Planet Debate 2011 September/October l-d release Animal Rights
Respecting Liberty Rights of Great Apes Key to Challenging War, Genocide and Slavery
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Respecting Liberty Rights of Great Apes Key to Challenging War, Genocide and SlaveryADHERENCE TO A RIGID SPECIES BARRIER BETWEEN HUMANS AND NONHUMAN ANIMALS REINFORCES AN INSTRUMENTAL VIEW OF NONHUMAN ANIMALS AS RESOURCES. THIS LOGIC OF EXCLUSION HAS HISTORICALLY BEEN USED TO DENY FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS BASED ALONG RACE AND GENDER LINES TO GROUPS THAT HAVE NOW BEEN INCLUDED IN THE COMMUNITY OF PERSONS. BREAKING THIS BARRIER IS VITAL TO ESTABLISHING A MORAL ETHIC THAT CHALLENGES WAR AND SLAVERY. Amartya Sen, Nobel Prize-winning economist, master of Trinity College. “Living like Bonobos: An Ecofeminist Outlook on Equality”. Great Ape Standing And Personhood. 2001 http://www.personhood.org/feminist/feminist.html
For example, the Bonobos - a group of hominids who live in the swamp forests of central Zaïre - create and inhabit an egalitarian and peaceful world. They have caused a fair amount of controversy in human academic circles, because they don't fit in with the conventional image of the male-controlled ape cultures. Bonobos don't discriminate between the heterosexual and homosexual members of their society. Bonobos' use of a wide variety of sexual behaviours to diffuse aggression is so marked that it caused one scientist Frans de Waal to observe that "the art of sexual reconciliation may well have reached its evolutionary peak in the bonobo." This capacity seems to have resulted in the nearest thing to egalitarianism in any living hominid culture. "We may be more bonobo-like than we want to admit," says Frans de Waal. But why would we decline to admit to having Bonobo-like qualities? We might do well to emulate Bonobo society. In contrast to Bonobo culture, humankind displays a striking propensity for creating oppressive hierarchy out of difference. Perceived differences between men and women have been, and continue to be, used by men to devalue and demean women, to rename women, to render women invisible, and to destroy millions of children before they have a chance even to become women. Likewise, the classification of animals into species enables humans to proclaim that we occupy an imaginary upper link in the taxonomological chain, to demean and manipulate other animals, to destroy and consume them. Cultural perceptions of difference form the templates for societal norms that law both reflects and enforces. Controlling groups create privileges that correlate with the traits which separate themselves from others who exist on the territory they strive to control. This is the dynamic of racism. It is the dynamic of sexism. And it is the dynamic of a phenomenon philosopher Richard Ryder has termed speciesism. As this essay is being written, Bonobos are being wiped from their forest homelands by bloody human civil wars and related starvation, which has meant the consumption of Bonobos' bodies as food. Were humans more like the peaceful Bonobos, it is possible that both groups would be spared the ravages of war, and the horrors of slavery as well. Respecting Liberty Rights of Great Apes Key to Challenging War, Genocide and SlaveryEXTENDING LEGAL RIGHTS TO PROTECT THE FUNDAMENTAL INTERESTS OF GREAT APES CHALLENGES THE LOGIC AND MORAL RATIONALES THAT ENCOURAGE GENOCIDE TODAY. Steven M. Wise, Professor Animal Rights Law at the Harvard Law School, 2000, “Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals” Questia p. 237 Whatever legal rights these apes may be entitled to spring from the complexities of their minds. Today they are legal Harveys, invisible to law, without personhood, lacking rights. We know what happens when humans are stripped of their legal personhood and dignity-rights. Australian aborigines, African slaves, Turkish Armenians, German Jews, Rwandan Tutsis and Burundian Hutus, and Kosovar Albanians fall victim to genocide. It can be no surprise that not only bonobos and chimpanzees but also thousands of other species of animals have been pushed into extinction or teeter on its brink. We do what we do to a Jerom because he can't stop us. None of them can. We can only stop ourselves. Or some of us can try to stop the others. The entitlement of chimpanzees and bonobos to fundamental legal rights will mark a huge step toward stopping our unfettered abuse of them, just as human rights marked a milepost in stopping our abuse of each other. 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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