What is personhood and why does it matter?
The law separates the world into "things" and "persons", one of which has rights and the other which has none. It is well known that considering corporations to be legal persons has opened up a whole slew of violations of the rights of actual persons. But this essay is not about that. It is about the other side of the debate: continuing to treat sentient beings such as great apes as things, which they are clearly not.
The Great Apes are of the family Hominidae, as are humans. But, despite sharing 98% of our DNA with these fellows, and despite the fact that they have a distinct social order, live in families, use tools, and have cultural norms, they are still treated by us, the hairless apes, as animals with very few rights.
What are the Great Apes?
The Great Apes consist of Orangutans, Gorillas, Chimpanzees, and Modern Humans. They are intelligent, self aware, live in families, have a social order and a type of politics, have cultural norms, make and use tools, and hunt together in bands, using strategy to catch prey.
Why Should They Be Considered Persons?
If we are just considering intelligence that should be enough. The bell curve for humans places the vast majority of humans between 85 and 115. The average for a test adapted for apes, who cannot write or speak as we can, is between 40 and 65. The apes in the higher percentiles, two standard deviations from the mean, are in the 70 to 90 range. This is a significant overlap and means that about 15% of great apes are as smart or smarter than about 30% of humans.
The apes on the high end of the spectrum are able to communicate well with humans even without the power of speech as such. Some apes have had a vocabulary of 2000 human words.
Of course there are other intelligent animals, and in a better world they would all have standing as non-human persons. But let us continue to the issue of self-awareness. One of the standards for self-awareness is the mirror test. To pass the test the animal must be able to recognize that the reflection in the mirror is themself. All of the great apes are able to pass this test. But it goes farther. There is evidence that great apes possess a "theory of mind" which is to say that they are aware that others have different needs, wants, and perceptions than they do.
What about culture? It is known that bands of apes have cultural differences. In an area with many types of plant food sources different bands will eat or shun a unique selection of what is edible. They also use tools differently on a regional basis, such as one band collecting honey with a stick, while another band uses leaves.
They live in bands which are quite comparable to humans living in tribes. And their political structure is hierarchical and nuanced. Within the band are individual families which exhibit clear ties, and none so familiar and touching to us as the bond between mother and child.
I recently saw a story about a woman with a new baby at the Boston zoo. There was a gorilla with a new baby in the ape enclosure. The gorilla was very interested in the woman holding the baby. After a few minutes she went and picked up HER baby and showed it to the woman before cradling it. Their eyes met for a moment of interspecies understanding of motherhood.
Apes have a lifespan of around 50 years. Just as we did at one time. They reach adulthood at around 15, just a bit earlier than humans are considered to be adults. It takes a long time to learn all that is needed to join the band as a full member.
What Purpose Will Personhood Serve?
Knowing all of this it seems imperative that the great apes be granted the rights of personhood. Though this would not give them certain rights, such as the right to engage in contracts, and it would not give them legal liability, it would improve their lot in certain important ways. as follows: They could no longer be used in circus or other animal acts, or be imprisoned. And, more urgently, killing them would be treated as murder and not just animal cruelty or poaching. Murdering an ape would send the killer to prison. An ape would no longer be a "thing".
This has already happened in one case, in Argentina where a 33 year old female Orangutan named Sandy was declared a non-human person. She was then moved from a zoo where she had been unlawfully imprisoned for 25 years into a sanctuary in Florida. The judge, Elena Liberatori had the following remarks: "With this ruling I wanted to tell society that animals are sentient beings, and the first right they have is our obligation to respect them".
It may be further off for many other species, but if sentient beings are persons (and the great apes have surely met the requirements) then their reclassification on a global level must follow. There are organizations that have worked for years on this. I recommend the Great Ape Project for further information and to help if you can. https://www.projetogap.org.br/en/
I agree with you.
Do you know of Dr. Lynn Margulis and James Lovelock creators of the Gaia hypothesis/theory? Dr. Margulis makes the point that bacteria have shaped our Earth for 3.5+ billion years, making it habitable and without which we could not live. Bacteria share their new found information globally with all other bacteria. I believe humans could learn a lot from that kind of cooperation. Quite honestly they do things we can't imagine how they do it. Chemically speaking they are virtuosos of creation and transformation.
Another line of thinking is what defines a "self". There is a word autopoiesis created by Chilean biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela that is the name of a theory of "self and self creation". So for me all life should be sacred (tall order). Autopoiesis underpins us all. We are selves.
be well