Slashdot Mirror
New Effort To Grant Legal Rights To Chimpanzees Fails
sciencehabit writes Advocates of "legal personhood" for chimpanzees have lost another battle. This morning, a New York appellate court rejected a lawsuit by the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) to free a chimp named Tommy from captivity. The group had argued that the chimpanzee deserved the human right of bodily liberty. Despite the loss, the NhRP is pursuing more cases in the hopes of conferring legal rights to a variety of animals, from elephants to dolphins.
Regardless of the decision, I think it is good that people are forced to argue why.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
If freed... wouldn't a stolen bit of food here or there (as presumably it wouldn't be able to grow or buy it's own) or some public defecation get it arrested? If it dared resist arrest might get some additional charges of assault on a police officer and result in some jail time?
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
there is no way I'm ever extending personhood to non homo sapiens.
Racist. These people deserve the same rights as anyone else, regardless of their ethnic background.
Not even if humanoid aliens landed?
I wonder if they're also in favor of granting those same human rights to actual unborn humans.
Please first demonstrate to me that chimps and other animals value bodily liberty, and only then we can talk to give them the right. I never saw any animal besides people to value liberty over food, water or safety. It doesn't make any sense to give some right to some subject that does not even value it or understand it. We don't even give bodily liberty to some mentally handicapped persons, so why should we give that right to an animal?
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
If they landed, we should hope they would extend personage / suffrage to us.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
You seem to be confusing science with metaphysics and ethics. A surprisingly common mistake.
Just declare chimps as corporations, THEN they'll have rights.
Table-ized A.I.
Nope, not even humanoid aliens.
I would however extend them the business ends of independently targeting particle beam phalanx, tactical smart missiles, phase-plasma pulse rifles, RPGs, sonic electronic ball breakers, nukes, knives, and sharp sticks.
The chimp didn't help his case when he threw his own feces at the judge.
People are resistant to the idea because some of the animals we eat show signs of consciousness and suffering.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Why would you say we don't have time to tackle them all?
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I'm all for this. . .after we grant human children some basic rights (such as a say in custody hearings).
Chimps aren't people. The laws for humans don't apply. Chimps are not held responsible for their behavior under the law, can't understand contracts or laws or rights of humans. If laws for treating specific species of non-humans in a kind way are wanted, they can be made (some exist already such as anti-cruelty laws)
We coming up with new way to disqualify intelligent beings as persons. - They don't make tools (they do) - they don't make tools to make tools (they do) - They don't have language (they do) - they are not altruistic (they could be) How about just: Some may say they are not persons because they have no Souls unlike humans.
Indeed there is someone home. That someone however, cannot and will never be able to grasp the structure of our society and the laws within it. So, no personhood. Treating them with kindness doesn't mean extending them human rights.
Human Life > Animal Life
The only basis needed is self interest. We are in fact humans, being fair to non-humans waits in line after being fair to humans.
The interesting thing is that the MOST justifiable things human with animals are things that animal rights activists have success fighting. Such as experimentation for science and medicine. These things are temporary efforts that produce results that benefits animals and humans alike forever after.
The abuses that they don't generally fight at all or even advocate (such as the keeping of pets, aka captivity) and especially spaying and neutering are the things we could end with little or no negative impact on the interests of our own species.
As stupid as this is, it still makes more sense to me that granting corporations legal standing equal with real, live human beings.
Alex, I'll take keybindings not used by Emacs for $400....
Exactly! Just like what friggin moron who has *ever* watched the sun rise and set can't tell you that the sun revolves around the earth.
An awful lot of science is showing that 'what every friggin moron knows' is wrong.
Anyway, what was the result? Can baby mice adapt their grooming habits or not? Seems either answer would provide some insights into the workings of the brain, and I had a hard time seeing what is wrong with that.
We already have primates that can communicate with humans in a human language (American Sign Language or something similar) at the level of a child.
To be clear, when you say "child," that means a 2-3 year old. They never (after a lot more than 2-3 years) get past simple two word sentences. It's not clear they're even doing that. Since they never demonstrate any understanding of grammar, it's almost impossible to show they're not just learning tricks to get a desired result.
What exactly separates humans from non-humans?
Biology, you fucking idiot.
Why are chairs not people? What exactly separates humans from furniture?
Human Life > Animal Life
But no human life is at risk in the case of this chimp. The situation is never just black and white. Most people think it is okay to experiment on mice to find a cure for cancer. But many don't agree that we should blind rabbits to test cosmetics.
The only basis needed is self interest.
Many people would not agree with that.
The fact that we are having this discussion is all the argument that is necessary.
Good-bye
If sentient life can be turned into a drug testing lab simply because they don't meet some cognitive level, then why don't we start experimenting on children or sufferers of Down's Syndrome? If killing, sometimes in the most hideous ways, of other sentient animals poses no ethical difficulty, then let's not use the next best thing to H. sapiens, let's use H. sapiens.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Two year olds can't understand contracts or laws or rights, and yet they are afforded the same civil liberties that you are.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Assistance dogs understand roads and sidewalks, traffic lights. traffic, etc. Dogs can alert the owner before the owner is aware of a bout of hypoglycemia, can detect and let us know about cancers we still can't detect with our finest machines, which side their bread is buttered on (a very human trait), how to share, what a bed, flatscreen tv, and fridge are for, that if we leave them tied up outside a store we're not abandoning them, to guard our property (without training), that human infants are to be treated very specially, and that some people are just plain stupid so they should be ignored.
Also, you're giving old Abe too much credit for being able to overcome culture shock. We have people today who still rebel against things like same-sex marriage, and who refuse to accept m2f transsexuals as women despite the science. Abe would think he had gone to some strange hell.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Emotion and suffering are not remotely unique to Chimps. What is perhaps unique is how they can be made to suffer. A nice cage with a habitrail and some good mouse-chow (tm) will make for some happy mice. No cats in here and all the free food I can eat. To a chimp it is just being in jail. Either one will be in agony if you put acid in their eyes.
"Cosmetics are not necessary"
I realize you aren't making the case that we shouldn't test on animals here. But tell that to someone with a hideous scar on their face who can't get a job.
Cosmetics aren't going anywhere so they have to be tested. They aren't tested on animals to find out pretty they make them. They are tested on animals to make sure the chemicals don't have unintended side-effects, this is the same reason we try to test medications on animals before humans. If you take animals out of cosmetics testing you run the risk of humans having serious side-effects from being the test subjects.
In some ways it makes more sense to test cosmetics than drugs on animals. Someone volunteering for a drug trial is probably broken in a way that the drug might fix and the mere concept carries the a generally understood idea of the risk involved. And generally a drug trial is testing only one isolated chemical combined with known non-reactive substances. Participating in a cosmetics trial is something people would consent to thinking it was safe and "just some lipstick" when in reality they the test subject of a compound containing dozens or hundreds of chemicals few if any of which have been tested previously and that have a very high probability of untested interactions even if they have been tested in isolation before.
They aren't afforded all the rights of an adult. For example, they cannot vote in any election, neither Federal nor Provincial.
Not the full suite until the age of majority, but you sure can't inject them with drugs to test cancer treatments or cosmetic reactions.
No one was advocating chimps be given the bloody vote.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Human Life > Animal Life
While we're on the subject...
My race > other races,
My gender > other gender(s),
My religion > other religions...
Where should the line be drawn, exactly?
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
If killing, sometimes in the most hideous ways, of other sentient animals poses no ethical difficulty, then let's not use the next best thing to H. sapiens, let's use H. sapiens.
No one is saying that it "poses no ethical difficulty". They are saying we should balance the ethics of humane treatment of animals, with the ethics of curing human diseases. You are trying to make it into a black and white issue, where experiments on animals are always okay, and experiments on people never are. Most reasonable people would agree that we should treat chimps better than we treat mice, and mice better than fruit flies. Fruit flies die by the thousands in high school biology labs, and there are very few crusaders trying to stop that. Experiments on chimps needs to go through ethical reviews, to ensure that the process is necessary, and the results could be significant.
Why are Chimps not people? What exactly separates humans from non-humans?
Lots of things but for the purposes of this argument I'd suggest that their inability to ever pay taxes is probably justification enough. Chimps, dolphins and other proto-sentients probably deserve an elevated class of rights over that of lesser species like say chickens or rats for example but granting them full human rights doesn't make sense. They don't have the ability to fulfill the obligations and responsibilities that go with being full members of society.
This was nonsense to get as far as it did.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
I am reminded of the following exchange:
talk show host Joe Pyne: "So I guess your long hair makes you a woman."
Frank Zappa: "So I guess your wooden leg makes you a table."
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
How about we draw the line where your statements are actually true.
Asians and Caucasians can be equally good at anything.
Men and women can be equally good at anything.
Muslims and Jews can be equally good at anything.
1000 of the worlds smartest and most capable chimpanzees put in front of a type writer will still write nothing but shit. Or are you saying my pet goldfish should have a right to vote? If not then why? You're just moving your arbitrary line around.
I wouldn't be so sure about that:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washoe_(chimpanzee)
However you might not be able to understand what the chimpanzee was trying to say to you. That could be an inadequacy on your part.