Should Chimps Have Human Rights? 1019
An anonymous reader writes "A Brazilian court has already issued a writ of habeas corpus in the name of a chimp. And now an Austrian court may well decide that a chimpanzee is a 'person' with what up until now have been called human rights." From the story in the Guardian/Observer: "He recognizes himself in the mirror, plays hide-and-seek and breaks into fits of giggles when tickled. He is also our closest evolutionary cousin. A group of world leading primatologists argue that this is proof enough that Hiasl, a 26-year-old chimpanzee, deserves to be treated like a human. In a test case in Austria, campaigners are seeking to ditch the 'species barrier' and have taken Hiasl's case to court. If Hiasl is granted human status — and the rights that go with it — it will signal a victory for other primate species and unleash a wave of similar cases."
I don't know (Score:2, Interesting)
Then compare that with the lowest human being and work your way up through the human being scale (if the chimp is better then the lowest human beings we have) until we find a type of human (most likely suffering some form of mental retardation) that is comparable with your average chimp. Then assign chimps the same rights as that human being has.
Unfortunately until now most research has been far too biased or faulty one way or another, and as such we don't know if chimps are equal to some humans. As such, how are we suppose to know if they deserve human rights?
By that standard (Score:5, Interesting)
On Penn & Teller's Bullshiat, a show with many many many subtle flaws despite it's many many many good parts, they once had a little bit in the PeTA piece about how if animals have rights, then therefore they should have responsibilities. When I first heard this I thought at first that this was just a bit of flat humor, but then it occurred to me that this was actually a very powerful argument. Fine - if the primate deserves equal protection under law, then he should get equal treatment under law as far as paying taxes, sending his offspring to school, not assaulting people by climbing on them, being hygenic, etc.
Discrete errors (Score:5, Interesting)
If we go by similarity to humans - we are apes. African apes, to be specific. That means that chimps are closer relatives to us than say orangutans are to chimps.
The intermediate stages from the common ancestor to the human and chimp branches are extinct, but that's just a coincidence, something that could have been the other way around. Looking at it that way the ethical questions become more difficult. When you can't define clear groups, the in-group/out-group ethics becomes difficult to rationalize.
Rather than an ethics based on questionable categories we need one based on functions - especially cognitive capabilities relating to suffering. When it comes to chimpanzees an the other great apes, the answer is very clear - we do need to give them rights. They may not understand it themselves, but neither do human children and we offer them rights and protection. Apes are a trivial problem - it becomes more difficult when you distance yourself further. What about cats, mice or even insects or one-celled organisms?
Re:It's sad how poorly they are treated (Score:3, Interesting)
After all, if lesser creatures don't deserve any kind of respect, then logically we wouldn't if there were clearly superior beings. We'd be pretty annoyed if we were drugged or killed for fighting back, I'd imagine.
woa, what about (Score:5, Interesting)
They also play hide and seek and are smart enough to anticipate what the other will do and make strategic counter moves to "cut em off at the pass" when playing in the yard.
And they enjoy being petted and tickled, that's obvious to anyone with a brain. And they even have favorite words. Like my puppy, when I call her by her regular name she responds and comes, sits, stays, etc..
But when I call her "wiggly dog" she explodes into a fit of tail wagging like you've never seen, she wags her entire body, like a snake wiggling on the ground. You can tell she takes extreme pleasure in being called "wiggly dog".. The male, his favorite thing is when I call him "big dog", he gets all excited about that just like the puppy.
My dogs are intelligent. I demand they get equal rights too damn it!
Re:I don't know (Score:3, Interesting)
I think we should be equally outraged at the prospect of elevating apes into that same subhuman role.
Why? They would probably experience a richer life than common apes nonetheless, provided they are of course treated with care and they have basic rights to rest, eat, be healthy and free time to play.
I remember that in the scifi book Rendez-vous with Rama of A.C.Clarke similar beings were engineered for janitorial tasks on spaceships. They were subhumans, yes, but they were extremly respected because of their role. Why can't it be so? What is outraging is that a lot of humans are still forced to do works that a subhuman (or a robot) could do, just to thrive and live.
Genetic research (Score:2, Interesting)
Not some distant cousin. Our direct great-grand-father.
They had some over population problems. The tree got overcrowded. They kicked out some individuals to free space in the tree. 6 millions laters, the kicked out individuals came back with chainsaws to cut the damn tree in a sort of ironic genetic revenge.
Re:I don't know (Score:1, Interesting)
Yes, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
Animals deserve rights... (Score:2, Interesting)
Should all Human rights (Score:3, Interesting)
This is a smart chimp so it should have human rights.
This suggests human rights are dependent on intelligence.
Logically they should also argue stupid people should NOT have human rights. Unborn children, those in persistent vegetative states are also arguably not worthy of human rights either.
Perhaps even babies aren't smart enough to have human rights either.
Also bestiality couldn't be illegal as marriage is a human right. Or perhaps certain humans aren't deserving of all human rights. Different rights for certain types of people. Maybe some groups shouldn't get to vote, and other groups should be slaves, or simply executed to protect the rest of us?
Human rights are for the human species. Animal rights are for other animals. What's really wrong with that?
Re:That gives me an idea (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, this isn't far off from the truth. Because if you look at democratic voting honestly, it is a system that gives two uninformed individuals the ability to outvote an informed person. Adding a cat's (presumably random) vote to that would give the informed person more power from time to time, and otherwise, it wouldn't affect the outcome - because the fact is, informed people are in the minority at all times. And not just because of the rarity of being out on the intelligent end of the gaussian; you don't have to be all that intelligent to be informed. It's more about complacency and gullibility, IMHO. Whatever it is, though, it sure makes itself felt in no uncertain terms.
Re:sure (Score:3, Interesting)
Clearly, you've never owned a dog, or thought the relationship through if you have. Humans enter into all manner of social contracts with canines. Food and care and love in exchange for protection, warning, even hunting prowess. It seems to me your argument fails before it ever reaches the level of trying to deal with a chimp; not to mention the fact that we routinely award human rights to those humans so disadvantaged that they cannot even do for you what a dog could. The argument extends to all manner of animals; falcons, cats, and so on. It isn't about a social contract. It never was. It is about recognizing that respect and care for those beings that have the capacity to suffer is the basis for high quality ethics. Singer recognizes this, as do many who have similar views. I can torch your argument another way, too. Take a member of a human society that you have no commonality with. Will you eat them? Use them as testbeds for your drugs? Strip their skin for leather? Even if they routinely do things you find abhorrent, such as have sex with children and kill babies that aren't perfect or wanted? I doubt you would - most people would not. Certainly there is no "social contract" with such people; yet we recognize that there are things that are bad to do to them regardless of the disparity from our own outlooks.
We are animals; they are animals. What should be done is obvious. Rationales for making another animal suffer for your benefit are ethically corrupt. It really is just that simple.
Re:Soul? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:How about human rights for humans? (Score:3, Interesting)
No one who ever had a clue would doubt animals are sentient. It's more about being responsible to save your own species before saving someone else's.
Rats are also sentient, but if they cause damage in my house, I'd still poison them. Life is cruel, the better one survive, but
Being able to use complex language and write it down doesn't make you more sentient, just more able to express that you are.
Lemme explain better (Score:4, Interesting)
I meant crap like: person A humiliates/tortures/kills/whatever person B, just to make a point to persons X, Y and Z. Innocents get made an example of, just to remind everyone else what their place is, and what can happen if they get ideas above their station.
I can honestly say that I've never seen anything even remotely similar in cats. And, trust me, I grew up with cats around since I was a baby. If cat A has a problem with cat X, it takes it on cat X directly, not on some bystander to make a point.
Oh, they'll make a show of power all right, but then one gives up and that's it. I can't even remember hearing about a cat fight that ended up lethal for one of the combatants.
And I don't think lack of opposable thumbs is what's lacking there to make them lethal. The same cats are perfectly able to tear a larger animal apart. E.g., I've seen cats hunt rabbits or rats larger than their own size. The teeth and claws are perfectly enough to do a _lot_ of damage to another cats, if they wanted to kill each other.
Compare that to some of the genocides the humans did, and I can't help liking cats a lot more. There's stuff we humans do which isn't even about power or territory, but just killing someone else because they're from a different country, race, religion or voted for the opposite party. (See, civil wars.)
Basically: when a cat signals "I give up", that's it, the fighting stops. When a human comes up with his hands up, on the other hand, the others just want to kill and torture him. And then there are the countless cases where people took out their frustration upon non-combatants who didn't fight in the first place. It took millenia and several international conventions and harsh laws to tell everyone to freakin' let go... and as we see in the recent cases in Iraq, they still don't.
Re:Should all Human rights (Score:4, Interesting)
Your past point is interesting, because if we were to take a step outside our species for a second, by a standard of rational thought an intelligence, there's no reason to value a human baby over that of a chimp unless we bet on its presumed, but unknown, future potential.
It's quite possible that a proper definition of what a human being "is" would disqualify fetuses and some babies. I don't think fear of that should necessarily stop us from defining it anyway. We can find other reasons to keep our kids around, like, say, because we love them.
Re:How about human rights for humans? (Score:4, Interesting)
Murder? (Score:3, Interesting)
If a chimp kills another animal, will it be arrested for animal cruelty?
If a chimp kills another chimp, will it be murder? How about if a chimp kills a human?
How about rape, assault, etc?
For one to have human rights, one has to have human responsiblities.
Re:Discrete errors (Score:3, Interesting)
Jane Goodall had something to say on this subject: (Score:1, Interesting)
- Dr. Jane Goodall
http://www.janegoodall.org/chimp_central/default.
PS For those posters arguing "chimps aren't humans" - no, they're not. That's semantics, it's unrelated to the core issue.
Re:Not *full* humans rights, but see Spain... (Score:5, Interesting)
Her talent was spotted when a company was thinking of scrapping it's yard and building a new one because the cows were constanly panicking. He thought the animals could sense their impending death, she overheard this and said "it's too dark", opened a roller door and the cows walked in calmly. Since then she has consulted to abitors and yards all over the US, one of her inventions is the "stairway to heaven", aparently cows prefer cow sized steps to the traditonal human centric ramps.
My point being, apart from the moral aspect of fear and pain there are also some sound economic reasons to pursue humane treatment.
On the subject of chimps, IMHO they deserve to be left in relative peace but for many that also means being left in captivity.
Re:Great Apes Project (Score:3, Interesting)
"Rights come with responsibilities" is such an irritating sound-bite meme that doesn't really carry any meaning. Responsibilities are whatever burdens society deems fit to leverage on you that you are unable or not interested in removing.
Rights are whatever freedoms society either grants you or that you have managed to claim and defend.
I, personally, don't see the connection between the two. I don't "purchase" my right to life by paying my taxes.
If you are going to grant chimps the right to live without being murdered, you must admit that chimps do not have the right to kill one another.
And since systematically flinging poo at humans would be considered a human rights violation if your government did it, I demand that the chimp from the San Diego Zoo be charged and arrested.
Re:Sure... and we can take it one step further... (Score:1, Interesting)
They can't be serious... (Score:2, Interesting)
One asks, they all get it (Score:1, Interesting)
Same for chimps. But they can't simply be trained to make an arbitrary gesture which we then interpret as asking for rights. We must be convinced that they actually understand what they are asking for and genuinely want it for themselves. Once a few chimps do this, then all chimps should get rights.
It's not that hard to understand.
Re:How about human rights for humans? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What about humans? (Score:4, Interesting)
I have a hard time believing that chimps would be granted any rights in today's society, especially considering that roughly half of the population argues in favor of a woman's "right" to have her unborn child killed. If the rights of an unborn human child are so small that they may be outweighed by the convenience of the mother, I fail to see how a chimp's right to life would ever take precedence over the possible value of the medical research obtained.
For me, a chimp has a lot more qualities that make it deserving of protection than an embryo. A chimp has a brain and thoughts and feelings and experiences and interpersonal relations. An embryo has more qualities in common with wood than it does with humans. It is brainless, thoughtless, chunk of living cells. If I were to decide which is more deserving of rights, I'd definitely choose a chimp. For that matter, cows are more deserving of protection of their life than embryos. At least cows think and have emotions and care if you kill them.
If you can't convince society to respect human life, I doubt you'll be able to convince them that medical research should be halted so that chimps can be spared.
What do you mean by "convince?" I respect life, human or otherwise, that I find deserving of that respect, based upon the qualities I value and my own ethics. Some human life is worthy of protection and some is not. If a person is born without a brain or their brain dies, I have no problem with them being killed or used in experiments, so long as that is not inflicting emotional pain on still living relatives or the like. I can be convinced to support limited rights for chimps if it is demonstrated that they take responsibility for those rights and exercise those rights in a way that is acceptable to society. I don't see anyone ever convincing me that a mindless bundle of cells can take responsibility for anything. If you have a logical reason why you think embryos should have rights, lets hear it. But if by "convince" you mean you want me to change my mind because you say so without a logical reason or because of an illogical reason based on emotion or your irrational and unsupported beliefs, well that isn't convincing.
People (sadly) aren't interested in the moral arguments, and the arguments against giving animals rights are strong:
People shouldn't be interested in moral arguments, just ethical ones. Morality is subjective and has no place in a reasoned discussion.
Lastly, why would we grant rights to animals when we are taking them away from humans?
Interestingly, we're discussing law. Theoretically, all law should be about mitigating conflicting rights between individuals. Otherwise, it is simply a matter of personal choice and is not the place of government to interfere. For example, the role of government is to decide if my right to throw rocks supersedes or is superseded by your right to own and protect your car's windshield. It is not the place of the government to decide if my throwing of rock on my own property and which does not affect anyone else is "moral" or not.
Already the rights of animals have been recognized and the law mitigates the conflict of those rights. Laws against animal cruelty, for example, have held that an animal's right not to suffer horribly is more important than a person's right to torture said animal or own said animal. The proposed law is simply a new stratification granting more rights to a certain type of animal based upon the qualities of that animal.
Granted, we shouldn't ever intentionally inflict pain on living things, but then, how would we eat?
I believe the law has mostly ruled that we don't have the right to unnecessarily inflict pain on animals. We can kill them painlessly or relatively painlessly. Not that all pain is "wrong" simply that we need to be aware of it and not intentionally create more of it.
There are vitami
Re:Great Apes Project (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, if chimps have human rights, doesn't the fact that they are owned mean they are slaves? Isn't slavery considered to be a crime against humanity by the UN? These "owners" you speak of need to be arrested immediately for crimes against humanity and their slaves released and compensated!
Re:Why? (Score:3, Interesting)
You seem to think morality should be independent from practical considerations - which is fine, if you presume morality to have some sort of metaphysical foundation. (I.e. God)
Now, I don't think so - which leads me to believe that the system of morality enforced in society through customs and laws should serve to make society run smoothly, and to guarantee some basic rights to the people who live init. This is both because I have preferences for a reasonably peaceful and quiet life, and because I realize that there is a ceasefire aspect to morality. If I think killing my political opponents (for instance) should be A.OK, then I will myself have to sleep with a gun under my pillow, etc.
Thus, I believe in equally enforced morality for all humans - because frankly, I don't feel that much kinship with non-human apes, plus I see roughly zero benefit in granting chimps human rights (unlike the case of granting humans human rights).
Re:I don't know (Score:3, Interesting)
You basically say that they do have a moderate amount of
mental capacity, but can't, without a legal guardian, join
society on the basis that they can't function as adults within
this society. If at a later date, this is disproven, it's
not very difficult to expand on the law, granting them full
legal privledges.
They show behavior that parallels childrens, give them that
degree of rights. If they as a species can then show that
they also can handle adult behavior, expand it.
Re:Lemme explain better (Score:2, Interesting)
I mean, at least Dubya didn't say "We have scored a victory in Iraq, let the slaughter of innocents commence!" during his Mission Accomplished speach.