Planet Debate 2011 September/October l-d release Animal Rights
Should Extend Legal Protections/Rights to Great Apes
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Should Extend Legal Protections/Rights to Great ApesSHOULD EXPAND BASIC LEGAL PROTECTIONS TO NON-HUMAN APES Christoph Anstotz, professor of special education at Univerity of Dortmund, 1994, The Great Ape Project: equality beyond humanity, eds. Cavalieri & Singer, p. 170 The knowledge we have today about profoundly mentally disabled humans and nonhuman primates gives strong reason to revise the traditional interpretation of the idea of equality. The time has come to see the community of equals no longer as a closed society, but as an open one. The admission of nonhuman primates and the guarantee of certain fundamental rights in favor of all member of such a community, including profoundly mentally disabled humans, would be a first important step. These rights should include the right to life, the protection of individual liberty and the prohibition of torture. THOSE IN THE MORAL COMMUNITY OF EQUALS ENTITLED TO BASIC PROTECTIONS OF LIFE AND LIBERTY Dale Jamieson, Professor of philosophy, University of Colorado @ Boulder, 1994, The Great Ape Project: equality beyond humanity, eds. Cavalieri & Singer, p. 224 In this chapter I will not try to say specifically what the community of equals is or to what its members are entitled, since that has been covered elsewhere in this volume. Instead, I simply endorse the general sentiment of the Declaration on Great Apes: the community of equals is the moral community within which certain basic moral principles include the right to life and the protection of individual liberty.
Gary L. Francione, Professor of Law, Rutgers University, 1994, The Great Ape Project: equality beyond humanity, eds. Cavalieri & Singer, p. 256-7 The Declaration of Rights is a sensible attempt to recognize what we have for too long ignored: that certain nonhumans must be regarded as “persons” for purposes of obtaining legal protection of their fundamental rights. Indeed, not to accord such protection to all great apes is irrational in light of the demonstrated mental and emotional similarities among all great apes. It is, moreover, particularly unjustifiable under a legal system that already regards some nonhuman entities as legal persons. These nonhuman entities are regarded as persons not because they share any salient aspect of personhood; rather, their status is deprived from the need for modern capitalistic legal systems to provide for investor protection. If however, we regard the term “personhood” even in a weakly objectivistic manner (i.e., as a concept with determinative conditions of application) there can be no doubt that personhood is a term that must be applied to all great apes. MUST MAKE THE RIGHT TO LIBERTY FOR APES A LEGALLY ENFORCEABLE RIGHT Gary L. Francione, Professor of Law, Rutgers University, 1994, The Great Ape Project: equality beyond humanity, eds. Cavalieri & Singer, p. 248 The Declaration on Great Apes requires that we extend the community of equals to include all great apes: human beings, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orang-utans. Specifically, the declaration requires the recognition of certain moral principles applicable to all great apes—the right to life, the protection of individual liberty, and the prohibition of torture. If these principles are going to have any meaning beyond being statements of aspiration, then they must be translated into legal rights that are accorded to the members of the community of equals and that can e enforced in courts of law. Indeed, the Declaration itself suggests that moral principles would be enforceable in courts of law. Should Extend Due Process Protections of Liberty to ApesSHOULD LEGALLY PROHIBIT CAPTURE AND DETENTION OF GREAT APES Bernard E. Rollin, professor of philosophy, Colorado State University, 1994, The Great Ape Project: equality beyond humanity, eds. Cavalieri & Singer, p. 216 Perhaps the best practical step one can take is to press for legislation to leave apes alone. We should not import them for zoos or for entertainment or for research, invasive or not. As Linden has pointed out, we are simply incapable of respecting their natures and their attendant rights in captivity. We should let them be, and let words and cameras in the hands of the Jane Goodalls and other morally directed naturalist-scientists and artists tell of their inexhaustible wonders and grandeur. And let the dictum be proclaimed – know without hurting, see without manipulating, cherish in itself, not for myself. SHOULD EXTEND DUE PROCESS PROTECTIONS TO GREAT APES 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 devil 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.
Daniel A. Dombrowski, 1997, Babies and Beasts: the argument from marginal cases, p. 145 What giving the great apes their due means is a complicated matter that would require an examination of several key issues in environmental ethics. Perhaps it largely means leaving them alone, setting aside preserves for them with controls on human entrance. Nondisruptive research, some degree of medical care, and perhaps emergency feeding would be appropriate, since we have already done much to destroy their habitats. Although the great apes are in many ways at the mental level of human children, they are not children but “wild” animals in that sense that their telos is not reached in zoos, circuses, laboratories, or any other context where they are seen as someone else’s property.
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