Animals in the middle
ages were held accountable for their behavior when it violated human law. Rats were charged with destroying crops,
termites were convicted of property destruction, and pigs were put on trial for
murder. The animals were appointed legal
defenses and actually brought to trial for their day in court.
As preposterous as it seems today to regard
animals as moral agents, capable of weighing right and wrong, and acting
according to a moral compass, such views are making something a comeback. Animals are again being brought back into
court – not to punish them for their misdeeds, but to reward them with new
rights and privileges – to grant them status as legal persons.
A group called the Nonhuman Rights Project recently brought a series of legal cases arguing that chimpanzees should be granted personhood. The basis for the case rests on the claim that chimpanzees are moral agents – goal-oriented, conscious, self-aware, autonomous beings, capable of expressing their wants, needs, and beliefs. They deserve personhood status because they are, well, like us.
A group called the Nonhuman Rights Project recently brought a series of legal cases arguing that chimpanzees should be granted personhood. The basis for the case rests on the claim that chimpanzees are moral agents – goal-oriented, conscious, self-aware, autonomous beings, capable of expressing their wants, needs, and beliefs. They deserve personhood status because they are, well, like us.
Let me start by saying
that I am sympathetic to the plight of these unfortunate animals. The four chimpanzee defendants in these
cases clearly were not living in optimal conditions, and I understand the pull
to improve the quality of the lives. But
granting personhood is the wrong way to go about it.
To begin with, the claims made on behalf of the chimpanzees are highly selective and exaggerate the similarities between chimps and humans. To be sure, there are deep commonalities in the behavior and cognition of humans and chimpanzees, and on many different types of tasks, the performances of chimps and humans are not appreciably different. But so, too, are there differences, and it is important to keep both in view when considering issues such as personhood.
One important difference concerns social skills – broad-based abilities to successfully navigate a complex social world. Chimps and humans share some social skills, which should not be at all surprising, given the common evolutionary paths chimps and humans share. Where chimps and humans differ, however, is in a range of social skills involved in taking another’s perspective - what might be called mindreading. Such mindreading, of course, does not literally involve getting into the head of others, but of interpreting their behavior in context. This is not a single ability, but a broad repertoire of skills that enable humans to, among other things, walk in the shoes of another person, and to hold others responsible for their actions.
To begin with, the claims made on behalf of the chimpanzees are highly selective and exaggerate the similarities between chimps and humans. To be sure, there are deep commonalities in the behavior and cognition of humans and chimpanzees, and on many different types of tasks, the performances of chimps and humans are not appreciably different. But so, too, are there differences, and it is important to keep both in view when considering issues such as personhood.
One important difference concerns social skills – broad-based abilities to successfully navigate a complex social world. Chimps and humans share some social skills, which should not be at all surprising, given the common evolutionary paths chimps and humans share. Where chimps and humans differ, however, is in a range of social skills involved in taking another’s perspective - what might be called mindreading. Such mindreading, of course, does not literally involve getting into the head of others, but of interpreting their behavior in context. This is not a single ability, but a broad repertoire of skills that enable humans to, among other things, walk in the shoes of another person, and to hold others responsible for their actions.
This ability to see
things from another’s perspective has important implications for how we think about blame and personal accountability. Only when we can, in a sense, consider things
from another’s perspective do we hold that individual accountable for their
actions. Moral agency, of the sort
required for consideration of animal rights, also carries with it some sense of
personal responsibility. But it is
precisely this sense of responsibility – of acting according to a moral code –
that is lacking in chimpanzees; and so too, is it lacking from serious discussions
of nonhuman personhood.
What do personal responsibility and moral codes even mean outside a human
context? When a male chimp kills the
offspring of a competitor, should it be tried for infanticide? When a dominant
chimp demands food from a subordinate, should it be charged with extortion? When a chimp kills an innocent mother and
infant from a rival tribe, should it be tried as a war criminal? These types of
questions harken back to the animal trials of the middle ages, and seem both
antiquated and naïve by present standards.
But the old views at least were more consistent with common notions of
social justice (as balancing rights with responsibilities) than are the
current views (that bestow rights without responsibilities).
I suppose it might be
argued that chimps be granted limited rights, say, equivalent to human children – who receive lenience from the court due to their still-developing moral
compass. From this view, chimps need our
protection because they have the mental and moral capacities of young
children. Unlike children, however, the
moral compass of the chimp does not develop beyond some very rudimentary level;
mindreading abilities are stuck at an
arrested stage of development. Chimps are
not-quite-finished humans.
But chimps are more
than simply primitive versions of humans.
They are wonderfully adaptive creatures with rich social lives. And while their social lives differ in
important ways from the social lives of humans, it is not because chimps are
only approximate humans, but rather, because their social ecology does not
require it. Human social behavior and
chimp social behavior have evolved in their own peculiar ways, driven by the demands of their social environments. Thus, despite sharing some basic social
skills with humans, the chimp and human social worlds split apart somewhere
along the evolutionary road, with only the human branch giving rise to behavior
that has any relevance whatsoever to issues of justice, responsibility, and
rights.
To apply these
human-unique constructs to other animals is problematic; it is both deeply anthropomorphic – one that projects
human-like intelligence onto other animals, and favors species whose behavior
more resembles our own – as well as deeply paternalistic
- one that places animals under dominion of humans, legally protected as
morally deficient children. Funny how an approach that purports liberation of other animals instead endorses a view of animals as perpetually subordinate and requiring our stewardship.
I would like to
suggest a more enlightened approach to understanding our relation to other
animals, one that begins with the assumption that animals deserve our respect
and humane care not because they see the world as we do (or as young children do), but because they see it as they do.
Comparative cognition has come to reveal a view of animal minds that is
endlessly fascinating in its own right.
That such minds do not seem to include the kind of perspective taking
important in human social affairs is a scientific fact, sitting alongside many
other things we know about other animals.
One step toward a more enlightened ethic is to consider the full range
of facts, even when the picture that emerges conflicts with our preconceived
notions of what we think other animals are
or should be. Ultimately, a view informed by the science of
comparative cognition – one open to both similarities and differences between
species – is more empowering to other animals that one that seeks their
protection as partial humans.