Planet Debate 2011 September/October l-d release Animal Rights
Singling Out Apes for Protection Speciesist
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- Extension of Rights Not Necessary to Admit Apes to Moral Community
- Extension of Rights Fails to Treat Apes as Members of the Community of Equals
Singling Out Apes for Protection SpeciesistLINE-DRAWING BASED ON A HIERARCHY OF ANIMALS IS SPECIEIST Marc Bekoff, Professor of Biology, University of Colorado @ Boulder, 2003, The Animal Ethics Reader, eds. Armstrong & Botzler, p. 120 I wan to reemphasize that the use of the words “higher” and “lower” and activities such as line-drawing to place different groups of animals “above” or “below” others are extremely misleading and fail to take into account the lives and the worlds of the animals themselves. These lines and worlds are becoming increasingly accessible as the field of cognitive ethology matures. Irresponsible use of these words can also be harmful for many animals. It is disappointing that a recent essay on animal use in a widely read magazine, Scientific American, perpetuates this myth—this ladder view of evolution—by referring to animals “lower on the phylogenctric tree.” There are a number of objections to hierarchical ladder views of evolution, two of which are: (i) a single “ladder view” of evolution does not take into account animals with uncommon ancestries; (ii) there are serious problems deciding which criteria for moral relevance should be used and how evaluations of these criteria are to be made, even if one was able to argue convincingly for the use of a single-scale. To be sure, ladder views are speciesist.
Gary Francione, Professor of Law at Rutgers . “An Interview with Professor Gary L. Francione on the State”. Friends of Animals 2002 http://www.friendsofanimals.org/programs/animal-rights/interview-with-gary-francione.html There are at least two serious problems with the ape personhood campaign. First, the campaign reinforces the notion that some animals are better than others because they are more “like us.” That is, instead of having humans at the top and all nonhuman on the bottom, we “allow” a few animals that are “like us” to come on over to “our” side. That leaves the vast majority of the “other” animals still on the bottom and without even a hope of moving “up” because they lack human-like characteristics that make “special” those animals given admission into the preferred category. In other words, the campaign for ape personhood threatens to substitute one hierarchy for another, and I am concerned that we eradicate the notion of hierarchy altogether. Extension of Rights Not Necessary to Admit Apes to Moral CommunityEXTENDING RIGHTS NOT NECESSARY TO INCLUDE APES IN THE COMMUNITY OF EQUALS Steve F. Sapontzis, Professor of philosophy, California State University, 1994, The Great Ape Project: equality beyond humanity, eds. Cavalieri & Singer, p. 275 To summarize, while nonhuman great apes should be persons in the evaluative sense of the term—which is to say that they should enjoy the same level of moral and legal protection of their interests as humans do (or are supposed to) – this protection need not take the form of assigning rights in every case. Thus, liberating nonhuman great apes from human exploitation need not take the form of extending “human rights” to them. These apes will not need some of the rights humans do, if they do not share in all human interests, but they may also need some rights that we do not, if they have interests which we do not share. Also, other moral and legal protective categories may be more appropriate than rights to the capabilities and conditions of these apes. Finally, from the perspective of liberation moral theory, nonhuman great apes do not obviously have any more claim on personhood and this protection of interests than do other, less intellectually sophisticated, nonhuman animals.
Dale Jamieson, Professor of philosophy, University of Colorado @ Boulder, 1994, The Great Ape Project: equality beyond humanity, eds. Cavalieri & Singer, p. 225 A second source of resistance may generally be connected to the sources of racism and sexism. Humans often tolerate diversity more in theory than in practice. The prevalence of interethnic violence and the abuse of women by men is surely related to brute differences between the groups in question. Yet the differences among humans seem slight compared with differences between humans and chimpanzees, gorillas or orang-utans. The idea of admitting our moral equality with such creatures seems outlandish in the face of such differences. SUBSTANTIAL PROBLEMS WITH EQUAL PROTECTION FOR MARGINALIZED GROUPS OF HUMANS DEMONSTRATED DIFFICULTY OF GREAT APE PROJECT PSYETA, 1994, The Great Ape Project, http://www.psyeta.org/hia/vol8/tgap.html Copies of this journal are no longer available for sale, but our other two journals, Society & Animals and the Journal of We have not forgotten that we live in a world in which, for at least three-quarters of the human population, the idea of human rights is no more than rhetoric, and not a reality in everyday life. In such a world, the idea of equality for non-human animals, even for those disquieting doubles of ours, the other great apes, may not be received with much favor. We recognize, and deplore, the fact that all over the world human beings are living without basic rights or even the means for a decent subsistence. The denial of the basic rights of particular other species will not, however, assist the world's poor and oppressed to win their just struggles. Nor is it reasonable to ask that the members of these other species should wait until all humans have achieved their rights first. That suggestion itself assumes that beings belonging to other species are of lesser moral significance than human beings. Moreover, on present indications, the suggested delay might well be an extremely long one. Directory: file -> view view -> Western Europe after wwii view -> Author study: paul fleischman view -> Qpa1 7ela study Guide view -> Arctic Oil/Gas Neg view -> November 1970 Approximately 150,000-500,000 deaths Bhola Cyclone Bangladesh view -> Grade Level: 6 Unit of Study: Caribbean glce view -> Citation: Duffield, Katy view -> Table of Contents Lesson # view -> Chinese Wind Energy Disad Download 1.43 Mb. Share with your friends:
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