Ape Rights?

[IDrinkaRum]

http://www.slate.com/id/2194568/?GT1=38001

If passed, apes/gorillas would have rights in Spain. No more of these animals in the circuses & zoos and other places of confinement.

[ebonyknight]

Aw, great. I can see it now in a thousand years.

"YOU BLEW IT UP!! DAMN YOU! GOD DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!!!" :D

[Boozy]

PETA would consider this a win, I suppose.

If the great apes aren't to be in circuses or zoos in Spain, then I assume that there really can't be any great apes in Spain at all. That's not their natural habitat. And you can't have gorillas just running around residential and commercial areas, fending for themselves.

It's not like they can rent themselves an apartment and buy themselves groceries.

[the_std]

It's not like they can rent themselves an apartment and buy themselves groceries.

Oh man. That made me laugh till it hurt.

That's it, I'm moving to Spain and setting up a Bananas R Us.

[Rapscallion]

Rights usually come with responsibilities.

I earned my driving licence, the right to drive a car without supervision. My responsibility is to drive safely.

I have the right to take out a loan from a financial institution, and my responsibility is to pay it back in good order.

Rapscallion

[RecoveringKinkoid]

It's not like they can rent themselves an apartment and buy themselves groceries.

I dunno about that. My ex boyfriend seemed to manage it.

[IDrinkaRum]

RK - Thank goodness I wasn't eating/drinking anything at the moment. :D I would have broken Rule #1!!! (BTW, does Rule #1 apply here too? :)).

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Since it's largely the same collection of wise asses, I'd have to say probably so. ;)

[Jadedcarguy]

I read that article earlier today and it pissed me off so bad. Really, what the fuck?

There is one thing that makes humans human, and it isn't brains. It isn't the ability to perform complex tasks. It's self awareness. That's right, the knowledge of who we are and the knowledge that someday we will die. Apes do not have this. Neither do dolphins or whales or any other creature that PETA wants to put on a pedestal. As Raps put it, rights bring responsibility. Being human also means understanding what that entails.

[anriana]

There is one thing that makes humans human, and it isn't brains. It isn't the ability to perform complex tasks. It's self awareness. That's right, the knowledge of who we are and the knowledge that someday we will die. Apes do not have this. Neither do dolphins or whales or any other creature that PETA wants to put on a pedestal. As Raps put it, rights bring responsibility. Being human also means understanding what that entails.

And how do you know that?

I don't see PETA mentioned anywhere in the article.

[Jadedcarguy]

And how do you know that?

I don't see PETA mentioned anywhere in the article.

PETA would like to grant all animals the same rights as humans. Take a look at their website and read between the lines.


PETA has their heart in the right place, but their head is shoved deep in their ass.

[kamn]

I read that article earlier today and it pissed me off so bad. Really, what the fuck?

There is one thing that makes humans human, and it isn't brains. It isn't the ability to perform complex tasks. It's self awareness. That's right, the knowledge of who we are and the knowledge that someday we will die. Apes do not have this. <snip>

I am told that apes (as well as dolphins and other animals) ARE aware of themselves. Not to the same point as humans, but they still are. They msot certainly are aware of death. Perhaps even more than us at that...

[Slytovhand]

So what is actually the problem of granting them rights?

Oh - ok, that means that you can no longer treat them as target practice - nor experimental guinea pigs...

No - no-one on here 'earned' their rights - they had them given to them the moment they were born, and just because they were born as a human. If your intellectual capacities were as similar to the 'great apes', then you'd still have far more rights than what they do.

You earned your right to drive a car by demonstrating the capacity to do so, and the awareness of what's going on around you. What rights do the animals that are taught complex machine operation get when they replace humans (cos it's too dangerous to send one of those precious packets of flesh and blood).

As Anriana said - how do you know that what makes a human special isn't also what's going on inside any other animal - just because it doesn't communicate in a fashion that you understand.


Slyt

[Boozy]

Humans, chimpanzees, and dolphins are self-aware. Scientists use the ability to recognize oneself in a mirror as the yardstick for consciousness, and those are the only three animals that can do it (that we know of).

I don't know why that bit of information could be used to argue for or against animal rights, though.

[Jadedcarguy]

Humans, chimpanzees, and dolphins are self-aware. Scientists use the ability to recognize oneself in a mirror as the yardstick for consciousness, and those are the only three animals that can do it (that we know of).

I don't know why that bit of information could be used to argue for or against animal rights, though.

Some of them recognize themselves. Some do not. I have seen studies where the ape in question continuously looked behind the mirror to see where the "other ape" went. He clearly did not recognize himself. My cat realizes that he's looking at himself, for crying out loud! My kitten, however does not. She may someday learn that it is actually her, or she wont. Does this mean that my adult cat is self aware? No, it doesn't.


It was also mentioned in an above post that higher non-human animals are aware of death. This may be the case, but are they aware that they themselves will someday die? Most likely not.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

I've heard that most animals don't recognize themselves in mirrors, but I've seen two cats that I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt did. One was one of two cats my ex roomate had, and many years later, my own cat. Both animals learned that objects behind the cat in the mirror were in fact behind themselves. My roomate's other cat did not seem to exhibit this realization. They would spend more time in front of the mirror than other animals would, and one of them seemed to actually look back and forth from mirror to behind himself frequently, as if referencing the view.

Both of the cats I am talking about were of very, very high intelligence. The other cat that did not seemed kind of dull witted.

[Slytovhand]

If we're going to talk about recognition of self in a mirror as an important and relevant fact, then I should point out that young children don't for a while, and I would even suggest that perhaps if it were not pointed out to them ("Yes, darling, that's you!") that it would take even longer for that realisation to occur.

[Boozy]

Cats are usually more interested in other things that appear in the mirror (for example, another cat) than themselves. They may be able to figure out where those things are placed relative to themselves, but that doesn't mean they're self-aware.

Cats do not meet current scientific criteria for sentience. There is a specific methodology for determining self-awareness with the "mirror test", which I won't post here because it's lengthy and a bit dry. If you're really interested, you can PM me.

[Lace Neil Singer]

In any case, not all zoos are there to ensure that the animals lead as miserable a life as possible while entertaining humans. The zoos I personally have visited have lots of rare breeds that are being actively bred in captivity; the one I went to on holiday had all the proceeds from the gift shop going straight back to the animals. Without zoos, just how do you propose we preserve rare breeds? Sentinent or not, poachers who destroy their habitats and slaughter the apes by the thousand don't give a damn. And it's going to take a lot more than a law saying so to stop these people; they're not allowed to poach anyway, but they still do.

[Slytovhand]

And in some countries, the poachers can be shot on sight...