This will drive the Organ Grinder’s Union underground, forcing them to re-occupy the old CNT & UGT hideouts.
But lots of people don’t conform to human behavioral norms. The very young, the emotionally or mentally disturbed, the obstinate. They all have rights. I’m not claiming that giving rights to apes is a good idea, but I’ve read enough Peter Singer to know that there’s no simple argument that separates all humans from all non-human animals.
The OP states that the apes would be awarded guardians, so in that case they would be treated very much like those members of humanity that are unable or unwilling to conduct themselves in a rational manner with respect to the rest of society.
Not having read Peter Singer (or even knowing who he is), but I would think that us being able to have this discussion would be all the difference needed.
I have the idea that it’s only a finite, measureable step from here to finding the remains of the Statue of Liberty on a beach somewhere and damning someone to hell…
I just came back from Spain and read about this in a local newspaper. The idea seems with merits, and as you say it is not like they are giving apes the right to vote, or to citizenship, we are talking about giving them the basic rights that we should be given to any animal with their level of awareness. I am all for it dammit.
But an infant can’t participate in this discussion, nor could someone with a severe mental disability, nor could an ape.
But an ape could have a conversation of some sort, apes can and do communicate, emote, and even lie.
Infants and people with severe mental disabilites can’t.
Under our current ethical framework there is some “line” that encircles every human and excludes everyone else. Those inside the line we have to expend every resource to keep alive, we have ethical obligations to feed and shelter and not torture and so on. This is independent of things like their ability to communicate (newborns are very bad at communicating) or their potential to become fully functioning humans (because severely disabled people won’t).
Those outside the line, we don’t have to consider.
We don’t all agree on where this line is - some think Terry Schiavo should have been inside the line, some think fetuses should be - but the standard wisdom is that apes are outside the line, because we get to do horrific things to them that would never be acceptable to do to any humans, under any circumstances.
Singer says we need to rethink where this line is. I just finished reading Rethinking Life and Death, but I am more familiar with his earlier stuff on animal rights, so I can’t cite anything specifically, but I can look for cites if you want.
Finding the right place for the line depends on finding the morally relevant and externally verifiable difference between people that go inside the line and people that go outside. In other words, he’s saying that there’s no morally relevant and externally verifiable difference between an infant and an ape, so the line needs to either include both or exclude both. My understanding of this is that, since we would (probably) find it abhorrent to treat infants the way a lot of apes are currently treated, we should probably err on the side of including apes inside the line, instead of excluding infants from our moral circle.
“Morally relevant” means that the difference has to be meaningful. For instance, we are clearly bipedal and they are not, but that is not a good enough reason to deny rights to them that we get. Why, for instance, is it okay to torture apes just because they can’t engage in this discussion with us? If octopuses could engage in this discussion, would they be worthy of the same rights as us? Etc.
“Externally verifiable” means that you can’t claim that we have immortal souls and therefore are more worthy of rights. Again, an octopus would say that of course octopuses have immortal souls and there’s not a lot we could do to demonstrate otherwise.
cowgirl covered a lot of the problems with this. There are at least two more:
- There are folks who have not engaged in philosophical discussions, to the point that the concepts we’re debating here would be impossible for them to discuss. Yet we do not require folks to be able to discuss abstract concepts before we grant them rights.
- There are people who speak Urdu with whom you could not have this discussion. Yet we do not require them to speak our language before we grant them rights.
Neither of these are mere nitpicks: in the past, folks HAVE been denied rights based on their level of education, and folks now risk the denial of rights in our country based on the lack of a common language. Neither one is a good idea.
The ability to have discussions about morality is a trait that appears to be limited to humans, but it does not appear to be universal to humans. It doesn’t map to those entities to whom we give rights.
Daniel
But they’re folks and not animals. A big difference, at least to normal, well adjusted, sane people anyway.
Oooooooook? :mad:
You should know better than to call an ape a monkey, especially the Librarian!
Are there a lot of apes in Spain? Is ape abuse rampant? Doesn’t Spain have any real problems?
Is there a chance this is some kind of stunt to go towards outlawing abortion, or some such thing?
I doubt it. Generally the people who would like to outlaw abortion aren’t that happy to compare apes to humans and come up with similarities.
I guess. I’m just thinking it sounds like some wacky stunt by that the extreme fringe right (and note I said EXTREME FRINGE!) would propose-see, if evolution is correct, apes are just our brothers, and so they should have more rights than the unborn!
Kind of a shot at abortion AND evolution in one swoop. Or am I getting too cynical?
I can see it as satire, but not as an actually proposed law. There are cases of lawmakers creating “satirical” laws, but the EXTREME FRINGE often seem to believe that others think like that, and so for them a bill giving apes even full human rights would run the risk of passing. Plus, there’s not a lot of humour when you get to the extreme edges of any issue.
I think you are confused about politics in Spain. It doesn’t work the same way as in the US.
And please remember NOBODY wants to give apes human rights. That is NOT what this legislation is about. And from what I could read it is a serious proposal, and to me it has merits.
Well, nobody has called apes “folks” (I suppose you meant humans). So you’re arguing with nobody.
But an infant has the potential. And I’m quite willing to draw the circle tighter for someone with severe mental disability if necessary.
So did my cat (to a very limited extent to be sure).
I agree to the ‘not torture’, but I see no obligation other than what a person wishes to place upon themself to do any of the other things. I can see why tightening the circle is just as relevant as expanding it depending on the definition.
I’d not go that far to say we don’t have to consider them, but certainly not at the same level.
If octopuses could participate, or had the potential to participate, in this discussion, then yes they should have the same rights as us. Maybe communication ability isn’t the best indicator. Something like self awareness may be more suitable. One of the reasons I say this is because computers are getting to the point where we may have this discussion about them sometime soon, too.
Anyone making claims that on the face of it are irrational is the one responsible for proving those claims. The rest of us don’t have to disprove anything. That goes for those within the circle and those without, hehe.
They did in the post that I responded to.
I don’t think so.
But the Spaniards are very clever.
You will recall that they want Gibraltar presently in British hands?
Guess what? There are about 160 apes living on Gibraltar with aboriginal claim to the island.
How can you tell if something is “self-aware” if they can’t tell us? Are apes? Your cat? Octopuses? How would you measure it? Etc.
The point here is that there is no indicator that would include infants and severely disabled people, and exclude great apes, according to the criteria of “morally relevant” and “externally verifiable.”
Many people have tried very hard to think of such an indicator, and they can’t. If you come up with one, please let us know (along with Peter Singer and the Spanish government), as it would put this debate to rest.
There are apes who are more advanced, in every aspect that we consider “human,” than many humans will ever be. Yet we torture the apes, and go to great lengths to keep the humans alive.