Should chimpanzees be recognized as legal persons

[LuckyR]

How about we grant full legal status to humans all circumstances before we start adding to the burden? You know, like the right of a black school child to carry a toy gun without getting shot by a cop.

If a cop sees a kid with a toy gun, he'll intervene as it cojld be a real gun, what does race have to do with this? This happens to white kids too.

Uummm... you have heard of open carry, right. You know, white men with real, working long guns over their shoulders walking through the Walmart greeting everyone they meet. Carrying a long gun while white gets you: "Good day, sir. Do you want paper or plastic?" Carrying a plastic toy (designed specifically for children BTW) long gun while a black child gets you killed in < 4 seconds after the police car skids to a stop.

[Sy Borg]

(Nested quote removed.)


Please define specifically what you mean by "intelligent" and outline the objective methods used to determine intelligence. Also, what are those granted with personhood status entitled to?

Or, if it is simply a personal judgement then how would you defend you subjective view?

There are enough intelligence experience done among other species, of which the most intelligent are chimpanzees, dolphins, crows, elephants and a few others. You can easily look it up.

Agreed Roel.

To some extent it depends on to what extent the species themselves cooperate or harm each other. However, preserving these animals is not only important in terms of conservation values, but we also simply don't understand how they communicate, and learning about different modes of communication can provide useful insights in our society's own handling of information, and also perhaps into the origins of human language. Consider how bird flight influenced aviation.

However, it is clear that other great apes like chimps will follow Australopithecus and Homo habilis in the line of great ape extinctions. It's a shame as all extinctions are a shame, as inevitable as the looming extinction of democracy.

I would definitely see a prison term as appropriate for proven killing of endangered and protected species, intelligent or not.

[Spiral Out]

If a cop sees a kid with a toy gun, he'll intervene as it cojld be a real gun, what does race have to do with this? This happens to white kids too.

No it doesn't. There are no white-kid equivalent incidents to the incident being referenced. It absolutely is about race.

There are enough intelligence experience done among other species, of which the most intelligent are chimpanzees, dolphins, crows, elephants and a few others. You can easily look it up.

I don't fall for thought terminating cliches.

The concept of intelligence has yet to be scientifically defined or justified. There is no distinct boundary between intelligent and non-intelligent.

If there was, then you would be able to state that animal X is at the lowest limit of what can be considered intelligent whereas animal Y is at the highest limit of what can be considered non-intelligent, and then you would be able to scientifically justify such a boundary.

But you cannot, so my question remains.

[Roel]

(Nested quote removed.)


If a cop sees a kid with a toy gun, he'll intervene as it cojld be a real gun, what does race have to do with this? This happens to white kids too.

Uummm... you have heard of open carry, right. You know, white men with real, working long guns over their shoulders walking through the Walmart greeting everyone they meet. Carrying a long gun while white gets you: "Good day, sir. Do you want paper or plastic?" Carrying a plastic toy (designed specifically for children BTW) long gun while a black child gets you killed in < 4 seconds after the police car skids to a stop.

This is not the case in my country, white kids walking around with guns get arrested too here, there are no wallmarts or NRA here, don't know about black ones, the police here has trouble to get grip on neighourhoods with minorities and a lot of violence, therefore the police here is now getting blacks to work for them etc.

There are these problems indeed, this is partly due to racism, but also because there is a large portion (the cause is not race in my opinion, let me explain) of blacks in criminal statistics, more than half of murders were commited by blacks some decades ago. Possible reasons are segregration, no chances given to blacks which forces them into criminality, a lack of role models, though Obama is a good role model to show Afro-Americans can accomplish a lot. As a result of many blacks in criminality, no matter what the cause is, police will be more cautious with them which leads to racial profiling. If is a vicious circle, and if Trump will really do what his policies on his website say, the situation of blacks will become better and he will solve some of these problems.

I 'm saying this because you aren't going to solve problems of blacks if you deny this.

Of course it is ridiculous if a kid with a toy gun gets killed.

-- Updated November 12th, 2016, 10:44 am to add the following --

(Nested quote removed.)


If a cop sees a kid with a toy gun, he'll intervene as it cojld be a real gun, what does race have to do with this? This happens to white kids too.

Uummm... you have heard of open carry, right. You know, white men with real, working long guns over their shoulders walking through the Walmart greeting everyone they meet. Carrying a long gun while white gets you: "Good day, sir. Do you want paper or plastic?" Carrying a plastic toy (designed specifically for children BTW) long gun while a black child gets you killed in < 4 seconds after the police car skids to a stop.

I can even say that it is because of the political left that so many blacks are in criminality. Due to employers having to be afraid of discrimination laws, they don't want to hire blacks from ghettos, because they will be accused of racism if they want to fire them for whatever reason like not doing the job properly.

-- Updated November 12th, 2016, 10:45 am to add the following --

If a cop sees a kid with a toy gun, he'll intervene as it cojld be a real gun, what does race have to do with this? This happens to white kids too.

No it doesn't. There are no white-kid equivalent incidents to the incident being referenced. It absolutely is about race.

That is a lie. There are enough examples in my country.

[Spiral Out]

There are enough examples in my country.

Cite one case of a white child being shot dead by your police because he was playing with a toy gun.

Back to the main point of the topic:

The concept of intelligence has yet to be scientifically defined or justified. There is no distinct boundary between intelligent and non-intelligent.

If there was, then you would be able to state that animal X is at the lowest limit of what can be considered intelligent whereas animal Y is at the highest limit of what can be considered non-intelligent, and then you would be able to scientifically justify such a boundary.

But you cannot, so my question remains.

[Roel]

There are enough examples in my country.

Cite one case of a white child being shot dead by your police because he was playing with a toy gun.

Ok, not in my country but in the US:
http://www.thedailysheeple.com/another- ... ops_112013

I really get sick of lies spread by political correctness people which are manipulating people like you to believe them.

What I ment is that in my country it doesn't matter if you are black or white, Asian or purple, the police will intervene when a kid carries a gun.

Back to the main point of the topic:

The concept of intelligence has yet to be scientifically defined or justified. There is no distinct boundary between intelligent and non-intelligent.

If there was, then you would be able to state that animal X is at the lowest limit of what can be considered intelligent whereas animal Y is at the highest limit of what can be considered non-intelligent, and then you would be able to scientifically justify such a boundary.

But you cannot, so my question remains.

Intelligence means being able to solve problems to survive basically.

[Spiral Out]

Intelligence means being able to solve problems to survive basically.

All animals do that. By your logic there are no unintelligent animals since that would necessarily preclude their survival.

Intelligence (and survival) is a matter of degrees. It's not a question of intelligent or not. We would have to recognize all animals as legal persons.

[Roel]

Intelligence means being able to solve problems to survive basically.

All animals do that. By your logic there are no unintelligent animals since that would necessarily preclude their survival.

Intelligence (and survival) is a matter of degrees. It's not a question of intelligent or not. We would have to recognize all animals as legal persons.

Yes, all animals do that, otherwise some of them would have an IQ of 0.

But some are better at it than others, and the best are humans, crows, chimpanzees etc.

A broader definition:
Intelligence is the ability to adapt to new situations, to be able to survive by solving newly emerged problems, sometimes with the help of created tools, and to be able to identify oneself as an individual. Much less species will be able to be applied to the definition now, but humans, chimpanzees and crows still.

[Gertie]

We definitely need a more humane (heh) approach to animal welfare.

I'd say rather than intelligence, it's a quality of life issue (tho the two overlap). It's the fact that many other conscious species have a quality of life (subjective experience) which means they have a stake in being treated well or badly, and we should treat them with moral consideration.

Conscious species vary in the ways they experience happiness and suffering, and what makes for a good quality of life. So we ought to strive to treat them in ways commensurate to how they experience that quality of life (as far as we can tell). Assigning a type of personhood for chimps might be an appropriate part of that broader approach, I dunno, sounds worth exploring. But I'd want to get past the notion that members of other species only have value in their own right in as much as they're like our species. And be wary of trying to clumsily fit them into our systems of valuing (eg personhood) without taking into account differences as well as similarities.

A bunch of neuro scientists and associated boffins came up with the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness in 2012, as a general statement on where the science is at regarding animal consciousness. I think that's the sort of informed basis for these decisions which is becoming available to us now, which we can use to re-examine our treatment of other species.

http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeD ... usness.pdf

[Roel]

We definitely need a more humane (heh) approach to animal welfare.

I'd say rather than intelligence, it's a quality of life issue (tho the two overlap). It's the fact that many other conscious species have a quality of life (subjective experience) which means they have a stake in being treated well or badly, and we should treat them with moral consideration.

Conscious species vary in the ways they experience happiness and suffering, and what makes for a good quality of life. So we ought to strive to treat them in ways commensurate to how they experience that quality of life (as far as we can tell). Assigning a type of personhood for chimps might be an appropriate part of that broader approach, I dunno, sounds worth exploring. But I'd want to get past the notion that members of other species only have value in their own right in as much as they're like our species. And be wary of trying to clumsily fit them into our systems of valuing (eg personhood) without taking into account differences as well as similarities.

A bunch of neuro scientists and associated boffins came up with the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness in 2012, as a general statement on where the science is at regarding animal consciousness. I think that's the sort of informed basis for these decisions which is becoming available to us now, which we can use to re-examine our treatment of other species.

http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeD ... usness.pdf

Excellent post. You offer a good other perspective on the issue.

[Spiral Out]

A broader definition:
Intelligence is the ability to adapt to new situations, to be able to survive by solving newly emerged problems, sometimes with the help of created tools, and to be able to identify oneself as an individual. Much less species will be able to be applied to the definition now, but humans, chimpanzees and crows still.

If intelligence is based on that definition and if it is intelligence that determines the consideration for legal personhood then you've just excluded human infants, the physically handicapped, those with Alzheimer's, etc. from being legal persons, yet have included ants in with being considered legal persons.

"Ants marked with a blue dot on their clypeus (this changed their species specific appearance), and set in front of a mirror, tried to clean themselves, to remove this alien spot from their head, but never tried to clean their reflection view."

journalofscience.net/File_Folder/521-53 ... 2(jos).pdf

[Roel]

A broader definition:
Intelligence is the ability to adapt to new situations, to be able to survive by solving newly emerged problems, sometimes with the help of created tools, and to be able to identify oneself as an individual. Much less species will be able to be applied to the definition now, but humans, chimpanzees and crows still.

If intelligence is based on that definition and if it is intelligence that determines the consideration for legal personhood then you've just excluded human infants, the physically handicapped, those with Alzheimer's, etc. from being legal persons, yet have included ants in with being considered legal persons.

"Ants marked with a blue dot on their clypeus (this changed their species specific appearance), and set in front of a mirror, tried to clean themselves, to remove this alien spot from their head, but never tried to clean their reflection view."

journalofscience.net/File_Folder/521-53 ... 2(jos).pdf

I didn't say that we exclude all without intelligence. Maybe we should start with giving human rights to the closest to humanoids and big creatures only.

[Spiral Out]

I didn't say that we exclude all without intelligence. Maybe we should start with giving human rights to the closest to humanoids and big creatures only.

Fair enough. However, with equal rights necessarily come equal responsibilities. Are we to hold all 'legal persons' to the same standards of behavior and justice?

[Roel]

I didn't say that we exclude all without intelligence. Maybe we should start with giving human rights to the closest to humanoids and big creatures only.

Fair enough. However, with equal rights necessarily come equal responsibilities. Are we to hold all 'legal persons' to the same standards of behavior and justice?

Not necessarily, children don't bear responsibility but do have equal rights.

[Spiral Out]

Not necessarily, children don't bear responsibility but do have equal rights.

Children don't have the same rights as adults. We can assume to treat infant chimps as we would infant Humans. Can we also assume to treat adult chimps as adult Humans? What good is the concept of being a 'legal person' if we don't consider all aspects of Human personhood?