Going Ape
"There is no sound moral reason why possession of basic rights should be limited to members of a particular species."
Peter Singer, Professor of Bioethics, Princeton University (1)
"The pre-eminence of man over beast is nothing since all is vain (hovel)"
Koheles (Ecclesiastes) 3:19
Professor Singer is a co-founder of the Great Ape Project, an international effort to protect the great apes (2) from "abuse, torture and death." A resolution now pending in the parliament of Spain supports this Project, and would ban the use of apes for harmful experimentation, circuses, TV commercials and films. The resolution calls for protection for "our non-human brothers."
If, as the atheists maintain, the existence of Man is a mere evolutionary accident (along with the existence of the entire universe), then Man is indeed nothing more than the smarter brother of the ape, and the cousin of the wolverine and distant relative of the flatworm and amoeba.
This worldview leads to two very different attitudes:
1. Since all of life is nothing but the struggle for survival, it is only natural for the stronger to oppress the weaker. For example, if a person derives pleasure from torturing an animal, he should feel no moral compunctions about doing so to his heart's content. This is not mere supposition: in pagan Rome both humans and animals were tortured and killed for the amusement of huge crowds of spectators. The bull-fights that are legal today in Spain (and other Hispanic countries) are vestiges of these ancient practices.
In recent memory, the Nazis carried this concept but one step further by decreeing some people (Jews) were not human at all, and therefore could be massacred with impunity.
2. Since animals differ from humans in only some superficial respects, it is just as morally wrong to harm or kill animals as to do so to other human beings. This is essentially the position of Professor Singer and animal-rights groups such as People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). The Spanish legislators who are pushing the Great Ape Bill are probably against bull-fights, too, but are not likely to stop them any time soon.
In the United States it is illegal to arrange fights between dogs (just ask Michael Vick), but it is still legal to arrange them between people, under certain legal constraints. (3) State laws also prohibit torturing animals, and there have been efforts from time to time to ban kosher slaughter as deliberately causing pain to the victims.
The most extreme animal-rights activists ultimately seek to ban the use of animals for meat, fur, or even medical experiments. Some have even broken into laboratories and "liberated" the subjects from their cages.
Attitude Number One above has been out of favor in the civilized world since the end of World War II, but Number Two seems to be gaining adherents around the world. This is because once one has accepted the premise that we humans are nothing but well-adapted animals, it stands to reason that we should not consider ourselves superior to other species and use them for our benefit. The rise of vegetarianism in the US is partly attributable to this new attitude.
I believe that the most effective refutation of Attitude Two is the Torah, which proclaims that mankind exists because of the will of God, not chance. In a Torah-based perspective, while human beings and other species share a biological nature (4), Man alone has also been endowed with an immortal soul. In this view, Man exists in both a physical dimension (along with all other life and inanimate matter) and a spiritual dimension (which is linked to the Shechina, the Divine Presence.)
Torah commands the use of certain animals for korbonos (Temple sacrifices) and permits them for food, but forbids causing them to feel pain. For this reason, a knife used for kosher slaughter most be totally smooth, lest a nick in the blade hurt the animal. Animals used by Jews for work must be given the Sabbath off, just like human workers. In the Torah worldview, animals are subordinate to humans, but the latter must recognize the former as sentient beings and fellow creatures of the Almighty.
And so, this Friday night I will eat my cousin the chicken, but I will not ask Prof. Singer to be my guest, as I would not want him to violate his principles.
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(1) "Why they're called human rights in the first place" by Russell Paul LeValle in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, August 4, 2008, page 9A.
(2) Gorillas, bonobos, chimpanzees, and orangutangs.
(3) Boxing matches between children are legal in some states, with parent's consent, but not "ultimate fights". Senator McCain wants to ban the latter even for adults!
(4) For example human and ape DNA are about 99% the same.
Peter Singer, Professor of Bioethics, Princeton University (1)
"The pre-eminence of man over beast is nothing since all is vain (hovel)"
Koheles (Ecclesiastes) 3:19
Professor Singer is a co-founder of the Great Ape Project, an international effort to protect the great apes (2) from "abuse, torture and death." A resolution now pending in the parliament of Spain supports this Project, and would ban the use of apes for harmful experimentation, circuses, TV commercials and films. The resolution calls for protection for "our non-human brothers."
If, as the atheists maintain, the existence of Man is a mere evolutionary accident (along with the existence of the entire universe), then Man is indeed nothing more than the smarter brother of the ape, and the cousin of the wolverine and distant relative of the flatworm and amoeba.
This worldview leads to two very different attitudes:
1. Since all of life is nothing but the struggle for survival, it is only natural for the stronger to oppress the weaker. For example, if a person derives pleasure from torturing an animal, he should feel no moral compunctions about doing so to his heart's content. This is not mere supposition: in pagan Rome both humans and animals were tortured and killed for the amusement of huge crowds of spectators. The bull-fights that are legal today in Spain (and other Hispanic countries) are vestiges of these ancient practices.
In recent memory, the Nazis carried this concept but one step further by decreeing some people (Jews) were not human at all, and therefore could be massacred with impunity.
2. Since animals differ from humans in only some superficial respects, it is just as morally wrong to harm or kill animals as to do so to other human beings. This is essentially the position of Professor Singer and animal-rights groups such as People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). The Spanish legislators who are pushing the Great Ape Bill are probably against bull-fights, too, but are not likely to stop them any time soon.
In the United States it is illegal to arrange fights between dogs (just ask Michael Vick), but it is still legal to arrange them between people, under certain legal constraints. (3) State laws also prohibit torturing animals, and there have been efforts from time to time to ban kosher slaughter as deliberately causing pain to the victims.
The most extreme animal-rights activists ultimately seek to ban the use of animals for meat, fur, or even medical experiments. Some have even broken into laboratories and "liberated" the subjects from their cages.
Attitude Number One above has been out of favor in the civilized world since the end of World War II, but Number Two seems to be gaining adherents around the world. This is because once one has accepted the premise that we humans are nothing but well-adapted animals, it stands to reason that we should not consider ourselves superior to other species and use them for our benefit. The rise of vegetarianism in the US is partly attributable to this new attitude.
I believe that the most effective refutation of Attitude Two is the Torah, which proclaims that mankind exists because of the will of God, not chance. In a Torah-based perspective, while human beings and other species share a biological nature (4), Man alone has also been endowed with an immortal soul. In this view, Man exists in both a physical dimension (along with all other life and inanimate matter) and a spiritual dimension (which is linked to the Shechina, the Divine Presence.)
Torah commands the use of certain animals for korbonos (Temple sacrifices) and permits them for food, but forbids causing them to feel pain. For this reason, a knife used for kosher slaughter most be totally smooth, lest a nick in the blade hurt the animal. Animals used by Jews for work must be given the Sabbath off, just like human workers. In the Torah worldview, animals are subordinate to humans, but the latter must recognize the former as sentient beings and fellow creatures of the Almighty.
And so, this Friday night I will eat my cousin the chicken, but I will not ask Prof. Singer to be my guest, as I would not want him to violate his principles.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) "Why they're called human rights in the first place" by Russell Paul LeValle in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, August 4, 2008, page 9A.
(2) Gorillas, bonobos, chimpanzees, and orangutangs.
(3) Boxing matches between children are legal in some states, with parent's consent, but not "ultimate fights". Senator McCain wants to ban the latter even for adults!
(4) For example human and ape DNA are about 99% the same.
posted by Gerald S Glazer at 9:17 AM
8 Comments:
As a scientist I think the best reasonn to refute position number 2 is science.
Position number 2 bases its argument on a false assumption, that is that humans and animals are similar. I do not mean to say that there are no similarities between animals and humans but that the issue is what is meant by similarity.
Humans are also similar to plants. We both are composed of the same amino acids and carbohydrates and we both have genes and reproduce. Would anyone suggest that then killing a plant is wrong?
What other non-plant life forms? What about bacteria. Bacteris are not only composed of the same materials as humans but they live with us right in our own bodies. Not only that without some bacteria in our digestive tract we would die.
What about even more complex life forms like insects? Insects not only are composed of the same molecules and genes, but they also have a nervous system. They exhibit complex social behaviors and they engage in communication with each other.
Insects are as similar to humans as are apes. The only real difference is the amount of similarity in our genetic makeup. Apes are a little more similar to humans in this regard than insects.
Therefore, if one were to consider apes as having equal rights as humans, then there would be no logical barrier to extending these rights to insects.
As Mr Glazer knows very well there is a basic method in mathematics to determine whether a relationship is true or not. All one has to do is to take the variables to their limits; i.e. to zero and infinity with regard to a mathematical formula. If the expression is false at its extremes then it is false. Some times when the variables are within common limits it is difficult to determine whether the relationship is true or not but at its extremes the truth emerges.
If we apply this rule to whether the concept that apes deserve equal rights as humans we see that by taking this concept to its extremes, it is obviously false. The extremes in this case are insects and other life forms that are very similar to apes. Thus the concept that we must treat apes as humans is false and really quite absurd.
Apes are of course more our size than insects and look more like us than insects, but when one gets down to the science of these organisms, in fact apes are much more similar to insects than they are to humans. Of course I could have made the same argument using higher life forms that are even much more similar to apes like birds or rats; but the result would be the same and the proof would fit even better.
The issue here really is superficiality. Those who consider apes more like humans than insects are only concerned with the most superficial aspects of lfe, e.g. size, appearance, etc. In this regard I also fully aagree with Mr Glaser and Torah, that when one looks deeper rather than superficially, there really is no similarity between humans and apes. By deeper, I mean scientifically, morally, and ethically deeper.
Moreover, the fact that some people have difficulty distiguishing between humans and apes, is very very disturbing. The fact that Mr Singer is an endowed Professor at Princeton only proves how much our universities have deteriorated and lost touch with reality.
To be fair, if we are going to critique the Great Ape Project (GAP) and Peter Singer's views on that, we must first know exactly what they are. Here are two essential primary sources for that:
The Great Ape Project (book)
By Paola Cavalieri, Peter Singer
http://books.google.com/books?id=8RMSPt0kC_kC
GAP: Declaration on Great Apes
http://www.greatapeproject.org/declaration.php
Here is one more essential primary source for Singer's views on The Great Ape Project. This is an online copy of the epilogue which he co-authored with an Italian philosopher for the book of that title (see my previous comment):
"The Great Ape Project — and Beyond"
by Paola Cavalieri & Peter Singer
In PAOLA CAVALIERI & PETER SINGER (eds.), _The Great Ape Project_
New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 1993, pp. 304-312
http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-m/cavalieri01.htm
"...in fact, apes are much more
similar to insects than they are to humans." Ivan, please cite one example of genomic comparison to validate the above ridiculous-sounding statement. I am not suggesting that the gorillas and bonobos in our fine Milwaukee Zoo should be given institutionalized ballots to vote this November .
Moshe
The human empathic response is directly proportional to the similarity of the perceiving subject.
Objectifying other primates correlates with recognizing and objectifying other human "races". In
the context of anthropological history, objectifying others enabled
not only racism, but also the speciesism
that contributed to the extinction of
non-sapien homonids. An amount of
objectification is needed for both
a soldier and a surgeon to function. The soldier and the surgeon are temporary functions.
If we are human, we are in touch
with the sixth sephira - comapassion/beauty in our relations. It is upon the quality
of our relations that the loom of
Shechinah is woven around us as a
Tallith.
Moshe
Gerry, eat your kashered chickens.
Apes are not Kosher to eat, as you know. The Torah forbids hunting for sport, abuse and torture. Interjecting neo-Darwinism is an
unnecessary sideline. What HaShem gave life to, we have no right to take away. It may be disturbing to some who consider themselves religiously devoted to their creator, to encounter others, who are not recognized as religious, to
be much more compassionate and
moral in thier relationships toward other living creatures, whether or not human.
To Moshe regarding my statement that apes are more similar to insects than to humans.
First of all my exact comment was "Insects are as similar to humans as are apes. The only real difference is the amount of similarity in our genetic makeup. Apes are a little more similar to humans in this regard than insects."
You took my words out of context and implied that I suggested that apes are more similar to insects than humans in a genetic sense. But as my direct quote says, I wrote just the opposite.
Yes, apes are closer to humans in a genetic or gnomic sense, their chromosomes are more similar. This probably reflects the great similarity in bodily functions like respiratory, cardiovascular, and nervous systems; as well as body shape. But these are simply physical biological functions. In more advanced functions and traits, apes are more similar to insects than humans.
Apes and insects are beings that only react to their worlds and do not change their environment except in a genetically proscribed reflexive manner. Apes and insects both build things in a reflexive way, organize their social networks in a reflexive way, cooperate with each other in a reflexive way, procreate in a reflexive way, communicate in a reflexive way, and do all the things all animals do. I cannot think of a single basic function or behavior that apes do that insects cannot do (Although regarding physiology they may do it a little differently. For example they both engage in respiration, but the manner and organsd used to do thsi may differ a little). Apes and insects are animals and they lack all of the traits that make humans humans. These traits are of course creativity, awareness of their existance and mortality, awareness of time, ability to plan for the future and remember and recognize the past, etc. All of the things that make humans different from insects are also the same things that make humans different from apes.
Therefore, apes are more similar to insects than they are to humans.
But I guess it depends again on what one meands by "similar" and on ones value of particular traits.
To me the fact that two organisms use the same chemical pathways to supply themselves with energy to survive is much more significant than exactly what organs they use to accomplish this. Is it the outward visible shape of the organ that matters or the basic undelying chemistry? To me that main issue is the underlying chemistry not the visible physical structure that is the essential and important issue.
Similarly to me the fact that two organisms have extremely different interactions and understanding of their world and environment is a major difference beteen them no matter how similar they look to each other. One can build a robbot that looks just like humans, may have lungs that look and work like humans, and a heart that look and works like humans, but can a robbot ever be a human?
This all gets back to my original statement "the issue is what is meant by similarity."
In my understanding of biology and the scientific concept of similarity, apes are more similar to insects than humans.
To Steve here is a synopsis of the professional life of Peter Singer: to be fair. I think the inanity of Singer's ideas is clear. I think this situation very well illustrates the moral wasteland on campuses today.
Peter Singer is an Australian philosopher and a visiting professor of bioethics at Princeton University. He also has worked as a lecturer at Oxford University, New York University, Monash University, the University of Colorado (Boulder), the University of California (Irvine), the University of Melbourne, and Princeton University’s Center for Human Values. Singer authored the 1975 book Animal Liberation, a landmark text that effectively launched the modern animal rights movement.
Singer was born in 1946 in Melbourne, Australia, the son of Viennese Jews who had fled Austria during WWII. He attended Scotch College in Victoria and thereafter studied philosophy at the University of Melbourne, where he graduated in 1967. He then continued his education at Oxford, writing his thesis on civil disobedience.
In Animal Liberation, Singer contends that people should respect the moral worth of all animals -- not on the basis of the animals' intelligence, but rather because of their ability to experience pain and suffering. He characterizes the denial of animals’ basic “rights” as a form of discrimination called “speciesism,” comparable to racism and sexism.
Deeming it wrong to assign greater inherent value to human beings than to any other form of animal life, Singer (in Animal Liberation) rejects the Biblical notions that mankind is nature’s steward and master; that humans have souls and animals do not; and that people are made uniquely in the image of God. “All three [of the foregoing axioms] taken together do have a very negative influence on the way in which we think about animals,” Singer says, explaining that his mission is to challenge “this superiority of human beings.”
In the same book, Singer asks, “Should one break in and free the animals” caged in laboratories wherein they otherwise would be the subjects of medical experiments? “That is illegal,” he replies, “but the obligation to obey the law is not absolute. It was justifiably broken by those who helped runaway slaves in the American South.” Throughout Singer’s text, the animal rights crusade is likened to the abolition movement of the 1800s and the fight against Hitler in the 1940s.
In 1979 Singer published Practical Ethics, wherein he continues his argument that animals are entitled to as much respect as people. He contends, moreover, that human parents should be legally permitted to kill a “severely disabled” infant up to 28 days after its birth if they deem the baby’s life unworthy of preservation. “There are some circumstances,” Singer writes, “…where the newborn baby is severely disabled and where the parents think that it’s better that that child should not live, when killing the newborn baby is not at all wrong.”
Singer was once asked, in an interview, whether he would be more inclined to rescue a human being or a mouse from a burning building -- if he could save only one. He replied:
“… [I]n almost all cases I would save the human being. But not because the human being is human ... Species membership alone isn't morally significant … The qualities that are ethically significant are, firstly, a capacity to ... feel pain, or to have any kind of feelings. That's really basic, and it’s something that a mouse shares with us. But when it comes to a question of taking life, or allowing life to end, it matters whether a being ... can see that he or she actually has a life ... Such a being has more to lose than a being incapable of understanding this.... So normally, the death of a human being is a greater loss to the human than the death of a mouse is to the mouse … But this depends on the qualities and characteristics that the human being has. If, for example, the human being had suffered brain damage so severe as to be in an irreversible state of unconsciousness, then it might not be better to save the human.”
Singer has sparked controversy with his views vis a vis bestiality (humans engaging in sexual intercourse with animals). Suggesting that this practice has remained taboo in most cultures because it is not procreative, Singer observes that humans engage in all manner of sexual activities (with one another) that do not lead to conception; thus sex with animals, he reasons, should not be singled out as a forbidden offense. Singer also argues that since humans themselves are animals, humans engaging in sex with other animals should not be considered especially bizarre:
“…[T]here are many ways in which we cannot help behaving just as animals do — or mammals, anyway — and sex is one of the most obvious ones. We copulate, as they do. They have penises and vaginas, as we do, and the fact that the vagina of a calf can be sexually satisfying to a man shows how similar these organs are.”
Singer’s writings have had a profound impact on the contemporary animal rights movement and its leaders, including Ingrid Newkirk, who, along with fellow activist Alex Pacheco, founded People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in 1980. (An abridged version of Singer's Animal Liberation is given to all new PETA members.)
In 2000 Singer published A Darwinian Left: Politics, Evolution and Cooperation, wherein he claims that for too long the theories of social Darwinism have been used by the political “right” to justify capitalism, and even to explain why some societies are prosperous and others are poor. In A Darwinian Left, Singer suggests that the Western culture's emphasis on “competition” should be replaced with an emphasis on “cooperation” as a goal of human evolution.
Singer also has authored or coauthored such books as Marx (1980); The Reproduction Revolution: New Ways of Making Babies (1984); Should the Baby Live? (1988); Rats, Patients and People: Issues in the Ethical Regulation of Research (1989); Democracy and Disobedience (1994); How Are We to Live? (1995); Rethinking Life and Death (1995); The President of Good and Evil (2004); In Defense of Animals: The Second Wave (2005); and The Ethics of What We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter (2007).
Another notable Singer publication is “Famine, Affluence, and Morality,” an essay that originally appeared in the journal Philosophy and Public Affairs in 1972. In that piece, Singer argues that it is morally indefensible for an affluent society not to earmark a portion of its wealth for the poor.
Singer personally claims to donate 25 percent of his salary each year to Oxfam International, a relief organization that aids populations facing disasters of various sorts (famine, flood, war); one of Oxfam’s chief projects is its boycott of Israeli products -- to protest Israel's alleged abuse of the Palestinian people.
In 2002 Singer joined hundreds of Jewish scholars and professionals in signing a petition calling for Israelis to evacuate virtually all of their settlements in Gaza and the West Bank and to give financial compensation to the Palestinians residing in those areas. Other signers of the petition included Harry Targ, Frances Fox Piven, Stanley Hoffman, Noam Chomsky, Michael Lerner, and Howard Zinn.
In 2006 Singer was a signatory to “An Urgent Call by Scientists to Defend Science,” a document that accused President George W. Bush and the “Religious Right” of blocking scientific progress, “all in the pursuit of implementing their particular political agenda.”
In 2008 Singer contributed $250 to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.
Singer himself made a brief foray into the political world in 1996, when he ran, unsuccessfully, as a Green candidate for the Australian Senate.
In 2004 the Council of Australian Humanist Societies recognized Singer as the Australian Humanist of the Year. That same year, Singer was named “Humanist Laureate” by the International Academy of Humanism. In 2005 he was named by Time Magazine as one of the world’s most influential people.
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