Engineering Ethics

C O M M E N T A R Y

Intuitive Level System Rules: Commentary on ‘‘Utilitarianism and the Evolution of Ecological Ethics’’

Gary Comstock

Received: 2 February 2008 / Accepted: 19 August 2008 / Published online: 11 October 2008

� Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2008

Gary Varner’s essay ‘‘Utilitarianism and the Evolution of Ecological Ethics’’ on the

evolution of the code of the Ecological Society of America is at once provocative

and programmatic [1]. Proving the relevance of ethical theory to the practice of the

professional study of ecology, it identifies not only the key questions for future

research but, in addition, an extensive set of plausible hypotheses.

One example is the role of intuitive level system (ILS) rules. 1

Following R. M.

Hare, Varner argues that the overall good will be maximized if, as a matter of

course, low-level rules are regarded as well-founded truths and acted on more-or-

less unthinkingly. For two-level utilitarians, moral agents are generally justified in

acting on ILS rules even if they have not critically examined those rules. This is

because the vagaries of human knowledge, the ease of self-deception, and the

impossibility of gathering, much less weighing, all the relevant facts before pressing

decisions must be made, require use of ILS rules all the time. Varner goes as far as

to recommend that everyone train themselves to think of ILS rules as having—in his

tasteful metaphor—a deontological flavor.

Fondness for flavors is fickle. Imagine you like the strawberry flavor of an ILS

rule. Then you learn that the flavor derives not from the juice of a wild berry ripened

on a vine but from one reddened on an industrial shelf with ethylene gas. Should we

turn our backs on that rule because it no longer tastes right? Under what epistemic

conditions is one justified in abandoning an ILS rule?

There may be no general answer to the question, but all the guidance needed may

be found by examining specific cases in historical context. Consider the ILS rule,

G. Comstock (&) National Humanities Center, Research Triangle Park, 7 Alexander Drive, PO Box 12256, Durham,

NC 27709-2256, USA

e-mail: [email protected]

1 Intuitive level system (ILS) rules are practical moral norms developed by societies for agents to follow

more or less unreflectively. When they are the result of critical reflection, ILS rules recommend actions

that promote the greater good of the whole.

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Sci Eng Ethics (2008) 14:575–579

DOI 10.1007/s11948-008-9096-z

Do no harm, and its usefulness in rejecting the proposal to test pesticides experimentally on people. The rule acquired its deontological weight by expertly

guiding day-to-day decision-making in medical contexts where subjects are persons.

It may prove equally helpful in environmental contexts where the subjects are, for

example, endangered species or ecosystems. But, one may ask, does critical

thinking about human pesticide toxicity tests give a reason to suspect its

applicability to this case?

Pesticides are poisons. Poisons harm their targets. In testing pesticides on people,

people are the targets of the poisons and the clear implication of ‘do no harm’ in this

context is that pesticides should not be tested on people.

Like every ILS rule, this is easy to understand, simple in form, not difficult to

apply, and straightforward in its policy implications. These features make it

appropriate for teaching to children. Uncomplicated, straightforward, effective in

guiding behavior, and tested over time in multiple situations, the rule maximizes the

probabilities that decisions made in accordance with it will give the right results

whenever questions about testing pesticides on people arise.

If this rule did not exist, one could be forgiven for wondering why it had failed to

evolve. Pesticides represent threats. Individuals who react instinctively against

threats of harm to themselves, their kin and other species members have obvious

reproductive advantages over those who lack this response. Individuals who live in

communities that have internalized this rule are more likely to flourish than those

who live in communities in which it does not appear.

But the facts of human pesticide toxicity testing provide some reason to suspect the

justification for this No-test rule. In the late 1990s, the Environmental Protection

Agency (EPA) was directed to add a 10-fold safety factor to its risk assessments of

pesticide residues in food. The extra factor was intended to give children and other

vulnerable members of society an extra cushion of protection and to bring to

calculations of risk deeper recognition and respect for the variability between humans

and the experimental animals from which the toxicity calculations are derived.

The pesticide industry responded by arguing that the additional 10-fold factor

would be unnecessary if the toxicity tests were done directly on humans.

Physiological reactions to toxins in one species are not a valid inferential basis

for extrapolations to the physiological reactions of another species. The most

accurate way to determine the highest actual level of safe exposure to pesticides in

humans is not to test on animals and then add an arbitrary factor as a cushion. It is,

rather, to use humans in the tests. So argued the industry. Within two years of the

Congressional directive to the EPA, a series of experiments were begun

intentionally exposing informed, consenting adults to pesticides. Before the end

of 2004, at least 15 new human toxicity studies were submitted to EPA’s Office of

Pesticide Programs. 2

Soon thereafter the Environmental Working Group began a

campaign opposing the research on ethical grounds.

2 Personal correspondence with John M. Carley, Program Analyst, U.S. Environmental Protection

Agency, Office of Pesticide Programs, 11/2007. Carley notes that since EPA’s promulgation of the rule in

February 2006 ‘‘the controversy has largely died down … and no proposals for new research involving intentional exposure of human subjects to pesticides to identify or quantify toxic endpoints have been

submitted to the agency for several years.’’

576 G. Comstock

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Who is right, the pesticide industry apparently wanting to overturn the No-test on humans rule or the advocacy group largely resting their case on it? To answer the question one must move to the level of critical thinking and the reasons that support

each side.

In favor of the rule are at least eight arguments. First, pesticides are not needed.

Where consumers are willing to accept the costs and farmers the challenge, society

could devise an alternative system of agriculture relying entirely on organic,

sustainable methods of controlling pests, rejecting all synthetic chemicals. Second,

pesticides can damage non-target organisms, including animals grazing in fields and

workers who apply them. Third, farm workers spraying the chemicals often are

migrants who lack economic resources for dealing with illnesses they contract or

access to political and judicial institutions needed to redress exploitation. Fourth,

pesticides can harm consumers who eat the foods on which they have been sprayed.

Fifth, it is unclear at best that it is necessary to test pesticides on people given the

protocols and history of data from animal testing. Sixth, direct dosing of humans

will only contribute to the experimental subjects’ cumulative exposures, raising the

chance of harm from long-term, unpredictable, perhaps undetectable deleterious

effects. Seventh, toxicity testing of pesticides on humans does not benefit the

research subjects enrolled in the tests. They are not suffering from any disease

exposure to pesticides may ameliorate, so exposing them does them no good.

Eighth, it is little justification that the subjects have given informed consent as those

enrolling in experiments are subject to all sorts of pressures. Even if someone is

willing to sign an informed consent release, society should not give them this

opportunity if doing so violates their integrity or autonomy.

There are also a number of arguments in favor of abandoning the No-test on humans rule. First, pesticides lower food costs to the nation’s poorest and neediest consumers [2]. The interests of children in low income families who benefit from a

cheap food policy should be counted equally with the interests of those experimental

subjects being enrolled in the study. Second, it is extremely unlikely that the current

system of monocultural industrial agriculture will soon be replaced by a system that

does not depend on synthesized inputs. Third, developing pesticides for this system

is necessary but costly, risky, and time-consuming. It can involve $60 million in

development costs, take more than 7 years from discovery to registration and be

successful in the case of \1 in 20,000 new chemicals tested [3]. Fourth, with fewer and more expensive pesticides for growers to use, cost of food to consumers will

rise. 3

Fifth, the interests of sentient animals count, and the costs of the pain,

deprivation and frustration of the experimental animals is not insignificant. Sixth,

while humans have the right not to be experimental subjects without their informed

consent, no humans have or will be used in toxicity testing unless they are fully

informed and give written consent. Thus, their rights are not violated in this case.

Seventh, while one can be easily misled by self-interest in reasoning about matters

involving finances, there is no danger of self-deception here. Finally, there is

3 After the re-registration process was begun prior to 1992, some 5,000 pesticides in use at the time of

cancellation were dropped [4].

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substantial knowledge of the possible benefits and risks of these studies: the benefits

are significant, the risks minimal.

Explaining the arguments on both sides of the debate may seem like little more

than rehearsing the ‘talking points’ on each group’s website. In controversial cases,

it is unclear on which side critical thinking should come down. In the face of

contradictory or ambiguous information, two-level utilitarianism advises sticking to

the ILS rule.

However, after critical reflection, it might well turn out that toxicity testing of

pesticides on humans is not such a case. This type of testing apparently can do little

harm. Again, consider the facts. All studies submitted to the EPA followed a rising

dose model and studied acute effects of single doses. The initial dose was set so low

that adverse effects would be unexpected. With one exception involving significant

cholinesterase inhibition, no adverse effects were reported either at initial levels or

at subsequent loading doses. As the head of EPA’s Human Research Ethics Review

Office noted, the study has been hailed as ‘‘a model of risk minimization, since the

subjects experienced no adverse effects.’’

Two-level utilitarianism begins with ILS rules, subjects these rules to critical

thinking, and then adjusts ILS rules accordingly. If the argument of the prior

paragraph is sound, then the law ought to allow toxicity testing in humans. But a law

allowing government agencies to test pesticides on humans would nonetheless strike

many citizens as inconsistent with the ILS rule, ‘‘Do no harm.’’

If a law allowing testing and the ‘‘Do no harm’’ rule conflict, it is not a logical

conflict (what Hare calls a conflict per se) because the conjunction of the two is not

self-contradictory. The two rules may conflict in a practical sense or, as Hare puts it,

per accidens: ‘‘Two principles conflict per accidens when . . . they cannot, as things happen to be, both be complied with’’ [5]. As things happen to be, it is impossible to

comply with both rules if (a) scientists are mistaken in their belief that subjects

involved in pesticide toxicity testing are not harmed by the tests, or (b) the practice

of human pesticide toxicity testing will undermine society’s ability to continue to

train people to act on ‘‘do no harm.’’

Assuming that scientists are correct in their belief that toxicity testing does not

harm test subjects and, therefore, that (a) is false, whether (b) is also false turns on

the sociological question of whether a society can simultaneously allow toxicity

testing on humans in its laboratories and effectively teach its children that it is

generally wrong to give poisons to innocent people. Institutional Review Boards

regularly allow research subjects to be subjected to risks without thereby

undermining the general ILS rule ‘‘Do no harm’’. So there is little reason to doubt

that society could continue to proceed in this fashion in the specific case of pesticide

toxicity testing. If (b) is false then ‘‘Allow human pesticide toxicity testing’’ and

‘‘Do no harm’’ do not conflict per se or per accidens. At the same time, someone asking why it is acceptable to allow toxicity testing on humans while preaching ‘‘Do

no harm’’ deserves to be provided with the reasons. Engagement is key; without it,

public policies allowing testing are likely to alienate the majority of fair-minded

people. If pesticide toxicity testing in humans is consistent with continuing to hew

to the ‘‘Do no harm’’ rule, then proponents of this policy must be prepared to

explain why. This point calls to mind one of Varner’s central claims that the best

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ILS rules will vary across contexts, including between common morality and

professional ethics [1]. It also emphasizes the responsibility of professional societies

to engage the public in discussions of the society’s goals and methods.

In formulating the claim, it is important to note that it is not that toxicity testing

in humans must be actively encouraged as a matter of public policy, but rather that it

must not be discouraged, much less outlawed. As noted, there are alternative forms

of agriculture that eschew pesticides; it is possible that pursuing an entirely different

form of agriculture would make pesticide toxicity testing unnecessary. Even without

changing the entire conceptual and cultural landscape, however, there are reasons to

proceed slowly, if at all, with toxicity testing in humans. These reasons include the

close ties between the pesticide industry and government regulatory agencies.

Industry money and political influence have been known to affect government

personnel decisions and interpretation of study results and there are good practical

reasons to remain ambivalent about whether toxicity testing in humans is needed.

However, apart from a wholesale change in the food production system, there seems

to be little reason to believe that critical thinking forbids.

How do professional codes come into being and how are they justified? [1]

provides excellent guidance on these questions. Following his trajectory, one must

ask when society is justified in overturning currently influential professional rules.

Pesticide toxicity testing in humans is a case for discussion. It bears underlining that

such revisions should only be taken with fear and trembling. ILS rules make life

manageable personally and help hold the community together. If it becomes a

widespread perception that many rules are unjustified, and that the rules are

primarily abused by people unwilling to take the time to think critically, then will

the whole system of rules lose their grip? If so, could this lead to social

disintegration? These are critical questions, questions professionals in ecology and

ethics must join together to answer.

References

1. Varner, G. (2008). Utilitarianism and the evolution of ecological ethics. Science and Engineering Ethics, 14(4).

2. Oleskey, C., Fleischman, A., Goldman, L., Hirschhorn, K., Landrigan, P. J., Lappé, M., et al. (2004).

Pesticide testing in humans: Ethics and public policy. Environmental Health Perspectives, 112(8), 914–919. http://www.ehponline.org/members/2004/6522/6522.html. Accessed 18 Feb 2008.

3. Bischoff, R. F. (1993). Pesticide chemicals: An industry perspective on minor crop uses. In J. Janick &

J. E. Simon (Eds.), New crops (pp. 662–664). New York: Wiley. 4. Ginaessi, L., & Puffer, C. A. (1992). Reregistration of minor use pesticides: Some observations and

implications. Situation and Outlook Report: Agricultural Resources. www.findarticles.com/p/articles/ mi_m3730/is_n25/ai_12134251. Accessed 18 Feb 2008.

5. Hare, R. M. (1981). Moral thinking: Its levels, methods and point. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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