TOPIC GUIDE: Great Apes
"Great apes should have rights"
PUBLISHED: 31 Jan 2011
AUTHOR: Justine Brian
Share this Topic Guide:
INTRODUCTION
In 2008 the Spanish government passed legislation to give some great apes, including chimps, bonobos, apes, and orangutans ‘rights’ under Spanish law, the first national legislature to do so [Ref: The Times]. Previously, in 1999, campaigners in New Zealand had argued for basic rights for great apes to be legally enshrined, but were unsuccessful, despite achieving greater protections including a ban on research involving great apes unless the research actually benefits them [Ref: Reuters]. Over the past decade, however, there has been much debate about whether great apes should be given legally enforceable rights, especially as recent research has suggested that great apes share what was thought to be uniquely human traits, such as language, leading campaigners to argue it’s time for us to re-evaluate our relationship to them. This debate also relates to wider questions about our relationship to the animal kingdom. The philosopher Peter Singer’s book Animal Liberation helped form the modern animal liberation movement in the 1970s and questioned the privileging of humans over animals, with particular reference to animal experimentation. However, Singer has argued that the great apes merit special concern not only because they are our closest evolutionary ‘relatives’ but because they ‘possess many of the characteristics which we consider distinctive in our own species’ [Ref: Prospect]. The key question in this debate is: should we expand our sphere of moral concern to great apes, on a more equal basis, by giving them rights; or is there something unique about human beings that makes which means rights can only be understood and exercised by humans?
DEBATE IN CONTEXT
This section provides a summary of the key issues in the debate, set in the context of recent discussions and the competing positions that have been adopted.
Rights for the great apes
In 2008 the Spanish parliament signed up to support the Great Apes Project, founded by philosophers and scientists, which proposes the extension of basic rights to ‘all great primates: human beings, chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans’; these rights being ‘life, liberty, and the prohibition of torture’ [Ref: The Great Ape Project]. The Spanish legislation ensures the protection of apes from abuse, torture and death. This not only includes protection from harmful scientific experiments, which have recently been banned across the European Union, but also outlaws their use in television, films or the circus. Critics of the move in Spain and further afield argue this is tantamount to giving apes the same rights as humans, and therefore putting us on an equal moral plane. The Spanish government has argued that they are not equating human rights with those they want to provide for the great apes, but that this move is necessary to prevent some species of great ape becoming extinct within a generation, as predicted by the UN [Ref: UNEP].
Can apes have rights?
The possession of culture, language and self-awareness has made humans unique in the animal world. However those advocating rights for great apes argue that some of these traits aren’t quite as unique as previously thought: whereas tool-making was once thought to be unique to humans, for example, we can now observe something similar in chimpanzees, albeit in a primitive form. Also recent research by a philosopher and psychologist in a study of orangutans suggests they have a form of communication through mime which hadn’t been recognised before [Ref: Biology Letters]. This discovery has again led advocates of apes to raise the question of the extent of our shared traits with apes and the need to extend moral being to these animals. According to philosopher Peter Singer, the work of researchers like Jane Goodall, Diane Fossey, Birute Galdikas, Frans de Waal ‘amply demonstrates that the great apes are intelligent beings with strong emotions that in many ways resemble our own’. This, he argues, justifies granting them basic rights. Others suggest that these claims regarding our close proximity to apes are heavily influenced by anthropomorphism, which misunderstand primitive animal communication in relation to the sophisticated complexities of human development, suggesting that apparent discoveries about apes’ abilities are wishful thinking on the part of animal-lovers [Ref: spiked]. Critics question what meaning ape-rights would have in the absence of any appreciation by apes of those rights we may bestow upon them. Furthermore, as ape rights can only be exercised by humans on their behalf, they ask in what sense these rights differ from mere protection.
What makes us human?
One of the key components in this debate is that of human exceptionalism, and whether ape rights would challenge this notion. Opponents of the Great Apes Project argue that the case for granting ‘rights’ to apes misunderstands what rights are, and devalues their significance. Rights, in human history, have been fought for rather than conferred, and reflect the cumulative nature of human evolution and thought – learning, teaching, and abstract language – which allow us to understand ourselves as autonomous beings who are able to make moral judgments. As self-conscious moral agents are we able to weigh and judge the life of humans or animals in a way no other species is? Animal rights campaigners point to humanity’s long history of oppression and inhumanity to fellow humans, often justified on the basis of one race or culture’s superiority over another, as evidence that we are not such a superior species after all. Richard Ryder, who coined the term ‘speciesism’, argues ‘the moral implication of Darwinism is that all sentient animals, including humans, should have a similar moral status’ [Ref: Richard Ryder]. In which case is it time to expand our understanding of rights so as to secure a humane future for remarkable non-humans, such as our closest relatives the great apes? Or are rights, like the capacity to make moral judgements about whether or not to protect other species, something only humans can appreciate?
ESSENTIAL READING
It is crucial for debaters to have read the articles in this section, which provide essential information and arguments for and against the debate motion. Students will be expected to have additional evidence and examples derived from independent research, but they can expect to be criticised if they lack a basic familiarity with the issues raised in the essential reading.
When human rights extend to non-humans
Donald McNeil New York Times 13 July 2008
Should we breach the species barrier and grant rights to the apes?
Peter Singer and Kenan Malik Prospect 20 May 1999
FOR
A different take on great ape personhood
Brandom Keim Wired 19 December 2008
Sentient Like Me: Ape Rights and the Myth of Intelligence amongst Speciesists
Jason Miller Animal Liberation Front 7 July 2008
Thomas Rose CBC News 2 August 2007
Peter Singer Project Syndicate 1 May 2006
AGAINST
Robin Walsh Culture Wars 30 September 2010
Votes for dogs appeals, but giving animals rights is moral chaos
Simon Jenkins Guardian 8 March 2010
Wesley Smith Weekly Standard 21 July 2008
Roger Scruton City Journal 2000
IN DEPTH
Orang-utans are not remotely like humans
Helene Guldberg spiked 19 August 2010
Will according rights and “dignity” to nonhuman organisms halt research?
Ed Yong Seedmagazine.com 12 December 2008
Why Humans Aren’t Just Great Apes
Robin I. M. Dunbar Issues in Ethnology and Anthropology 2008
KEY TERMS
Definitions of key concepts that are crucial for understanding the topic. Students should be familiar with these terms and the different ways in which they are used and interpreted and should be prepared to explain their significance.
BACKGROUNDERS
Useful websites and materials that provide a good starting point for research.
Battle of Ideas 30 October 2010
Orangutan pantomime: elaborating the message
Anne Russon and Kristin Andrews Biology Letters 11 August 2010
Should apes have human rights?
Tom Geoghegan BBC News 29 March 2003
Jane Goodall on what separates us from apes
TED 1 March 2002
European statistics on animal research
Understanding Animal Research
BBC Ethics Guide
World Wildlife Fund
ORGANISATIONS
Links to organisations, campaign groups and official bodies who are referenced within the Topic Guide or which will be of use in providing additional research information.
IN THE NEWS
Relevant recent news stories from a variety of sources, which ensure students have an up to date awareness of the state of the debate.
Yes, he can walk. But just how close is Ambam the gorilla to being human?
Daily Mail 28 January 2011
NASA halts monkey radiation experiment for now
MSNBC 13 December 2010
Great apes protected as EU restricts animal testing
Reuters 8 September 2010
Chimps and apes to get same rights as humans
Scotsman 28 June 2010
Apes get legal rights in Spain, to surprise of bullfight critics
The Times 27 June 2010
The ape dictionary: How our cousins use 40 gestures to communicate
Daily Mail 18 June 2010
Orang-utan language identified
Independent 18 June 2010
Nasa to irradiate monkeys to study effects of long space trips on humans
Telegraph 2 November 2009
Are human beings impossible to ape?
Telegraph 30 June 2009
Ban on primate experiments would be devastating, scientists warn
Guardian 2 November 2008
Activists pursue basic legal rights for great apes
USA Today 15 July 2008
Spanish parliament to extend rights to apes
Reuters 25 June 2008
European Court agrees to hear chimp’s plea for human rights
Evening Standard 21 May 2008
AUDIO/VISUAL
Battle of Ideas 30 October 2010
Jane Goodall on what separates us from apes
TED 1 March 2002
This site contains links to websites operated by parties other than Debating Matters. Although we make every effort to ensure links are current, they will sometimes break after Topic Guide publication. If a link does not work, then the publication reference and date should enable you to find an alternate link. If you find a broken link do please send it to the webmaster for review.
TOPIC GUIDE MENU
Select the relevant option
Related topic guides