What is a “human”?
Here’s an interesting story about a group of animal rights activists attempting to get a chimpanzee declared a human in an Austrian court of law.
Animal rights activist and teacher Paula Stibbe…wants the chimpanzee, named Matthew Hiasl Pan, declared a person. That way, Stibbe says she can become the primate’s legal guardian if the bankrupt animal sanctuary where Matthew lives closes.
Although this court case is really just an attempt to get around legal obstacles, it does raise a fascinating point, and one which has been around for a while - what is a human? Chimpanzees are the closest relatives of humans, sharing about 94% of our DNA. They can use tools, show altruism, have been taught sign language and been able to communicate, albeit only roughly and with debatable grasp of grammar. Young chimps even outperform college students on memory tests (which I spoke about on the radio recently!)
If you say that a certain level of competency is required, then what about babies, or small children? The next step is usually to talk about potential, in that a baby has potential to become much more, whereas a chimp doesn’t. But what about people with disabilities, particularly severe disabilities? And so on.
There’s the other side too:
If Matthew the chimp were declared a person, scientists foresee it would open a messy can of worms.
“In general, I don’t think that it’s a good idea to grant chimpanzees legal human rights,” [said John Mitani, a primate behavioral ecologist at the University of Michigan] “Chimpanzees are well-known to kill each other. What would we do to perpetrators of those ‘crimes?’”
That’s a neat question. Could a chimp plead diminished responsibility/capacity? But if that will always apply to a chimp, surely they don’t deserve to be classed as human? But what about those humans who do make this defence? And so on.
Very similar arguments come up a lot in spiritual discussions (e.g., whether animals have souls), in making the case for or against abortion, and broader questions of ethics such as euthanasia. It also ties nicely into the broader question of the definition of “life” and “intelligent life” - but that’s for another post!
What do you think? If this were being decided by jury, how would you vote and why? If you were to invite animals into the Human Clan, who would they be? Is the plot of The Bee Movie going to become a reality?!
Trubby Says:
I think there is still some degree of difference between human and chimp. So I believe that we shouldn’t give human rights to a chimp. I guess you could train a chimp to act like a human being but then that doesn’t really make it human, unless they can teach it to their young, and then we essentially accelerate their evolution. But, it would be very difficult thing to do to teach a chimp to establish itself and its generations afterwards as a human. At the moment and in the next couple of decades I believe that society wouldn’t allow it. Also, memory tests aren’t the best example for human knowlege because I believe anyone can memorise certain things but it is part of our intellgience to be able to analyse information, be able to use the information in a practical sense so you can bend a twist it to apply it for what your doing (basically problem solving) and we can create our own ideas and concepts. If a chimp has developed a formula or scientific law (I would say any law, however chimps have laws. It’s meant to be more about laws about other things in the universe and how they work) please tell me. Sure you could probably teach a chimp to do this but you would need to develop their brain over generations to bring them up to human standard. I have no scientific evidence and I haven’t really read anything on the subject but this is what I belive. Though, there is no definite group of animals. There are always subgroups like animal, fungus, plant, bacteria, proteria (I can’t exactly remember what the groups are but you get my point) but then everyone and thing id different.
I think the idea of giving a chimp human rights is nonsensical at best, and farcical at worst.
This particular case seems to be an animal activist group that wants to protect a specific chimp from the uncertainties of bankruptcy by getting the courts to give the chimp to them. If they are really that concerned about the chimps well being there is already a way for them to ensure it. They can make an offer to the animal shelter. If they offer a fair price, I doubt the bankrupt animal sanctuary would be allowed to refuse it. I don’t often argue that commercializing things is the way to go, but I’m always for not creating new dubious legal precedents when there are existing ways to get something done.
As to the generals of should animals get human rights I would be very wary of any suggestion to give any other creature on Earth human rights. Arguing that chimps can do better than babies or mentally handicapped people is flawed, since we do deny certain rights to people in those groups (the right to vote, the right to economic freedom, etc). Any test for human rights should be based on normal members of a group, not the exceptions on either end of the spectra. Also consider that with rights come responsibilities. How will a chimp deal with the responsibilities of humanity?
As to how to test for human rights, I can’t think of much that doesn’t resemble the definition of pornography, I know it when I see it. Chimps don’t make the cut. Aliens landing in a city and initiating first contact do. An AI that passes the Turing test would make the cut. In fact, I think the Turing test might be a good way to go with deciding who gets human rights. If you can hold a non-trivial conversation, you get human (sentient-being) rights.