Let Great Apes be Apes
The world of animal liberation continues to buzz with the potential that Spain will soon grant human-type rights to great apes. I weigh in on this issue in today's San Francisco Chronicle, by pointing out that not only do animal not understand the concept of rights, but that granting rights to animals would cause tremendous harm to humans, both by preventing crucial medical research and undermining our self-concept as the world's most important species--from which flows the drive to enact universal human rights and our distinctly human duty to treat other animals humanely. Check it out.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 1:34 PM
6 Comments
6 Comments:
I've read about this issue as far back as 11 or 12 years ago. It used to be that people tried to reduce humans to little more than animals. But then even such eminent evolutionists as George Gaylord Simpson disputed the "nothing but" fallacy. Ooops!
The next step seems to be that now animals are basically the same as humans. To those people, I would suggest reading Mortimer J. Adler's book, "The Difference of Man and the Difference it Makes."
By the way, nice piece, Mr. Smith.
Thanks, Rob. I may check out that book.
It seems to me that many people generally consider the relative moral status of humans and animals rather than their absolute moral status. Without considering the latter, the former is actually irrelevant because the terms remain undefined. However, in considering the latter the door is opened to a whole world of moral and ethical implications. These implications may be what many in the debate are avoiding.
Philosophers like Mortimer Adler have been significant proponents of the meaning of absolute moral status and many other ideas that have been abandoned in our culture. That abandonment, those philosophical wrong turns have actually allowed such debates to occur. Had our cultural heritage been propagated as was fitting, such "challenges" as the attack on human exceptionalism and other ideas would've been seen immediately as foolish notions. It's also significant that Adler and others who have promoted our cultural heritage have also been heavily involved in attempts to stem the tide of deterioration of our educational system because they realized that compromises in education result in miseducation and a weakening of resistance to the foolish ideas that have led to many of the contemporary challenges.
Now, more than ever, I believe that some form of basic philosphy class should be required in our schools. Young people need the context that the "Big Ideas" bring to events in today's world.
Rob, I think it's significant that those same big ideas are also related to the same environmental and other stewardship issues that have been accentuated by many who call themselves "environmentally conscious." However, the ideas themselves are grounded in something that many of the activists and lobbyists would readily reject, namely a transcending ideal around which the ideas themselves are ordered. What do you think?
I think you're absolutely correct, BAP. There is a rather large disconnect between a group or person's actions and the ideas behind them. I love it when environmentalists say that man needs to change his behavior to save nature (oversimplified, I know) yet deny there is any transcendence in his ability to do so. I say, if man is merely a part of nature himself, why should he change anything? Afterall, the universe is purposeless, right? Obviously, this could get very involved and my coffee hasn't reached my brain yet, but you get the idea.
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