An Orangutan Has Some Human Rights, Argentine Court Rules

http://www.wired.com/2014/12/orangutan-personhood/

by gpvos • 12 years ago

109 95 12 years ago

pizza234• 12 years ago

I find very interesting the court argument: "chimpanzees can't fulfill the social obligations expected of anyone with rights".

Philosophically, the same could be applied to a paraplegic, or in most cases to somebody with Down syndrome, so I wonder if there was more in the ruling; I find this argument very poor.

adamnemecek2• 12 years ago

People with Down syndrome legally don't have the same rights.

politician2• 12 years ago

Please elaborate. I would love to know whether you mean that they have (a) more rights than others, (b) less rights than others, (c) different rights than others, or (d) individually different rights among themselves.

hawleyal3• 12 years ago

You are talking about legal rights, not human rights.

Retra7• 12 years ago

I find any argument involving rights to be poor.

Our goals in a social context are always to make the best possible decisions with what we know, and to enable each other to do the same. We have goals, information, communication, and laws. Rights are inarticulate and overly-understand things -- almost to the point of purposelessness.

People should not be making arguments based on rights, but upon what is known about ourselves and our reality. We should use what can be rationally supported and what can be reasonably predicted based upon shared experiences and cultural knowledge. Rights are just a vague and small slice of this, easily made muddy by the fact that people can know they have rights without even knowing why they should have them, where they apply, or when to give them up.

TheOtherHobbes• 12 years ago

Rights try to predefine 'best possible' for a culture.

This is a good thing because it provides a written moral standard and a legal basis for further argument - rather like a constitution.

Relying on 'rational argument' doesn't work as well because most 'rational argument' in politics, law, and economics is persuasion through sophistry, custom, tribalism, rhetoric, appeal to self-interest, and/or the application or threat of force.

None of these have much to do with rationality in the scientific sense of being able to build useful models of reality from data.

tl dr; Defining rights makes spurious political plays more difficult.

RobertKerans3• 12 years ago

What's a rational argument? It is not irrational, for example, to kill or (forcibly convert) absolutely anyone who doesn't believe (religiously) that which I believe.

logfromblammo2• 12 years ago

Rights are a mutual agreement between those that may wield the power to harm to not use that power on each other.

In today's world, that means two things. If you cannot pick up and fire a gun, you have no rights. If you can pick up a gun, but cannot restrain yourself from using it against others who also can, you have no rights.

It is convenient for some people who have rights to act as a guardian to someone who does not, to provide the illusion that they also have rights. Babies enjoy the illusion of some rights, because if you try to harm one, the parents will probably try to harm you, along with hordes of other offended adults.

The entire system is built upon a civilized arrangement, where people agree that certain actions do not merit retaliatory violence. In order to insult someone else's mother without getting punched in the face, I must be prepared to hear insults to my own mother and restrain my own fist.

This implies that the only requirement for having rights is the ability to respect the same rights for others. It would seem that a necessary prerequisite for that is the ability to communicate. Orangutans have demonstrated this ability with manual signing, lexigrams, and keyboards. But it is uncertain whether an orangutan could also generalize its social interactions to include other humans or orangutans that had never been previously encountered. They have learned to use money, so it's very possible they could learn the other social constructs of civilization.

Orangutans have at least demonstrated learning and cognition abilities on par with some humans, so I'd be willing to pretend they have rights in line with human children or those otherwise legally incompetent. They can definitely learn to use the gun. The question is whether they can also learn not to use it.

After that, it's a matter of negotiation. An orangutan might care more about fig tree rights and habitat protections than about the right to own property or freedom of religion.

14573893• 12 years ago

shared experiences and cultural knowledge

So you have replaced a debate about values and shared definitions to one predicated on groupthink. Basing your moral decisions on shared experiences and cultural knowledge leads to the exact kind of in-group/out-group thinking that the idea of rights was designed to combat. It isn't a perfect moral framework, but it is one that has achieved a great deal of good in the last few centuries.

aaron695• 12 years ago

From a link in the article -

"The Nonhuman Rights Project had addressed that argument in their brief, countering that young children and adults with severe mental disabilities are not expected to fulfill the social obligations of mature adults, but are still granted legal rights.

While that is true, wrote the judges, “it is undeniable that, collectively, human beings possess the unique ability to bear legal responsibility.”"

irremediable3• 12 years ago

Surely not a convincing rebuttal, though? Collectively, adults with severe mental disabilities can't bear legal responsibility.

peteretep2• 12 years ago

    “it is undeniable that, collectively, human beings possess
    the unique ability to bear legal responsibility.”

That's somewhat modern thinking... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_trial

Also, did you know you can put a corpse on trial? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadaver_Synod

konstruktor• 12 years ago

Both points have been made by different but well regarded philosophers, and represent different ethical schools. The court's argument seems to follow contractualism (e.g. Searle, see 1), and your objection is a consequentialist one, as given by Singer in Practical Ethics.

I find the latter reasoning much better, but think that the whole argument could have been avoided by asking another question: instead of "does the primate have rights?" we could ask "do humans have the right to lock up a primate". In the latter case, it would have been fairly easy to reason that the interests of the human (seeing a monkey in a zoo) are in no way vital and cannot establish a right, without getting into the question whether the monkey has rights.

[1] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/contractualism/#ConProAni

ars4• 12 years ago

In the latter case, it would have been fairly easy to reason that the interests of the human (seeing a monkey in a zoo) are in no way vital and cannot establish a right

That's a rather poor argument because it is non-specific. By that argument I can not own a potato either because there is no vital need for me to do so.

asadotzler• 12 years ago

This is an ape, not a monkey.

mikerichards• 12 years ago

philosophically, the same could be applied to a paraplegic, or in most cases to somebody with Down syndrome, so I wonder if there was more in the ruling; I find this argument very poor.

Philosophically, the same could be applied to an ant. I find your argument very poor.

anigbrowl3• 12 years ago

Most likely an elaboration of that argument goes 'humans in general can engage in contractual agreements, although some are physically or mentally incapable of performance or comprehension, respectively. Apes, monkeys etc. cannot do so at all.' One could refute that by observing that animals do sometimes make simple mutual arrangements, such as favorite sleeping spots or the like, and animals who are cosocial with humans can certainly be trained. I presume a contractualist would argue that such inter-animal arrangements are too informal and not abstractable, and that training simply develops reflexive behavior...although since animal training is typically predicated on the concept of earning a reward for performance, this objection seems very much like an attempt to wriggle out of one's performance obligations, and I'm not sure it's conceptually different from overbroad get-out clauses in insurance or employment contracts that basically allow one party to exploit any economic asymmetry in order to avoid payment.

breakingcups• 12 years ago

Human rights are an interesting phenomenon.

Us humans don't even have basic human rights, as evidenced by the recent extensive publications regarding the torture practices of the US (rectal feeding?). Such a contrast to this (otherwise completely unrelated) article.

mct• 12 years ago

Humans most certainly have rights. In this case, those rights were shamefully violated.

chton3• 12 years ago

There is a big difference between having your rights violated and not having rights at all. The fact that we know the torture practices are wrong is because they violate our rights. We treat apes badly because they have no rights to which to compare the treatment.

jjgreen2• 12 years ago

"we have a right to not be tortured" is synonymous for "torture practices are wrong", rights do not exist in any other sense (ask yourself, where are they located?) unless you are a 18th century religious philosopher.

Igglyboo• 12 years ago

A few bad actors does not invalidate all of humanity's rights.

swombat3• 12 years ago

I applaud this decision. At least some people are recognising the direction of the arrow of history here.

My thoughts on this last time this concept emerged on HN: http://swombat.com/2012/11/6/dolphin-history

ars4• 12 years ago

I hope you realize that by giving rights in abundance you have diminished the very meaning of the concept.

You have this assumption that in the future everything will have rights. All that will happen if that occurs is that the concept of "rights" will be laughed at and ignored.

The more rare something is, the more powerful and special, and meaningful.

learnstats22• 12 years ago

What absolute nonsense.

Diminishing the meaning of 'rights' is great: if everyone and everything had appropriate rights, there would be no further need for the concept to be discussed. That's a good thing.

swombat3• 12 years ago

I've not suggested there should be any abundance of rights - merely that the direction of history points towards being more inclusive of other conscious species in our definition of "who deserves humane treatment".

As I say in my article - this used to apply only to male citizens... then it grew to include people at the bottom of the social ladder (slaves), people of different colours, religions, etc, and progressively more and more different people. It's only natural that this progression will continue and include entities who are not human.

If we ever meet an extra-terrestrial intelligence, I sure hope they have followed this progress to its natural conclusion, and include all life in their circle of "things deserving of respect".

Link-2• 12 years ago

To get this straight: we pulled animals from their 'righteous' sanctuaries, where they were free, put them in captivity, and now we're asking them to be human to set them free, again?

VMG• 12 years ago

You phrased it as if recognizing an injustice is weird

Link-2• 12 years ago

That was not the intention at all. In fact, the comment is quite sarcastic and if I'm to rephrase it, it will be: We're asking animals to be humans to grant them their freedom which is quite absurd.

Shivetya• 12 years ago

Next up, you cannot have pets.

edit, namely I have found the long term of many similar groups who support animal "rights" do not want people to keep pets. Having family members who breed and show dogs it is not uncommon to find these groups trying to get laws passed limiting pet ownership or worse.

Animals have rights, not human rights.

swombat3• 12 years ago

You already cannot have pets if you treat them cruelly. At least in theory.

drzaiusapelord• 12 years ago

I dont have a problem with this. I keep hearing about how people can't train dogs, how dogs "misbehave," etc.

Oh course they have issues, pets aren't designed to live domestic suburban human lives. I just don't believe humanity automatically and morally should have dominion of all animals. I think giving up on non-working pet ownership is a step in the right direction. And when sci-fi style robotics gets here, give up on working animals altogether.

I say this as someone who loves and has owned several dogs. They're just not cut out for our lives. I think there was a study that showed most pets have severe mental illness. Not to mention, the ones that can't play the human domestic game and heaven forbid show their natural aggression or dominance traits, well they get killed. How the hell is this moral? Why is the loss of pet ownership this horrific thing? It seems like thats the way a compassionate society should be leaning towards.

logfromblammo2• 12 years ago

Animals don't have rights. The property-owning rights of humans are restricted when the property in question is an animal.

For the most part, these additional restrictions are to prevent animal owners from practicing monstrous acts on the animal. Failure to abide by those restrictions is a social signal that the human may not be able to behave in a civilized fashion with other humans. The restrictions have the outward appearance of protecting animals from cruelty, but the actual intent is for civilization to identify and protect itself against cruel humans.

Animal rights advocates have lost the plot. Certain interactions, like the exchange of rights, can only appear between equals. With the possible exception of animals like the great apes, corvids, pachyderms, and cetaceans, the vast majority of species are strictly inferior to Homo sapiens with its awesome powers of language, social coordination, and tool use.

neverminder• 12 years ago

Rise of the Planet of the Apes?

higherpurpose• 12 years ago

Waiting for the day a robot has the same trial.

MarkPNeyer• 12 years ago

http://markpneyer.me/2014/03/05/the-rule-of-threes/

sethbannon• 12 years ago

If anyone is interested in the sate of legal thinking around "animal rights", I recommend this excellent book by Cass Sunstein and Martha Nussbaum, which offers a nice overview of the field: http://smile.amazon.com/Animal-Rights-Current-Debates-Direct...

It includes leading proponents and opponents of legal protections for non-human animals.

alimoeeny• 12 years ago

- I personally find this idea of "the closer your `intelligence` is to man the more rights you get" hard to understand. If a chimp has "some human rights" then why not a dog, or a cow can get "some" too.

- Also, I find this whole thing distracting, if you have any energy to put into "rights", there are billions of humans in need of help for very basic things (including rights). Am I overlooking something?

skj3• 12 years ago

Dogs do have more rights than other animals. If you take a dog to the zoo and feed it to a lion, you're going to have a problem. If you take a mouse to the zoo, and feed it to a snake, no problem.

Cows have no rights because they're tasty and boring.

longlivegnu2• 12 years ago

I don't understand this either. What objectively makes an animal any less animal. I mean a mouse feels the pain of being eaten and so does a dog.

daniel-cussen• 12 years ago

I see this attitude in vegetarians too. Vegetarians who make exceptions for fish should be more accurately be called ugly-atarians if they answer "no" to the question, "Would you eat a sea-horse?"

anigbrowl3• 12 years ago

I'm not sure you're right about this. You're not allowed to be cruel to animals, which I think would apply equally well to a dog and a cow. Likewise there's no prohibition against killing animals per se, it is OK for you to shoot your dog if you do it in a humane fashion. At least in the US, our animal laws seem to be derived from property rights, which is natural enough given the existence of livestock.

Your example of the mouse fed to a snake is a good one; I find that very ethically troubling. It's also different depending on whether it's being done in a scientific context (for study of snakes as predators) or in a domestic one. On the whole I'm against it, but shouldn't I thus also be against the use of feeder fish or insects to lizards and so on? I find it increasingly hard to draw a bright-line distinction.

One day a couple of years ago I found one of my cats had trapped a dragonfly, more of curiosity than malice (so the cat didn't mind when I moved his paw out of the way). The dragonfly was a bit stunned and one of its eyes was bashed inward like a piece of plastic, so I thought it was a goner. But I picked up to take a look because I'd never seen such a large specimen before. Now, dragonflies are interesting, as a photographer friend of mine who specialize din insects explained many years ago. They are the lions of the insect world, ie large and predatory, and cannibalistic. They live for up to 2-3 years as flightless nymphs, hunting in both water and on land, and for about 6 months as adults. They are somewhat territorial, and there are also far more males than females so mating is highly competitive (for the males) and usually involuntary (for the females). By the end of the summer it's very common to see dragonflies going around with missing limbs, damaged eyes, and so on. I learned about them in England, where you see ones that are 2 or 3 inches long, but here in Northern California where I live now it's common to see ones that measure 4-5 inches - which bring me back to the one my cat caught. I picked the thing up and it sat on my hand, and fortunately I had a camera with me so I got a bunch of photographs. I assumed it was just going to die, but to my surprise, after a few minutes of just sitting there, it perked up, checked itself over with its front legs, stretched itself out in a few different directions, and took off. Then it spent a minute or two flying around badly - remember on its eyes had been bent quite out of shape. Again, I assumed it was going to wobble along until it hit something or got grabbed by a bird, but it kept hovering and then darting over short distances with increasingly good control, until eventually it seemed satisfied and zipped off with confidence. It hung around the garden for a few minutes longer (I presume to feed on some tiny insects) and if I hadn't had it in my hand I wouldn't have known it had suffered any damage.

Now I certainly don't think dragonflies are sentient or even intelligent - I think of most insects as being a bundle of hardwired reflexes. But watching the thing 'repair' its flight model was startling, and while it's not evidence of intelligence it suggests some sort of rudimentary self-concept. The very long lifespan of some dragonfly species presumably confers some sort of evolutionary advantage, so it seems reasonable to imagine they have some learning ability - fruit flies can be taught to navigate a maze [1] and dragonflies are known to have a capacity for selective attention [2], and insect brains are surprisngly complex [3] so I don't think I'm anthropomorphizing when I suggest the possibility that they have some sort of pre-conscious but nonetheless subjective life experience.

1. http://www.dnalc.org/view/1720-Training-Flies.html

2. http://ac.els-cdn.com/S0960982212013929/1-s2.0-S096098221201...

3. http://bioteaching.com/insect-brains-and-animal-intelligence...

BTW here's a picture if you're curious: https://plus.google.com/117583585506971591172/posts/8J7ZLgKk...

longlivegnu2• 12 years ago

Maybe not everyone has the same motivation. Just like you might care more about football than I do, but I make up for it in passion about programming?

hawleyal3• 12 years ago

Does the fact that some humans are suffering negate the need to help animals that are suffering?

thenmar• 12 years ago

I agree with your first point. Personally, I draw the line at the ability to suffer. It is well understood that dogs, pigs, cats, cows, orangutans, lambs, and many other animals feel pain the same way we humans do. Just like humans, I think they have a right not to be forced to suffer unnecessarily, by nature of being capable of it. For that reason I don't eat meat, nor do I go to zoos.

As for the second, I think that's an unfair and paralyzing comment but I don't think you mean it in bad faith. We all have different capacities to help alleviate suffering in different ways, with different impacts. The fact that there are "bigger" injustices does not mean that small ones should be ignored, especially when they are within your community and you have the ability to fix them yourself.

Or - if you're interested in stepping a little outside mainstream opinions - what makes animal suffering any less important than human suffering? Are we really special in some way that other animals aren't?

hawleyal3• 12 years ago

Compared to corporations, animals, and especially our great ape cousins should have as much or more rights.

krylon• 12 years ago

After school, I first attempted to study philosophy, before I got into computers and networks and such.

I got disillusioned very quickly, but one very interesting course I took was on the definition of personhood, and I had to give short talk on the "grey areas" of personhood. Biology alone is not going to cut it, and once we begin to extend personhood status to beings other than homo sapiens, it is going to get very fuzzy.

waps3• 12 years ago

I once heard this from my philosophy professor. Philosophy is trying to answer questions you can't answer with current knowledge, or better put : science is what you get when you answer questions with the right answer, philosophy is all other answers.

Given that no important scientific advance has ever originated from philosophy ... (ie. the ones by accomplished mathematicians that were -usually posthumously- declared philosophers don't count)

It's like the "we have to redesign the methodology, find the lessons for the company" discussion at the end of every software project. It takes time and effort, makes management and project managers and even customers very happy, it involves programmers listening to the "good" advice of everybody who can't program and is about as productive as suicide, without the satisfaction at the end.

lotharbot• 12 years ago

Science is when you try to answer questions about evidence, with evidence.

Philosophy is when you try to answer questions about definitions/language, with definitions/language.

That doesn't make philosophy useless. It just makes philosophy one part of the system -- a lot of times philosophy generates questions and ideas which are later addressed in a scientific way. It's a useful tool; be careful not to either overvalue or undervalue it. (Likewise, AFAIK no important scientific advance has ever originated from a grammar instructor, but coherent language is an important tool for allowing science to be performed and communicated.)

innguest• 12 years ago

Didn't Science used to consider all sorts of weird things as true and therefore the "right answer"? Wasn't phlogiston the right answer at some point? Wasn't aether? And so on? How do we know we've finally arrived at the "right answer"? Try answering that without using the philosophy you so diminish.

The problem with your point of view is that you get blinded by what can even be a Science. I think that's why we need philosophy. It asks hard questions and directs the investigation.

anigbrowl3• 12 years ago

We're going to have to confront this with artificial intelligence soon enough. I see the doomspeak of some individuals about AI being likely to wipe us out and so forth as a pre-emptive strike in this area.

jjgreen2• 12 years ago

Philosophy, rest quiet for a moment -- http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/dec/22/monkey-sa...

An Orangutan Has Some Human Rights, Argentine Court Rules

Related Stories