Great Ape Project
The Great Ape Project (GAP ) is an international initiative, behind which stands the idea of certain basic rights that are currently unique to human beings, for the other members of the family of apes (English Great Apes) - that chimpanzees, gorillas and orang -utans - to demand, including the right to life, the protection of individual liberty and the prohibition of torture.
- 6.1 External links
- 6.2 Literature
- 6.3 footnotes
History
The GAP goes back to the 1993 published book " Human Rights for Great Apes - The Great Ape Project" ( Original title: The Great Ape Project: Equality Beyond Humanity ), which was edited by Paola Cavalieri and the philosopher Peter Singer. It contains contributions by 34 authors, including Jane Goodall, Jared Diamond and Richard Dawkins. After the first swing in the 90s, numerous research groups solved the CAP gradually. Following the award of the Ethics Award 2011 of the Giordano Bruno Foundation to Paola Cavalieri and Peter Singer, the CAP has been restarted in Germany.
Goals and reasoning
The book " Human Rights for Great Apes " begins with a " Declaration on Great Apes ", which defines the objectives of the Great Ape Project:
" We demand that the community of equals is extended so that they miteinschließt all great apes: human beings, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans. The " community of equals " is the moral community within which we accept certain moral principles or rights that govern our relationships with each other and are judicially enforceable. "
These rights or principles include the "right to life ", the " protection of individual liberty " and " freedom from torture ".
The goal of the CAP is to overcome the inadequate view of the authors the human-animal boundary, since it is biologically and with it ethically wrong. The evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond argues that the genomes of chimpanzees and bonobos with the people agree to 98.4 percent, and between humans and the great apes even blood transfusions are possible. According to the authors not belonging to a species, but the degree of self-awareness, or status as a person ( Singer) should decide how we view and treat non- human animals. Since the great apes share with humans a similar feeling and thinking skills as well as a similar behavior, they should be incorporated into the human moral community with and not remain as " animals" left out. This similarity of the human species with the " non-human primates " could observe research already since Charles Darwin, for example, in the various emotions that would be exhibited by apes in similar facial expressions as in humans. Also, a conversation with them about sign language was possible. Since the similarity of humans and great apes could not be denied, should you give them the basic rights of the people are not deprived. Disagreement contrast, are the authors whether the CAP is to be regarded only as a first step to extend basic rights to other animals. For example, calls Peter Singer in Animal Liberation. The liberation of animals all sentient animals to award rights. This view is not shared by all collaborators of the CAP, some already satisfies the inclusion of the great apes in the ethics and jurisprudence.
Discussion
New boundaries
Critics of the CAP are skeptical, what advantage was gained with the displacement of the human-animal boundary. According to the definition of the CAP, the limit of the equipped with the rights of animals no longer runs between humans and apes, but between the great apes and other primates, more precisely between the orang -utan - as the man genetically most distant great ape species - and the lesser apes, so the gibbons ( Hylobates ). Critics complain that limit to be as arbitrary as the boundary between humans and apes. Some representatives of the CAP argue against the fact that the inclusion of the great apes, as it was only a symbolic step to overcome the human-animal boundary. The boundary between orangutans and gibbons was therefore also not as rigid and immovable as the old human-animal boundary.
Rights and obligations
Another criticism of the CAP concerns the relationship of rights to duties. In the human moral community both are closely related. Critics ask what obligations you should demand a great apes. Should they be responsible in the case of killing of conspecifics in court? Defenders of the CAP point out that even in the human moral community, not everyone has duties, eg Infants and young children do not, and no mentally handicapped or seriously dementia. Great apes award rights therefore mean they analogous to treat people without reasonable duties.
Practical consequences
Among the consequences of the CAP is one to ban all medical experiments with great apes, which shall benefit the human medicine. Equally clearly, is the prohibition to provide great apes in circus on display. It is controversial how far the practical consequences of rights to great apes. It is disputed whether one is no longer to protect reserves in gorillas and chimpanzees, but in UN Trust Territories. Opinions were divided as to whether one can no longer hold great apes in zoological gardens in principle, even under conditions that are as far as possible, appropriate to the species.
Anthropocentrism
Some critics of the animal rights movement reject the CAP off because it was inconsistent and anthropocentric argue. For the representatives of the CAP, the similarity of the human great apes is to award the main argument, gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans rights. The objection is, why just " human similarity" is an argument. According to the critics, it would be to meet any animal in his own way morally and not to create human scale.
Influence
Among other things, due to the influence of the CAP in 1999, New Zealand changed the legal protection of " non-human hominids " in animal welfare law. After chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and bonobos may only be then used in New Zealand in experiments when the results come the monkeys themselves or their species benefit. The New Zealand Court thus followed the realization that the " increased cognitive and emotional capabilities of the Apes " a redefinition of their moral and legal status required.
In June 2008, the Committee spoke of the Environment, Agriculture and Fisheries of the Spanish Parliament in favor of the species of great apes ( chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans ) award advanced rights and to support the CAP. The Spanish government under then Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero was asked to work for an explanation in the European Union and within a year to enact a law prohibiting potentially harmful experiments on apes. Keeping apes in captivity should be permitted only for the purpose of conservation. In addition, it was recommended to take in international forums and organizations steps to protect great apes from maltreatment, slavery, torture, killing and extermination.
Awards
- Paola Cavalieri and Peter Singer was awarded the 2011 Ethics Award of the Giordano Bruno Foundation for their commitment to the Great Ape Project.