Chimps Should Have Rights? How about bacteria?

            Not too long ago, an animal rights organization filed a lawsuit on behalf of four chimpanzees in New York state.  According to Steven M. Wise, founder and president of the NonHuman Rights Project, the lawsuit intended to ask “judges to recognize, for the first time, that these cognitively complex, autonomous beings have the basic legal right to not be imprisoned.”   The lawsuit has since been dismissed, but it does raise serious questions about what it means to be human versus animal.

            Since we cannot communicate with any of the four chimps in question, how do we know they are truly imprisoned?  Suggesting they have a basic legal right not to be imprisoned assumes much that we don’t know.  For instance, do any of the chimps feel imprisoned?  One cannot just assume that if we could talk with the chimps they would prefer some other life.  It’s certainly possible, but we have no evidence it is likely.  Yes, for most people, imprisonment has severe negative connotations.  Chimps, however, no matter what their DNA, no matter what their cognitive complexity, are not human beings and it is neither logical nor rational to thrust human understanding upon them.   Secondly, and just as important, imprisonment implies involuntary cessation of normal human freedoms.  Once a human prisoner has served his or her sentence, the involuntary cessation of freedoms ends and the former prisoner is released into the general society (perhaps with some restrictions, but no longer imprisoned).  Chimps will not be allowed to simply walk around unattended.  Perhaps the goal is to have these chimps released to the wild.  This would be peculiar, as all of them are older and likely have few skills necessary for wilderness survival, making it likely they will die very quickly and, perhaps, painfully.  Human prisoners are released back into a society in which they at least have some familiarity and some ability to negotiate.

            No reasonable person thinks animals should be treated poorly, so if it’s merely a matter of finding more suitable and more humane environs in which these chimps can live, that does not necessitate giving the chimps human-like rights.  Moreover, this is, at least to some extent, a matter of opinion.  Certainly, some conditions might be obviously bad (having a chimp live in a 5 x 5 cell, wallowing in its own waste, for instance), while other conditions might not be so obviously bad.  However, this is a matter for debate among humans as to how we desire to treat animals, not a rationale for providing the animal itself with legal status.

            Finally, note the oddity that the chimps will need legal guardians to make decisions for them.  While I understand we do this with the infirm and the incompetent, we do this for human beings, not animals.  The reason we appoint guardians for human beings is for that reason alone: they are human beings.  Suggesting chimps require such guardians then leads to whether dogs should have such guardians, and so on, and so on.  What about turkeys?  We can spin this out all the way to the most simple one-celled organism.  The absurdity of such a notion can be encapsulated in the imagined exchange below:

            Judge: What are you asking we do for your client?

            Lawyer:  Your honor, my client asks only to be left alone to infect people, as is its nature.

            Judge:  Huh?

            Lawyer:   What else do you expect a bacteria to do but infect people?  Moreover, my client’s relatives have in the past been repeatedly subjected to the death penalty via penicillin and other such drugs without due process.  My client only seeks to avoid such legal atrocities.

            So, I’ve pushed it to the absurd limit.  However, the current moral framework we follow in this country, a sort of smorgasbordish amalgamation of existentialism, post-modern philosophy, Far Eastern panentheism, and tolerance results in our inability to draw rational lines.  Why should chimps get rights, but bacteria don’t?  Upon what rational basis would Steven Wise argue against bacterial rights, if he is so inclined?  Mr. Wise seems to think cognitive complexity is the rational basis for giving chimps right.  How does Mr. Wise know what bacteria are thinking, though?  If cognitive complexity is the rationale for determining who or what gets rights, who gets to decide how much cognitive complexity is necessary for rights to attach?  Does that mean a one year old human child doesn’t get rights, but a five year old chimp does?  I would guess there is some possibility a five year old chimp is more cognitively complex than a one year old child, even though the one year old child has significantly more cognitive potential.  Does potential count?

            The view held by Mr. Wise and groups like PETA stems from the godless notion that we are all by-products of impersonal forces acting in the universe.  Problematically, however, while one can, based on this worldview, conclude chimps should have rights, one can, with equal intellectual integrity, conclude rights should be based solely on power – whoever has the power to define rights gets to say what they are.  The difficulty is that when an impersonal, non-thinking, non-rational universe through some completely unknown means and through no specific direction, somehow has life arise within its borders, there is no basis for claiming that rights mean anything.  The idea of rights presumes some sort of moral reality which cannot exist in such a universe, at least not independently from those making up the rights.  In other words, there are no universal rights, only those we make up.  If rights are made up, then they are arbitrary designations of whatever people happen to want at the moment.  Following this to its logical conclusion, we can give chimps rights, but then, we can take them away, as well.  Moreover, despite the absurdity of my example, nothing prevents us from giving bacteria rights, or plants rights, or even organic but non-sentient things like water, rights. 

            We cannot give chimps rights.  We can agree to treat them reasonably and have laws in place which make poor treatment of animals an offense.  However, we should make animal cruelty against the law because, as humans, we hold ourselves to a higher standard, not because we think animals should have rights due to their alleged “cognitive complexity.”  Why should we hold ourselves to a higher standard?  Because we are NOT by-products of the universe – we are beings made in the image of God, and as such, we have an obligation to act as good stewards of the planet God has given us.  Part of this stewardship means we see to it animals receive acceptable and reasonable treatment, which lies somewhere between doing anything we want with animals and giving animals rights.  Kind of broad, I know, but it’s the best I can do.  One thing, however, is certain: I will always remain in favor of killing harmful bacteria.