7 ms·

"...an appeals court argued that chimpanzees do not participate in society and cannot be held accountable for their actions." Nor can babies, but they are lega

by rlpb 12y ago

"...an appeals court argued that chimpanzees do not participate in society and cannot be held accountable for their actions." Nor can babies, but they are legal persons, aren't they?

Natsu 12y ago
Babies will be able to participate in society eventually, though, and the mentally disabled might be able to given treatment. To my knowledge, no chimp has ever done so.
- ceejayoz 12y ago
  There are humans with profound, permanent mental disabilities rendering them less capable of participating in society than your average chimpanzee who retain their rights. Some chimps are actors in films, performers in circuses, etc.
  - kissickas 12y ago
    I think most people like this are being watched closely in some form of imprisonment, though, aren't they? A chimp is able to rip a person apart or crush their head in much more easily than a baby, so I don't think the original analogy works.
    - TaylorAlexander 12y ago
      The analogy works fine. A chimp is like a baby in the sense that neither can participate in society. Babies, however, are still treated as having rights. The analogy had nothing to do with who can crush skulls.
      - kissickas 12y ago
        Maybe I made too far of a jump. I'm just here to discuss the issue and don't really know what I think, so please humor me. What I was saying was that babies rarely have to be held accountable for any serious action - absent heavy machinery or dangerous materials, a baby can do very limited damage. A naked chimp who's a bit moody, though, can easily cause someone serious harm. If we are not going to hold that chimp responsible for what they did just as we would with a person (because punishment would also be inhumane or nonproductive), then chimps don't match up perfectly with babies in terms of the need for legal rights and representation.
        ceejayoz 12y ago
        > What I was saying was that babies rarely have to be held accountable for any serious action - absent heavy machinery or dangerous materials, a baby can do very limited damage. A naked chimp who's a bit moody, though, can easily cause someone serious harm. This is also true about, say, a severely autistic adult, who we still deem to be worthy of a wide variety of rights.
        TaylorAlexander 12y ago
        No worries, I typically comment the same way and I understand if not everything that is typed is a deeply held rigid opinion. I agree that it would likely not be a good idea for chimps to live in human society, but I think a true rational analysis without invoking divine right would find that if we consider human individuals as possessing a basic right to life, we would find the same for chimps, dolphins, and probably many other animals (perhaps all the way to insects and bacteria). The idea that they all need to live in our society to be treated fairly by the legal system is one that I think needs reexamining. Dolphins, for example, could simply never live in human society because they live underwater and humans do not. But we could find that a human who abuses a dolphin is depriving the dolphin of some legal right to live a non-abused life (I don't know what the legal term here is). I think this is new legal territory, but I have a feeling that environmental protection lawyers will soon try to show that animals have inalienable rights just like humans. (I say it's new, but I also know that people have been working on this for a long time.) So chimps and babies interface with society in different ways, but I feel like they both have a right to life. I mean, religious conservatives say that a fertilized egg has all the same rights as a living human - I see no reason why dolphins and non-human apes should be treated any differently. I know there is a legal history of treating animals like inanimate objects, but that doesn't seem to follow the spirit of our laws protecting the sovereignty of intelligent individuals. I see that changing somehow in the future.
      - pvaldes 12y ago
        Another trap set by an abstract definition, that can mean what is more convenient for, or the opposite tomorrow, or nothing. Are a woman using sign language to communicate with other humans participating in society? After all she is not able to speak... And when is a female gorilla doing exactly the same?. Are an human payed by testing new cosmetics a member of society? And if is a rabbit payed in carrots?
  - Natsu 12y ago
    I would be willing to exempt humans because we know that most humans are able to do such and we do not know what advances medicine might make. You can argue that this is speciesist, but so is killing mosquitoes for biting you (you wouldn't kill a human for the same offense, hopefully). Conversely, many tables have 'appeared' in film, circuses, etc. so I would suggest that's too low a bar. My personal philosophy is only to entertain the question of personhood with entities that are or most likely will become able to pose that question. So yes, if they eventually find a way to 'uplift' chimps or something like that, I'll be happy to welcome them. Conversely, it makes no sense to entertain the notion of personhood unless and until the chimps have done so themselves.
    - trhway 12y ago
      >My personal philosophy is only to entertain the question of personhood with entities that are or most likely will become able to pose that question. So yes, if they eventually find a way to 'uplift' chimps or something like that, I'll be happy to welcome them. Conversely, it makes no sense to entertain the notion of personhood unless and until the chimps have done so themselves. you're just speaking from a position of the species [violently] dominating the planet. Chimps wouldn't need your prized personhood status (existing only in the human imagination) at all if not as a way to minimize violence the human species would apply to the chimps otherwise. Anyway, it sounds like you've never read Catch-22.
      - icebraining 12y ago
        Yes. So what? The idea that we shouldn't violently dominate the planet is also a construction of human imagination.
        trhway 12y ago
        yep. It is a stage in civilization development and we need to move past it onto the next stage - inter-species communication and coexistence which will ultimately allow our brain to get to the state suitable for communicating with higher [than human] species too. Right now we're just keeping ourselves locked in the anthropocentric "top-of-the-food-pyramid" closet, and sticking to such narrow limited worldview significantly slows our civilization development.
- sho_hn 12y ago
  How do you define "participate in society", though, and why does it have to be human society? I'm not deeply invested into these topics (legal or otherwise), but as your typical 30-year old engineer who grew up on Star Trek, I guess I've always wondered if it's justified to not treat intelligent animals as persons just because they're dumber than us and/or not interested in negotiation. When certain criteria are met (e.g. just from the top of my head, the ability to be sufficiently self-aware to be aware of incarceration and not like it) it seems hard not to. Ultimately it just comes down to competing for living space and picking sides, perhaps.
  - Natsu 12y ago
    I was using their standard, not my own. Personally, I only entertain the notion of personhood with entities which are known to be capable of asserting it themselves. So if Data shows up someday, I'm happy to welcome him. But I'm not going to go into contortions over how intelligent something is or might be unless they're able to pose these questions themselves. I've never been impressed by the 'speciesist' argument, either. I have yet to find a person who has not killed a mosquito, or who is against wiping out deadly diseases and I find the very construction of the word designed to be emotionally manipulative.
    - trhway 12y ago
      >I have yet to find a person who has not killed a mosquito, or who is against wiping out deadly diseases do you honestly not see a difference in sentience between mosquito and a chimp?
      - Natsu 12y ago
        Yes, but I also see one between person and chimp. And all such distinctions are, by definition, 'speciesist'.
        trhway 12y ago
        >And all such distinctions are, by definition, 'speciesist'. not. Recognizing difference in sentience level not necessarily means "specie-ism", for example between a human with severe autism and a "normal" human.
- chime 12y ago
  This line of reasoning gets tricky very quickly and takes us into ethical dilemmas. Take for instance babies with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anencephaly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anencephaly e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_K http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_K Should functional chimps who show emotions, bonding, skills and reasoning ability be given fewer rights than human babies with no brains but heartbeat, even though we know for fact that they can never be functional members of society? Are our rights based on DNA or potential? My preference is to treat entire species as non-human persons once even a few members have demonstrated partial intelligence. So cetacean, hominoid, psittacine, canine, feline, equine, bovine, and porcine could easily fall into that category. However, since I hear bovine and porcine are delicious, I don't expect them to get any rights in my life time. Maybe in a few centuries once lab-grown meat is plentiful. In the meantime, I don't see why we can't treat intelligent species that are not commonly eaten as non-human persons with basic rights.
  - ufmace 12y ago
    I thought they already have at least some rights. Don't many states have entire departments of police officers dedicated to enforcing animal cruelty laws? I don't see much objection to making and enforcing laws against pointlessly cruel treatment of animals.
    - Natsu 12y ago
      The objection here seems to be over animal testing. So it's a question of whether one prefers to feel good about themselves and leave human victims due to lack of testing, or whether one allows for animal victims.
    - Tomte 12y ago
      No, they don't. The laws against cruelty are directed towards humans. They forbid specific behavior of humans which involve animals. In the same way, desecrating a cemetary or destruction of property is also forbidden, yet neither graveyards nor objects hold rights themselves.
    - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
beeworker 12y ago
No, they're not. At least, children in general don't enjoy the full rights of a legal adult person. Traditionally children were viewed as property of the parents, and in many senses that's still true. Read 'adult chimpanzees' if you must.
- themartorana 12y ago
  Chimp, not person. Young people, not a full person. Corporations? Obviously a person. Apologies for the snark.
  - superuser2 12y ago
    If corporations couldn't own property and enter into legal disputes, the world would be pretty messy. If 5-year-olds could file lawsuits... the world would be pretty messy.
throawry53 12y ago
Babies don't tear other babies limb-from-limb. Chimps are horrible creates, and consequently, I have no qualms about their use in medical testing.
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  That's deeply irrational - you're OK with horrible things happening to Chimp X because Chimp Y does horrible things, and so might Chimp X given the opportunity? I agree that chimpanzees can be quite horrible, but then so can people - by this argument we should just carry out medical testing on whoever, because given the chance anyone might behave like Hitler.

by rlpb 12y ago

"...an appeals court argued that chimpanzees do not participate in society and cannot be held accountable for their actions." Nor can babies, but they are legal persons, aren't they?

Natsu 12y ago

Babies will be able to participate in society eventually, though, and the mentally disabled might be able to given treatment. To my knowledge, no chimp has ever done so.

ceejayoz 12y ago
There are humans with profound, permanent mental disabilities rendering them less capable of participating in society than your average chimpanzee who retain their rights. Some chimps are actors in films, performers in circuses, etc.
- kissickas 12y ago
  I think most people like this are being watched closely in some form of imprisonment, though, aren't they? A chimp is able to rip a person apart or crush their head in much more easily than a baby, so I don't think the original analogy works.
  - TaylorAlexander 12y ago
    The analogy works fine. A chimp is like a baby in the sense that neither can participate in society. Babies, however, are still treated as having rights. The analogy had nothing to do with who can crush skulls.
    - kissickas 12y ago
      Maybe I made too far of a jump. I'm just here to discuss the issue and don't really know what I think, so please humor me. What I was saying was that babies rarely have to be held accountable for any serious action - absent heavy machinery or dangerous materials, a baby can do very limited damage. A naked chimp who's a bit moody, though, can easily cause someone serious harm. If we are not going to hold that chimp responsible for what they did just as we would with a person (because punishment would also be inhumane or nonproductive), then chimps don't match up perfectly with babies in terms of the need for legal rights and representation.
      - ceejayoz 12y ago
        > What I was saying was that babies rarely have to be held accountable for any serious action - absent heavy machinery or dangerous materials, a baby can do very limited damage. A naked chimp who's a bit moody, though, can easily cause someone serious harm. This is also true about, say, a severely autistic adult, who we still deem to be worthy of a wide variety of rights.
      - TaylorAlexander 12y ago
        No worries, I typically comment the same way and I understand if not everything that is typed is a deeply held rigid opinion. I agree that it would likely not be a good idea for chimps to live in human society, but I think a true rational analysis without invoking divine right would find that if we consider human individuals as possessing a basic right to life, we would find the same for chimps, dolphins, and probably many other animals (perhaps all the way to insects and bacteria). The idea that they all need to live in our society to be treated fairly by the legal system is one that I think needs reexamining. Dolphins, for example, could simply never live in human society because they live underwater and humans do not. But we could find that a human who abuses a dolphin is depriving the dolphin of some legal right to live a non-abused life (I don't know what the legal term here is). I think this is new legal territory, but I have a feeling that environmental protection lawyers will soon try to show that animals have inalienable rights just like humans. (I say it's new, but I also know that people have been working on this for a long time.) So chimps and babies interface with society in different ways, but I feel like they both have a right to life. I mean, religious conservatives say that a fertilized egg has all the same rights as a living human - I see no reason why dolphins and non-human apes should be treated any differently. I know there is a legal history of treating animals like inanimate objects, but that doesn't seem to follow the spirit of our laws protecting the sovereignty of intelligent individuals. I see that changing somehow in the future.
    - pvaldes 12y ago
      Another trap set by an abstract definition, that can mean what is more convenient for, or the opposite tomorrow, or nothing. Are a woman using sign language to communicate with other humans participating in society? After all she is not able to speak... And when is a female gorilla doing exactly the same?. Are an human payed by testing new cosmetics a member of society? And if is a rabbit payed in carrots?
- Natsu 12y ago
  I would be willing to exempt humans because we know that most humans are able to do such and we do not know what advances medicine might make. You can argue that this is speciesist, but so is killing mosquitoes for biting you (you wouldn't kill a human for the same offense, hopefully). Conversely, many tables have 'appeared' in film, circuses, etc. so I would suggest that's too low a bar. My personal philosophy is only to entertain the question of personhood with entities that are or most likely will become able to pose that question. So yes, if they eventually find a way to 'uplift' chimps or something like that, I'll be happy to welcome them. Conversely, it makes no sense to entertain the notion of personhood unless and until the chimps have done so themselves.
  - trhway 12y ago
    >My personal philosophy is only to entertain the question of personhood with entities that are or most likely will become able to pose that question. So yes, if they eventually find a way to 'uplift' chimps or something like that, I'll be happy to welcome them. Conversely, it makes no sense to entertain the notion of personhood unless and until the chimps have done so themselves. you're just speaking from a position of the species [violently] dominating the planet. Chimps wouldn't need your prized personhood status (existing only in the human imagination) at all if not as a way to minimize violence the human species would apply to the chimps otherwise. Anyway, it sounds like you've never read Catch-22.
    - icebraining 12y ago
      Yes. So what? The idea that we shouldn't violently dominate the planet is also a construction of human imagination.
      - trhway 12y ago
        yep. It is a stage in civilization development and we need to move past it onto the next stage - inter-species communication and coexistence which will ultimately allow our brain to get to the state suitable for communicating with higher [than human] species too. Right now we're just keeping ourselves locked in the anthropocentric "top-of-the-food-pyramid" closet, and sticking to such narrow limited worldview significantly slows our civilization development.
sho_hn 12y ago
How do you define "participate in society", though, and why does it have to be human society? I'm not deeply invested into these topics (legal or otherwise), but as your typical 30-year old engineer who grew up on Star Trek, I guess I've always wondered if it's justified to not treat intelligent animals as persons just because they're dumber than us and/or not interested in negotiation. When certain criteria are met (e.g. just from the top of my head, the ability to be sufficiently self-aware to be aware of incarceration and not like it) it seems hard not to. Ultimately it just comes down to competing for living space and picking sides, perhaps.
- Natsu 12y ago
  I was using their standard, not my own. Personally, I only entertain the notion of personhood with entities which are known to be capable of asserting it themselves. So if Data shows up someday, I'm happy to welcome him. But I'm not going to go into contortions over how intelligent something is or might be unless they're able to pose these questions themselves. I've never been impressed by the 'speciesist' argument, either. I have yet to find a person who has not killed a mosquito, or who is against wiping out deadly diseases and I find the very construction of the word designed to be emotionally manipulative.
  - trhway 12y ago
    >I have yet to find a person who has not killed a mosquito, or who is against wiping out deadly diseases do you honestly not see a difference in sentience between mosquito and a chimp?
    - Natsu 12y ago
      Yes, but I also see one between person and chimp. And all such distinctions are, by definition, 'speciesist'.
      - trhway 12y ago
        >And all such distinctions are, by definition, 'speciesist'. not. Recognizing difference in sentience level not necessarily means "specie-ism", for example between a human with severe autism and a "normal" human.
chime 12y ago
This line of reasoning gets tricky very quickly and takes us into ethical dilemmas. Take for instance babies with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anencephaly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anencephaly e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_K http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_K Should functional chimps who show emotions, bonding, skills and reasoning ability be given fewer rights than human babies with no brains but heartbeat, even though we know for fact that they can never be functional members of society? Are our rights based on DNA or potential? My preference is to treat entire species as non-human persons once even a few members have demonstrated partial intelligence. So cetacean, hominoid, psittacine, canine, feline, equine, bovine, and porcine could easily fall into that category. However, since I hear bovine and porcine are delicious, I don't expect them to get any rights in my life time. Maybe in a few centuries once lab-grown meat is plentiful. In the meantime, I don't see why we can't treat intelligent species that are not commonly eaten as non-human persons with basic rights.
- ufmace 12y ago
  I thought they already have at least some rights. Don't many states have entire departments of police officers dedicated to enforcing animal cruelty laws? I don't see much objection to making and enforcing laws against pointlessly cruel treatment of animals.
  - Natsu 12y ago
    The objection here seems to be over animal testing. So it's a question of whether one prefers to feel good about themselves and leave human victims due to lack of testing, or whether one allows for animal victims.
  - Tomte 12y ago
    No, they don't. The laws against cruelty are directed towards humans. They forbid specific behavior of humans which involve animals. In the same way, desecrating a cemetary or destruction of property is also forbidden, yet neither graveyards nor objects hold rights themselves.
  - JoeAltmaier 12y ago

beeworker 12y ago

No, they're not. At least, children in general don't enjoy the full rights of a legal adult person. Traditionally children were viewed as property of the parents, and in many senses that's still true. Read 'adult chimpanzees' if you must.

themartorana 12y ago
Chimp, not person. Young people, not a full person. Corporations? Obviously a person. Apologies for the snark.
- superuser2 12y ago
  If corporations couldn't own property and enter into legal disputes, the world would be pretty messy. If 5-year-olds could file lawsuits... the world would be pretty messy.

throawry53 12y ago

Babies don't tear other babies limb-from-limb. Chimps are horrible creates, and consequently, I have no qualms about their use in medical testing.

anigbrowl 12y ago
That's deeply irrational - you're OK with horrible things happening to Chimp X because Chimp Y does horrible things, and so might Chimp X given the opportunity? I agree that chimpanzees can be quite horrible, but then so can people - by this argument we should just carry out medical testing on whoever, because given the chance anyone might behave like Hitler.