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It's certainly honorable to want to give rights to animals and it wouldn't be a "wtf" moment if they declared they wanted animal rights (or chimpanzee rights in

It's certainly honorable to want to give rights to animals and it wouldn't be a "wtf" moment if they declared they wanted animal rights (or chimpanzee rights in that case) based on current human right. But granting human right to chimpanzees is not saying animals have the same rights than humans. It's saying chimpanzees are humans. We can debate on how apes are different (if at all) with humans, but we should not forget that what NZ government was basically saying is that they're not different.

ekianjo 13y ago
I guess the discussion starts from "human rights" because there is no established "animal rights" anywhere in the first place. I'm not saying I agree that they should have human rights. I dont think "rights" is the right word to begin with, but "compassion towards other species" would be a good place to start with, and reflecting about how "moral / ethical" it is to inflict pain willingly on other species. Because if "pain" and "emotions" are felt pretty much in the same way by animals and humans (for which there is more and more evidence on that as we learn how the brain works), why would it be moral to inflict pain to animals but amoral to inflict pain on human beings ?
- oelmekki 13y ago
  > Because if "pain" and "emotions" are felt pretty much in the same way by animals and humans (for which there is more and more evidence on that as we learn how the brain works), why would it be moral to inflict pain to animals but amoral to inflict pain on human beings ? Without being an antispecist, I surely agree with that. It would have been indeed a great thing to start with writing some kind of animal rights chart, or even a global "life rights", that would include human rights (and which would probably leads to questions like "how much is it ok to takes from nature" or "when taking animal life for food, how to do it respectfully"). But I don't think that's what this government had in mind. I may be wrong, of course, but it seems to me they had more anthropological considerations about apes than considerations about animal suffering, or else, they would have proposed some kind of general animal law.
- SeanDav 13y ago
  Certainly agree with you here.

ekianjo 13y ago

I guess the discussion starts from "human rights" because there is no established "animal rights" anywhere in the first place. I'm not saying I agree that they should have human rights. I dont think "rights" is the right word to begin with, but "compassion towards other species" would be a good place to start with, and reflecting about how "moral / ethical" it is to inflict pain willingly on other species. Because if "pain" and "emotions" are felt pretty much in the same way by animals and humans (for which there is more and more evidence on that as we learn how the brain works), why would it be moral to inflict pain to animals but amoral to inflict pain on human beings ?

oelmekki 13y ago
> Because if "pain" and "emotions" are felt pretty much in the same way by animals and humans (for which there is more and more evidence on that as we learn how the brain works), why would it be moral to inflict pain to animals but amoral to inflict pain on human beings ? Without being an antispecist, I surely agree with that. It would have been indeed a great thing to start with writing some kind of animal rights chart, or even a global "life rights", that would include human rights (and which would probably leads to questions like "how much is it ok to takes from nature" or "when taking animal life for food, how to do it respectfully"). But I don't think that's what this government had in mind. I may be wrong, of course, but it seems to me they had more anthropological considerations about apes than considerations about animal suffering, or else, they would have proposed some kind of general animal law.
SeanDav 13y ago
Certainly agree with you here.