Shock the Monkey, Go to Jail
At Slate, Bill Saletan takes a crack at ape rights in Spain. I must admit, I have zero problem with extending legal protections to animal species on the basis of a rights recognition framework. Score one for the Great Ape Project. But I do have an 800-pound problem with the following:
Peter Singer, the philosopher who co-founded GAP, puts it this way: “There is no sound moral reason why possession of basic rights should be limited to members of a particular species.” If aliens or monkeys are shown to have moral or intellectual abilities similar to ours, we should treat them like people.
I have argued elsewhere at this site that a properly human ethics is impossible unless grounded firmly in the humanness of humans. My support for ape rights is consonant with this: but only insofar as we recognize the rights of apes as a consequence of our humanity, rather than as a consequence of our ‘shared animality’ or some such useless, dangerous construct. So Singer’s remark is deeply troublesome. Look closer, and you see a rank tautology. There is no sound reason, Singer argues, why the possession of rights not limited to members of a particular species should be limited to members of a particular species. This is no way to win, much less make, an argument of such magnitude.
Saletan too misses the mark. To what extent should nonhuman animals with “similar” moral and intellectual abilities be treated “like” humans? Much less like people, a term that carries far more moral weight? There is an effort afoot to extend personhood to creatures to which we could never extend humanhood. I suppose it is quaint in the seemingly interminable era of corporate personhood to get upset about this, but the risk is clear: flattering our uniquely human hearts and minds by treating subhuman animals as similarly to ourselves as necessary for us to feel good about it.
For all the puerile pleasure we derive from creating these false solidarities, we can run from the singularity of our humanity but we can’t hide. Probably the least noble aspect of the current effort to make animals into people involves its consolation prize value for those driven to distraction over our inability even to secure intra-species solidarity.
(Pic courtesy Flicker nicodio.)