutionary product of the drive to survive, or an awareness of a transcendent reality? Did God create human beings in His own image, and give them a higher place in the hierarchy of creation than other life and inanimate objects? If so, then the sacrifice of animal life to meet human needs is justifiable, but only within Biblical standards of respect for God’s whole creation, and of avoiding wanton cruelty to animals.

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If human life occurred only as an evolutionary product of time, chance and physical forces, then any definition of right and wrong beyond personal or collective differences logically breaks down. So does any logically defensible basis for meaning and purpose to our lives.

There is not space here to present the historical and logical evidences supporting the Biblical assertion that we are created by God, and that morals and meaning derive from His existence and character. Vivisection and other issues require examination in the context of a clearly defined moral system.

associate professor, plant and soil science