Do Apes Deserve Human Rights?
Various pop-science shows annually trot out the “oh, look what progress we are making in teaching monkeys to act like us and thus learn something about ourselves from evolution” show. These always bother me with their bold claims that a communicating, “art-loving” primate demonstrates that humans are not really that special after all. I know that the idea is wrong-headed, but do not know enough about the experiments to come up with anything other than biblical-theological reasons why.
This is why I found an interview with Marie I. George (of St John’s University, New York) enlightening and refreshing. She speaks to a few of the more popular “chimps are humans too” arguments from a philosophical perspective and generates thoughts and talking points for the next time I have the “99% human conversation” with someone. A sample from the article:
Again, language for apes is a way of getting things, and of making their trainers happy. It is useful to contrast Helen Keller with the apes that people have tried to teach language. Helen Keller had ideas, but lacked a means of communicating them. Once it clicked with her that the signs Annie Sullivan was making were a means of expressing ideas, she was eager to learn new words and she began carrying conversations which were simple at first, but which gradually increased in complexity.
It was because Helen Keller had ideas that language for her served as a key which unlocked the expression of these ideas, and also allowed her to acquire new ideas. The apes people have tried to teach language to fail to manifest this same progression. The cause underlying this failure is plainly the apes’ lack of abstract thought.
Interestingly, George holds open the possibility that non-human hominids can qualify for human rights - if they display the transcendent characteristics that only humans genuinely display. I’ll close with one of the best quotes from the article: “Apes have a life cycle, they don’t have a life projects, and so there is no reason to accord them rights so that they can pursue their life projects unimpeded.” Sounds compatible with what I also know to be true.
