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The Bureaucracy of Empathy revolves around two central questions: What is pain? And how do we recognize, understand, and ameliorate the pain of nonhuman animals? Shira Shmuely investigates these ethical issues through a close and careful history of the origins, implementation, and enforcement of the 1876 Cruelty to Animals Act of Parliament, which for the first time imposed legal restrictions on animal experimentation and mandated official supervision of procedures "calculated to give pain" to animal subjects.
Exploring how scientists, bureaucrats, and lawyers wrestled with the problem of animal pain and its perception, Shmuely traces in depth and detail how the Act was enforced, the medical establishment's initial resistance and then embrace of regulation, and the challenges from anti-vivisection advocates who deemed it insufficient protection against animal suffering. She shows how a "bureaucracy of empathy" emerged to support and administer the legislation, navigating incongruent interpretations of pain. This crucial moment in animal law and ethics continues to inform laws regulating the treatment of nonhuman animals in laboratories, farms, and homes around the worlds to the present.
Introduction
1. The Legal and Scientific Landscapes of the Act
2. The Right Forms for the Job: Anesthesia, Brain Research, and Certificate E
3. The Prick of a Needle: The Challenges of Inoculation
4. Regulating Pain in Laboratories: The Inspectorate
5. Libel, Slander, and Vivisection
Conclusion: The Act in the Twentieth Century
Postscript: "Can They Suffer?"
Shira Shmuely is an Assistant Professor at the Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas at Tel Aviv University.
"Beautifully written, analytically rich, and historically detailed, The Bureaucracy of Empathy blends legal history with insights from the history of science, STS, and animal studies to create a novel understanding of science and law in practice. Shmuely convincingly demonstrates the centrality of the legal sphere to the production of knowledge as it played out on the bodies of countless laboratory animals."
– Rebecca J. H. Woods, University of Toronto, author of The Herds Shot Round the World
"This is a valuable work of history on the subject of animal pain. We are still debating many of the issues surrounding animal experimentation that Shira Shmuely pursues in impressive detail. Pondering this history, clearly and compellingly presented here, is essential for both historical understanding and present-day policy making regarding the treatment of animals."
– Martha C. Nussbaum, University of Chicago, author of Justice for Animals
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