July 2, 2008
Apes are not people
Slate has a piece discussing the proposed Spanish legislation which would recognize the personal rights of our "non-human brothers," our "evolutionary comrades," the great apes.
This is a disaster, but an entirely predictable one. Once you've decided that humans are the product of an essentially random chemical reaction, any moral significant disappears. So does any basis for distinguishing between humans and animals. Saletan thinks this is bad because humans are demonstrably different from animals, but I think this is insufficient to prevent the evils such a proposal would engender, because the distinction he draws is one of degree, not of kind and is thus not a particularly hard line.
The real danger here isn't that we'll start extending the respect due to humans to apes. It's that we'll start treating humans like apes. Recognition of "equality" tends not to elevate the "lower" party but denigrate the "higher" one. As an example, I'd point to the "equal rights for women" campaign. Instead of "elevating" women to the "exalted" positions men traditionally occupy, it's simply made it acceptable to treat women like men treat each other, i.e. like shit. Legislating "equality" between humans and apes isn't likely to result in apes being treated better--at least not for long--but it is quite likely to result in humans being treated worse.
The syllogism is something as follows:
1. Humans are not metaphysically special nor distinct from animals.
2. Animals thus be treated as humans.
3. There isn't any reason to treat animals with dignity.
4. Thus, there isn't any reason to treat humans with dignity either.
This can't end well.
