Animal rights and wrongs

No reasonable person condones gratuitous cruelty to animals. Surely the line is drawn when one attempts to equate animals and humans?  

A media report of February 9, 2016, told of placard-waving protesters demanding justice for an maltreated dog. This, based on the belief that "the mind of a dog is roughly equivalent to that of a child of two or three years of age." 

Such loathsome comparisons are the work of Peter Singer. The Princeton professor claims that highly aware animals, such as the chimp, are owed more respect and protection than mentally-challenged humans. 

One of Singer's followers proclaims, "We are seeking to break the species barrier." There is no barrier, just a measureless chasm between humans and animals, no matter what tricks the animal can perform or how debased the human behaviour. 

Animals are deserving of limited protection with no equivalence to humans at any age or in any condition.

Peter Singer's heart must be broken today. 

To the professor's chagrin, a New York appeals court recently ruled that chimpanzees do not have legal rights. The court rejected the contention that chimps are worthy of a writ of habeas corpus, as animal activists demanded.

There is no legal precedent for the animals to be considered people, the court ruled. They do not have the capacity to be held legally accountable for their actions. 

Sorry, Professor Singer, common sense occasionally holds sway, even for an off-the-rails philosopher.

There is nothing so absurd that it has not been said by some philosopher  -- Cicero

Animals are not Humans

"Cousin, we need to talk."  So begins a full page advertisement in local newspapers, under a photograph of a chimpanzee.  The chimp continues, "It's been seven million years since we shared a mother, but we still share almost 99% of our DNA. Since we're family, I'm asking for your help."  This is a well-intentioned request for funds for the Jane Goodall Institute of Canada.

Unfortunately, the attitude inherent in this advertisement contributes to the current campaign to demean the human species.  The incentive to de-humanize humans, or humanize animals, has a long history. In his 1975 book, Animal Liberation, Princeton professor Peter Singer argued that highly aware animals, such as the chimp, are owed more respect and protection that mentally-challenged humans, more than babies unaware of their existence.

Animals and their environment deserve protection, as the well-intentioned ad advocates, but not at the cost of equating animals to human beings.

View from the Sidelines

Rail Travel. Three engineers were killed when a Via train drove through a switching point at four times the mandated speed. Railroad safety advocates now urge that new safety measures be "fast-tracked". With seemingly indecent speed, fee-sniffing lawyers were on the scene signing up clients for class-action lawsuits, and eager for their 40+ per cent of the proceeds.

Political Correctness. A school teacher in Quebec caused a stir when he censored from a school concert the last line of the classic Edith Piaf song Hymne à l'amour. The line -- God reunites those who love -- Piaf wrote as a tribute to her lover, boxing champion Marcel Cerdan who had just died in a plane crash. The teacher said he didn't want to have to answer students' questions about God. The culture minister decried censorship to a work of art. The education minister called it a lack of judgement. The local school board backed the offender on the grounds that teachers lack guidelines for "reasonable accommodation".

Lottery fraud. An Ontario woman was charged with fraud for writing bad cheques. She did so in order to purchase $80,000 worth of lottery tickets. Her total winnings were $3,600. The report makes no mention of fraud charges against the lottery commission.

Whales' rights. A federal court in California was petitioned by five whales (listed as plaintiffs) claiming their treatment in a theme park amounted to slavery. The petition was signed by people from the Ethical Treatment of Animals who wanted the court to declare the owners violated whales' rights under the U.S. Constitution 13th amendment which abolished slavery. The judge ruled that orcas had no standing to seek the same constitutional rights as people.

Don't laugh. Princeton Professor Peter Singer believes that apes have greater rights than new-born babies and mentally-handicapped humans. This mischief blurs the meaning of human rights, a mischief Singer teaches to his young, likely unquestioning, students.

The rationale of it all. English language dictionaries describe usage, as distinct from their French counterparts which prescribe usage. The Concise Oxford Dictionary informs us that the pronunciation of rationale is ra-shun-al. Its bigger and older brother, The Oxford English Dictionary, describes the pronunciation as ra-shun-al-eh. It rhymes with finale. Is it that little Oxford brother hangs out in coffee houses, while Big Brother sips cocktails with the intellectual elite?

Book burning. There is no need to burn the great books of our civilization. Just leave them unread on the shelf. Our society is doing just that. Scientific knowledge is cumulative. The humanities, as expressed in great literature, great music and great culture must be read and learned anew each generation. Unfortunately, the our current money-oriented ethos rejects this approach to our heritage.
The staged book-burnings by the Nazis were fuelled by books of philosophy, history, religion, culture. I other words, the humanities.  Scientific books were saved.

Philosopher of Despair

Princeton philosopher Peter Singer denies the humanity of people with special needs.

In his 1975 Animal Liberation, he argued that highly aware animals are owed more respect and protection than mentally-challenged humans.

Singer claims that babies "are not born self-aware, or capable of grasping that they exist over time. They are not persons ... The life of a newborn is of less value than the life of a pig, a dog, or a chimpanzee." He teaches that it is permissible to take human life if the person lacks awareness, such as the mentally disabled.

Under Singer's influence, the Spanish government has enacted The Great Ape Project. Henceforth in that corner of the world, apes (gorillas, chimps and orangutans) will enjoy greater rights than humans. For example, from the moment of conception, abortion and fetal experimentation are now illegal. He permits such procedures and experimentation on humans.

The original promoter of the law, a socialist government of a nation with no indigenous apes, The Great Ape Project director said: "This will doubtless be remembered as a key moment in the defence of our evolutionary comrades."

The Director believes he himself evolved from these comrades. That's why apes have been granted standing in Spanish courts. No human can kill them, except in self-defence. They cannot be used in circuses, movies, or television commercials. Experiments on great apes are now outlawed, even though there is no evidence of any being carried out.

Should apes in Spain be granted the vote and allowed to run for office? Why not? Then the government and their evolutionary kin may concoct more freedoms, such the right to swing from trees into parliament. As they are higher on the evolutionary ladder, apes should officiate at bullfights.

Speaking of which, this beneficence of rights does not extend to horned animals. Bull taunting in Pamplona, and the wholesale slaughter in bullrings continues unabated, more than 7,000 annually. The government does not want to lose those tourist dollars. No one visits Spain to see non-existent apes. This government knows when to rise above principle.

Singer has acquired a Princeton bioethics professorship from which he claims that, as ours should be the last generation of human life, we can party ourselves to death, that concern for human life is "medieval". [To use "medieval" as a pejorative, indicates limited historical knowledge.]

Nothing new in all this. The nihilist opinion of Benatar and Singer -- that life is not worth living -- has slithered down through the ages. In the 11th century, Syrian philosopher Abdul Ala Al-Ma'rri recommended that no children should be begotten, so as to spare them the pains of life. In the 18th century, the Marquise du Deffand complained that the only misfortune was to have been born. Certain overly-sensitive people are still with us, distorting young minds.

The Great Ape Project administrators intend to spread their compassion. "We are seeking to break the species barrier," the manager states. By equating himself to an ape, he is well on the way to that noble aspiration.

Letter to The Globe and Mail, August 14, 2011. Unpublished 

Professor Peter Singer speaks of "the moral gulf" humans have dug between ourselves and the animal world (A planet for all apes, Aug. 13). Humans did not dig any gulf, moral or otherwise. Nature put it there. Any attempt to blur or bridge it, a chasm actually, is wrong. It is a form of self-loathing.

Yes, some animals behave in some respects like humans, and others can be taught to imitate human actions. And the DNAs may be close.  That does not justify comparing humans with "our closest non-human relatives," as Singer describes apes. He may consider apes his relatives. I do not.