But then they're back to harming the animals *as a means* (to getting government approval, or whatever). The fact that the intermediate goal is "not inherent to the stated goal" doesn't preclude the agent's harmful involvement of their victims from being instrumental and hence "intended" in the relevant sense.
But then they're back to harming the animals *as a means* (to getting government approval, or whatever). The fact that the intermediate goal is "not inherent to the stated goal" doesn't preclude the agent's harmful involvement of their victims from being instrumental and hence "intended" in the relevant sense.
Oh, I very much agree with your understanding of the morally relevant feature here; I'm drawing my analogy upon the concept that seems to be invoked by deontologists in the applied contexts where I encounter DDE.
In the vegan advocacy context, DDE is typically invoked in defense of animal deaths in plant agriculture, which are clearly instrumental but claimed to be "not inherent" because some idealized process of producing plant foods need not involve any such harm to sentients. I don't see how an instrumental consideration like economic necessity would be taken to differ deontically from an instrumental consideration like legal requirement. If poisoning of rodents in vegetable production isn't "inherent" to vegetable production, then animal testing to meet scientifically useless government demands shouldn't count as "inherent" to producing safe cosmetics, either.
Returning to my original claim, there does seem to be a kind of animal testing that would seem to fit this deontic concept of "inherent" (scientifically necessary to establish safety for humans), and the claim that such testing is worse than mandated but useless testing, is absurd.
But then they're back to harming the animals *as a means* (to getting government approval, or whatever). The fact that the intermediate goal is "not inherent to the stated goal" doesn't preclude the agent's harmful involvement of their victims from being instrumental and hence "intended" in the relevant sense.
Oh, I very much agree with your understanding of the morally relevant feature here; I'm drawing my analogy upon the concept that seems to be invoked by deontologists in the applied contexts where I encounter DDE.
In the vegan advocacy context, DDE is typically invoked in defense of animal deaths in plant agriculture, which are clearly instrumental but claimed to be "not inherent" because some idealized process of producing plant foods need not involve any such harm to sentients. I don't see how an instrumental consideration like economic necessity would be taken to differ deontically from an instrumental consideration like legal requirement. If poisoning of rodents in vegetable production isn't "inherent" to vegetable production, then animal testing to meet scientifically useless government demands shouldn't count as "inherent" to producing safe cosmetics, either.
Returning to my original claim, there does seem to be a kind of animal testing that would seem to fit this deontic concept of "inherent" (scientifically necessary to establish safety for humans), and the claim that such testing is worse than mandated but useless testing, is absurd.