Last week the Nonhuman rights project filed a lawsuit on behalf of two chimps, arguing that they are sufficiently intelligent and self-aware to deserve some right. Specifically, the right to bodily liberty. If successful the project may file additional lawsuits, trying to extend similar rights to other intelligent animals; like dolphins and whales. This is the first such suit in US history and has obviously been making headlines, so I’ll skip the nitty gritty details. Your probably all bored to death of it (maybe its even driving you bannanas, *badumtsch*).
Rather, I’m bringing this up because tomorrow the group plans to file an additional lawsuit on behalf of Hercules and Leo, who are currently at Stony Brook University. They’re not being used in medical or cosmetic tests, but rather the Anatomy department is using them to study chimp locomotion. This has obvious implications for human evolution; as a better understanding of how chimps move is a crucial resource in trying to identify how our ancestors moved. Its this sort of work which has resulted in the startling conclusion that perhaps our ancestors didn’t walk like chimps after all! This is nothing short of a palaeoanthropolgoical paradigm shift, with fascinating implications for our evolution.
There are no details available about the research in question, although the Functional Morphology and Primate Locomotion Laboratory has “adequate facilities for housing and maintenance of experimental animals…. [and a] full-time, professional animal trainer works with the animals and manages their welfare“. Hooray, I guess.
But should this research be allowed? I’m no legal expert and so don’t have a clue whether the lawsuit has a chance of succeeding. My personal view is that chimps are indeed very intelligent, and so deserve to be protected and treated well. But should they have rights? I don’t think so. To me, rights come with a responsibility to understand them and their limitations. I don’t think chimps could ever meet this burden, so could never have rights. As such, so long as they are protected and treated well there’s nothing stopping them being used in research where appropriate.
