Planet Debate 2011 September/October l-d release Animal Rights
Respecting Liberty Rights of Great Apes Key to Breaking the Species Barrier
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Respecting Liberty Rights of Great Apes Key to Breaking the Species BarrierEXTENDING LEGAL PROTECTIONS FOR DUE PROCESS AGAINST ARBITRARY DETENTION IS AN APPROPRIATE PLACE TO BEGIN TO PIERCE THE SPECIES BARRIER. Bernard E. Rollin, professor of philosophy, Colorado State University, 1994, The Great Ape Project: equality beyond humanity, eds. Cavalieri & Singer, p. 218 Here, I have suggested, we can accelerate the moral and legal enfranchisement of animals, at least of those animals, by using the extant legal machinery, and letting them tell their own story in the context of the judicial system. I am envisioning a plausible legal case based on the notions of denial of due process and cruel and unusual punishment. Surely, one can make the reasonable case that these animals are, by all rational standards, persons who have been denied the fundamental civil right and procedures due to persons. These animals possess measurable intelligence, sometimes in excess of that possessed by certain humans, they can reason and, most important, they can eloquently speak for themselves, and tell of their anguish and sorrow.
Steve F. Sapontzis, Professor of philosophy, California State University, 1994, The Great Ape Project: equality beyond humanity, eds. Cavalieri & Singer, p. 276 This practical conclusion [that it is more effective to start animal liberation by focusing on great apes] should not be condemned as a compromise of liberation ideals. Too often when doing moral philosophy we forget that is supposed to be a practical science, i.e. a study whose conclusions are not theories but actions. Ideals are needed to guide moral action, but we cannot deduce what is to be done from ideals alone. In addition to ideals, action is determined by the material with which we have to work to realize those ideals. And the material for animal liberation—as for all moral change – is human beings as they currently are, with their native (in)capacities and (in)sensitivities, established cultures, contemporary (im)moral beliefs and practices, current economic dependencies and present world views. Developing and deploying concepts and arguments which will move people as they are to make the world a better place is the proper conclusion of moral philosophy, and moving them to make the world a better place for nonhuman animals is the proper conclusion of animal liberation philosophy. Developing moral theory and ideals, as has been done in this chapter, is only a means to that end. Ideals must be kept in view if our efforts for nonhuman animals are not to be co-opted and to effect merely rhetorical, complacent changes—as when vivisectors now readily agree that nonhuman animals have rights but then go on to assert that those rights are respected in humane laboratory sacrifices of nonhuman animals. On the other hand, those who insist that all animal liberation projects focus exclusively on the ideal, and disdainfully reject all accommodation of liberation ideals to current realities, will likely succeed only in feeling that their hands are clean and their consciences are pure. Willfully out of touch with many of the forces that move and shape reality, they are not likely to succeed in helping nonhuman animals, and their cherished, beautiful ideals will likely remain mere ideals while nonhuman animals continue to suffer and die without relief. So, engaging in campaigns – such as this one to extend protective moral and legal principles and rights to nonhuman great apes –which take advantage of anthropocentrism and other human imperfections and which, consequently, fall short of the ideals of animal liberation, is not compromising those ideals. It is implementing and pursuing those ideals in the world as it is. That, rather than theoretical precision and purity of conscience, is what moral philosophy and animal activism are finally all about. Respecting Liberty Rights of Great Apes Key to Breaking the Species BarrierLINCOLN’S STRATEGY FOR EMANCIPATION OF HUMAN SLAVES IS A USEFUL MODEL FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF NONHUMAN SLAVES. HE FRAMED HIS DEMANDS FOR CHANGE AS THE “REALIZABLE MINIMUM”—THAT WHICH WAS POSSIBLE. Steven M. Wise, Animal rights attorney and professor Vermont Law School, 2002, Drawing the Line: science and the case for animal rights, p. 235 Historians have made clear what Lincoln was trying to do. David Zarefsky argues that he avoided “the slippery slope by which freedom led to racial equality” by declaring freedom an economic right that did not necessarily carry social and political equality with it. David Potter labeled Lincoln’s the “minimum anti-slavery position,” while Gary Wills said Lincoln’s “nub, the realizable minimum,” was that “at the very least, it was wrong to treat human beings as property.” Lincoln was a famously practical lawyer, president and commander-in-chief, known in the courtroom, political arena, and war room for affably conceding one nonessential point after another, until his opponent believed he had won. But Lincoln rarely allowed the essential to slip away. Obtaining any legal rights for nonhuman animals in the present legal system requires fighting from the platform of Lincoln’s realizable minimum. Lincoln believed the physical, historical, legal, religious, economic, political, and psychological realities of his day meant that taking more than one step at a time for black slaves would lead to no change in their legal status. In the 1850s, that meant that advocating the social and political equality of black slaves, whatever Lincoln personally believed, would result in their continued enslavement. Today, it means that advocating for too many rights for too many nonhuman animals will lead to no nonhuman animal’s attaining rights. EXTENDING RIGHTS FIRST TO GREAT APES IS THE BEST WAY TO BREAK DOWN THE SPECIES BARRIER BECAUSE THIS IS WHERE IT IS MOST VULNERABLE Paola Cavalieri & Peter Singer, Editor Edica & Animali and Professor of Bioethics @ Princeton, 1994, The Great Ape Project: equality beyond humanity, eds. Cavalieri & Singer, p. 308 A solid barrier serves to keep nonhumans outside the protective moral realm of our community. By virtue of this barrier, in the influential words of Thomas Aquinas, “it is not wrong for man to use them, either by killing or in any other way whatever”. Does this barrier have a weak link on which we can concentrate our efforts? Is there any grey area where the certainties of human chauvinism begin to fade and an uneasy ambivalence makes recourse to a collective animal manumission politically feasible? As the philosophers, zoologists, ethologists, anthropologists, lawyers, psychologists, educationalists, and other scholars who have chosen to support this project show, this grey are does exist. It is the sphere that includes the branches closest to us in the evolutionary tree. In the case of the other great apes, the chimpanzee, the gorilla and the orang-utan, some of the notions used to restrict equality and other moral privileges to human beings instead of extended them to all sentient creatures can cut the other way. When radical enfranchisement is being demanded for our fellow apes, the very arguments usually offered to defend the special moral status of human beings, vis-à-vis nonhuman animals – arguments based on biological bondedness or, more significant still, on the possession of some specific characteristics or abilities – can be turned against the status quo. Chimpanzees, gorillas and orang-utans occupy a particular position from another perspective, too. The appearance of apes who can communicate in a human language marks a turning point in human/animal relationships. Granted, Washoe, Loulis, Koko, Michael, Chantek and all their fellow great apes cannot directly demand their general enfranchisement – although they can demand to be let out of their cages, as Washoe once did – but they can convey to us, in more detail than any nonhuman animals have ever done before, a nonhuman viewpoint on the world. This viewpoint can no longer be dismissed. Its bearers have unwittingly become a vanguard, not only for their own kin, but for all nonhuman animals. 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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