Re: Chimp rights

From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Mon Apr 29 2002 - 15:47:20 MDT


Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:

>>(Hal Finney <hal@finney.org>):
>>
>>>I am continuously amazed to see such fallacies trotted out as sensible
>>>arguments. Just because a chimp can communicate at the level of a
>>>three-year-old, does not make that chimp the moral equivalent of a
>>>three-year-old.
>>>
>
> Not to mention that the "if" there is complete nonsense anyway.
> Even after decades of research attempting to teach chimps, gorillas,
> and other apes something resembling "language", none of them, at any
> age, after years of work, have acheived skills that any 18-month-old
> human infant acheives spontaneously with no effort.
>

Human infants go through considerable effort to acheive the same
results and any parent knows that the adult participation in
such learning is not effortless either.

The point though is that these creatures are close enough to
sentient levels we consider as possessing rights that it is at
least questionable that we treat them often so poorly. If a
chimp can communicate at the level of a three-year-old then it
is a prove of its sentience and thus a call for not abusing such
creatures. That it does not have to have the potential of
growing into a full adult human equivalent does not justify
disallowing any rights at all.

- samantha



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