Planet Debate 2011 September/October l-d release Animal Rights
No Justification for Differential Treatment Among Great Apes
Download 1.43 Mb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- Apes Meet Requirements for Legal Personhood
No Justification for Differential Treatment Among Great ApesATTRIBUTES OF PERSONHOOD DETERMINATIONS IN “CLOSE” CASES CLEARLY MET WITH APES Gary L. Francione, Professor of Law, Rutgers University, 1994, The Great Ape Project: equality beyond humanity, eds. Cavalieri & Singer, p. 252-3 What is peculiar about many of the discussions of legal personhood is that the attributes of personhood often the focus of debate as to whether this or that being is a “person” are clearly present in all great apes. For example, one of the more exhaustive sets of attributes of human personhood is presented by bioethicist Joseph Fletcher, who sets out a list of fifteen “positive propositions” of personhood. These attributes are: minimum intelligence, self-awareness, self-control, a sense of time, a sense of futurity, a sense of the past, the capability of relating to others, concern for others, communication, control of existence, curiosity, change and changeability, balance of rationality and feeling, idiosyncrasy and neocortical functioning. Although we may doubt that chimpanzees, gorillas or orang-utan fetuses (or even very young chimpanzees, gorillas or orang-utans), or the incompetent elderly chimpanzees, gorillas or orang-utans exhibit all of these attributes, we are no longer able to doubt that all great apes (except fetuses, and perhaps the very young or the incompetent elderly) possess these characteristics.
Steven M. Wise, Professor Animal Rights Law at the Harvard Law School, 2000, “Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals” Questia p. 248-249 I will not argue that any chimpanzee or bonobo has full autonomy. But no bright line divides full autonomy from realistic autonomy or realistic autonomy from the legal fiction that "all humans are autonomous." However, a little mountain geography might help us understand the relationships among them a little better. We'll start at the top of the world. The summit of 29,038-foot Mount Everest in the Himalayas will represent those few humans who may have attained full autonomy. A few more occupy the apex of K-2 in the Karakoram Range in northern Kashmir, which at 28,250 feet is the second-highest mountain in the world. Millions cluster atop the highest mountain in the Hindu Kush Range, 25,260-foot Tirich Mir, located in Pakistan along the Afghan border. The nearby Pamir Range in Tajikistan is filled with peaks above 20,000 feet. The autonomies of most adult Homo erectus, Neandertals, and Homo sapiens can be found among those peaks.
H. Lyn White Miles, Department of Sociology, University of Tennessee @ Chattanooga, 1994, The Great Ape Project: equality beyond humanity, eds. Cavalieri & Singer, p. 53 Apes, of course, adhere to their own patterns of behavior within the constraints of their social order. These patterns are socially complex, rule-governed and based to a large extent on learning. Their acquired behavior patterns are transmitted from generation to generation with variation from group to group in gestures, politics, and social behaviors. Although most learning is based on simple observation, there is some recent evidence for the actual teaching by apes, as described in Chapter 4 and elsewhere, and for a degree of empathy or identification. Because of this complexity we are increasingly inclined to describe the lifestyles of monkeys and apes under natural conditions as culture, or at least proto-culture. There is as yet no evidence that apes living freely have developed ethical systems based on extensive empathy. Nor is there yet evidence that apes have a theory of the mind, that is, an understanding that other individuals have beliefs and mental processes similar to their own. However, this is also the case for the behavior of many humans, especially young children. When we decide if apes are persons, we should not require sentient beings to know of a human-based morality if they have not been exposed to one, because like human children, they may have the potential to develop one, however rudimentary. Apes Meet Requirements for Legal PersonhoodARUGMENT THAT ONLY HUMANS ARE PERSONS IS WRONG Gary L. Francione, Professor of Law, Rutgers University, 1994, The Great Ape Project: equality beyond humanity, eds. Cavalieri & Singer, p. 252 Some may argue that the concept of legal personhood cannot, as a conceptual matter, be extended to anything but human persons. Indeed, it is the common lay view that humans have legal personhood and that only humans can be persons. A brief examination of legal doctrine, however, demonstrates that this view is incorrect. Not all humans are (or were) regarded as persons, and not all legal persons are human. Slaves in the United States and elsewhere where clearly human, but did not enjoy legal personhood; they were regarded as property in much the same way that nonhuman animals are regarded today. Similarly, women in the United States were once regarded as the property of their husbands, and in some nations, women still suffer significant legal disabilities. Children have certain rights and are not, strictly speaking, the property of their parents; they are, nevertheless, disabled under the law from full legal personhood. Just as not all humans are regarded as persons, not all persons are human. In the Le Vasseur case, the defendant argued, in part, that the definition of “another” should include dolphins because “another” would include corporations and the exclusion of the dolphins was unjustifiable. Under common law, corporations are regarded as persons with full rights to sue, be sued, hold property, and so on. Indeed, it would not be an exaggeration at all to suggest that much American law concerns the activities of corporations, and the practice of most American lawyers contains at least some corporate work. When an economic system finds it advantageous, its notion of “personhood” can become quite elastic. WHEREVER THE LINE IS DRAWN – ALL GREAT APES SHOULD BE ON THE SAME SIDE OF IT Gary L. Francione, Professor of Law, Rutgers University, 1994, The Great Ape Project: equality beyond humanity, eds. Cavalieri & Singer, p. 253-4 Wherever we decide to draw the line, however, it is clear that all great apes belong on the same side, and that it would be irrational to place some great apes on one side, and some on the other. Interestingly, such an approach is thoroughly consistent with the most conservative of the tests employed in the interpretation of equal protection guarantees under American law. That is, when someone challenges a government classification as violative of equal protection, the challenger has the burden of showing that the classification is irrational and not related to any legitimate government interests. (There are instances when the government has the burden of demonstrating a compelling interest, and the government’s claim is subject to strict judicial scrutiny. This more stringent test is applied when the classification affects a fundamental right, such as the right of free expression. There are also other tests that fall in between the “irrationality” test and the “strict scrutiny” test. For example, classifications based on gender receive “heightened” scrutiny.)
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:
|