I am 100% in favor of giving limited personhood to certain animals, including chimps. Realize here that person is not the same as human and that granting personhood does not give an animal human rights. Conferring personhood (or acknowledging that it exists if you prefer that terminology) gives them rights above existing animal cruelty laws and the right to have their interests represented where they cannot represent their own (akin to how a person with learning disabilities or a small child might be represented in court.) The story here is all wound up around the case of one chimpanzee. Im not sure its helpful to the cause to humanize his plight or the court case with claims of wrongful imprisonment without trial. Hes not a human person and pretending he is wont help anyone but acknowledging that one might not necessarily need to be a human in order to be a person is a VERY important question and I eagerly await Americas response to it in the light of the recent controversy concerning sea-world and the Blackfish documentary. Bear in mind here that INDIA recently granted dolphins non-human personhood so the argument we have enough problems to sort out with the humans wont really hold water.
Posted on: Thu, 09 Oct 2014 00:10:30 +0000
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