RSN Fundraising Banner
FB Share
Email This Page
add comment

writing for godot

Tommy Played a Mean Hand

Print
Written by Eluemuno Blyden   
Saturday, 07 February 2015 07:27
The personality of chimpanzees ​was once again in the human courts of law​. A novel ​​case caught the attention of the media ​at the close of 2014 quietly juxtaposed with the national outrage over racially-charged police killings in New York and elsewhere.​ The case was brought on behalf of a 26 year-old chimpanzee named Tommy who lives detained in a cement cage in upstate New York. Under the law, his detention is legal because he is not human-- he is property. The New York courts upheld this. Neither is it surprising that a New York court chose to deal with the chimpanzee question ​​by reference to human rights, responsibilities and legal accountability.

​The protagonists did the usual thing of trundling out scientific research and cataloging the marvelous 'human-like' capabilities of chimpanzees to support their petition for a writ of habeas corpus. According to a press release on their website​:"When the complaint was filed, in early December 2013, Steven Wise, the president of the Nonhuman Rights Project, said: “Not long ago, people generally agreed that human slaves could not be legal persons, but were simply the property of their owners. . . We will assert, based on clear scientific evidence, that it’s time to take the next step and recognize that these nonhuman animals cannot continue to be exploited as the property of their human ‘owners.’”

Adam Smith's "On the Wealth of Nations" -- on which the capitalism of globalization is based -- accounts slaves as property. The "correctness" of Smith's ideal economic system, so beloved of conservative economists, therefore relies on large numbers of persons living without human rights and denied of their liberty. Perhaps this explains why globalization still refuses to balance out into any kind of Utopian state of well-being among all (wo)men -- half of us still need to be treated as property for the model to work. The attitude towards the rest of nature in Smith's time was equally without regard to the ecological role of personality and intelligence. It is long overdue that we take the next step towards an integrated philosophy of humanity, economy and ecology.

The court decision against Tommy-the-Chimp quotes the legal definition of a person thus: "So far as legal theory is concerned, a person is any being whom the law regards as capable of rights and duties.. . .Persons are the substances of which rights and duties are the attributes. It is only in this respect that persons possess juridical significance, and this is the exclusive point of view from which personality receives legal recognition."


Centuries of dutifully recorded observation confirm that non-human species enjoy rights and perform reciprocal duties in the context of their own social contracts, and in the wider community of species in their native ecosystems. We even borrow terms like "alpha male" and "maternal instinct" from the language of such observations. Indeed, the balance in social contracts is almost always a requirement for success of both individual and species. The Court's ruling against Tommy's personhood turns on the inability of chimpanzees to comply with human law. Presiding Justice Karen Peters is reported to have written :"Needless to say, unlike human beings, chimpanzees cannot bear any legal duties, submit to societal responsibilities or be held legally accountable for their actions. In our view, it is this incapability to bear any legal responsibilities and societal duties that renders it inappropriate to confer upon chimpanzees the legal rights – such as the fundamental right to liberty protected by the writ of habeas corpus – that have been afforded to human beings."


What is the origin of the rightness or wrongness of human actions? Why does society need legal protection for rights and responsibilities in the first place if not to safeguard our relationship to the natural world? Economy is a proxy for ecology. Money is only as good as the food, shelter and water it can provide. No matter how high the sky-scraper, the corner Bodegas' and Starbucks' on the ground floor are still proxies for fruit trees.Judging the person-hood of chimpanzees according to their ability to comply with our proxy ecosystems is disingenuous at best, and at worse, on a par with the cruelty of a circus Ringmaster. Thus when a New York law professor is quoted by the Boston Globe as saying:“The blunt point is that we have had and will continue to have different moral obligations to members of our own species than we do to chimps or members of any other species.”

he ignores the foundation of moral obligations in the rights of living things to participate in the act of living-- of eating, drinking and sleeping. We observe that animals have personality because they manifest obligations to their fellow creatures in their acts of living. A human being, locked in a cage would no more be able to "bear any legal duties, submit to societal responsibilities or be held legally accountable for their actions" than Tommy-the-Chimp. There is some double jeopardy in denying a chimp his rights to life and liberty because he cannot comply with the proxy ecosystem of New York's concrete jungle.

In due synchronicitistic justice, the name of the "owner" of Tommy is Lavery, a mere slip of the tongue away from 'slavery':"Lavery said that he agreed with the judges, adding that T[o]mmy received state-of-the-art care and was on a waiting list to be taken in by a sanctuary.

"It will be my decision where he goes and not someone else's," he said." The right question human laws need to ask is whether Tommy would be "personable" if he lived in a sanctuary -- or better still, in the ecosystems of West and Central Africa in which his ancestors defined their own moral obligations, societal obligations and accountability.

Lets hope that question is on the agenda in Peru.Meanwhile, if Tarzan were caged in the middle of the forest, unable to understand and comply with the norms of chimpanzee society, would he cease to be a person?
e-max.it: your social media marketing partner
Email This Page

 

THE NEW STREAMLINED RSN LOGIN PROCESS: Register once, then login and you are ready to comment. All you need is a Username and a Password of your choosing and you are free to comment whenever you like! Welcome to the Reader Supported News community.

RSNRSN