Are Only Humans Rightly Free? The Case for Animal Rights

Ahead of a possibly history ruling tomorrow, a lawyer, a philosopher and a research scientist passionately explain why animals deserve the right to bodily freedom.
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Americans tend to think animals should have at least some of the same rights as people, according to a recent Gallup survey. And yet, we do not practice what we preach. There are currently no non-human animals that have the right to bodily freedom, to protection under the law, or any of the other rights that are bestowed upon us by way of being the self-proclaimed greatest of the great apes. Over the past few years, cases have reached upper courts arguing that our close evolutionary relatives, chimpanzees, at least deserve some rights. None of these cases has resulted in the outcome that animal activists wanted. Now there is a new case in the courts that may get closer than any before it.

Tomorrow, Justice Barbara Jaffe of the New York State Supreme Court will issue a final ruling on whether two chimpanzees in a research lab at Stony Brook University are the property of the school or if they have some rights to personhood, like you or me. The case is being championed by the Nonhuman Rights Project.

We asked Natalie Prosin, a lawyer for the Nonhuman Rights Project, to lay out the case for chimpanzee personhood directly. To explain the context around this possibly historic ruling, noted ethicist Peter Singer weighs in to describe what is at stake in this debate. To further the conversation, John M. Marzluff, Professor of Forest Sciences at the University of Washington, offers the perspective of an animal research scientist.

To read each op-ed in full, click on the headline above the synopses below. And please weigh in with your perspective in the comments of this post.

By Natalie Prosin

The Nonhuman Rights Project seeks to add to the growing list of legal persons by asking courts of law to recognize great apes, elephants, dolphins, and whales---some of the most cognitively complex animals on earth---as more than legal things. As abundant, robust scientific studies of these animals have demonstrated, members of these species possess a powerful sense of autonomy; they live their lives not according to reflexes or innate behaviors but make choices and pursue actions based on complex internal cognitive processes. Detaining these animals in laboratories, locking them alone in cages or tanks, forcing them to perform, and keeping them as “pets,” grossly interferes with the exercise of their autonomy. The NhRP is therefore asking the legal system to assign them one fundamental legal right---the right to bodily liberty---that would protect their autonomy.

By Peter Singer
The ethical basis for extending basic rights to chimpanzees and the other nonhuman great apes is simple: chimpanzees are comparable to three-year-old humans in their capacity for self-awareness, for problem-solving, and in the richness and complexity of their emotional lives, so how can we assign rights to all children and not to them? If the claim is that human children have the potential to develop capacities beyond those that chimpanzees will ever have, then we could ask the same question about humans with permanent intellectual disability, of a kind that means they will never surpass chimpanzees in their ability to reason, or their degree of self-awareness. And if, in order to retain the status quo, we say that these humans have greater rights than chimpanzees just because they are members of our species, what are we to say to racists who make similar claims on behalf of members of their race? We can’t just draw a circle around those who are “us” and give them greater rights, because who “we” are is contested. All white males? All white humans? All beings who pass a threshold of self-awareness, or moral agency? All humans? All great apes? All sentient beings?

By John M. Marzluff
As a biologist, I believe all living organisms have rights. As one who spends a good portion of every year in close company with smart and social animals, such as crows, ravens, and wolves, I am convinced that all birds and mammals deserve the care and consideration we give humans. The advanced neurological architecture and cognitive function of these creatures proves their intellect, but I can see no reason for not extending equal rights to all animals. This ethic emphasizes an individual’s right to maintain its natural ecological and evolutionary niche. Aldo Leopold stated this eloquently in his 1948 book A Sand County Almanac: “a thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community.” In my opinion, it is right---in Leopold’s sense---for animals to live a full and free life in their natural habitat exercising their ecological and evolutionary roles.