Consideration and checkboxes: incorporating ethics and science into the 3Rs

Members of the research community aim to both produce high-quality research and ensure that harm is minimized in animals. The primary means of ensuring these goals are both met is the 3Rs framework of replacement, reduction, and refinement. However, some approaches to the 3Rs may result in a 'check box mentality' in which IACUC members, researchers, administrators, and caretakers check off a list of tasks to evaluate a protocol. We provide reasons for thinking that the 3Rs approach could be enhanced with more explicit discussion of the ethical assumptions used to arrive at an approved research protocol during IACUC review. Here we suggest that the notion of moral considerability, and all of the related issues it gives rise to, should be incorporated into IACUC discussions of 3Rs deliberations during protocol review to ensure that animal wellbeing is enhanced within the constraints of scientific investigation.