After a quiescence lasting half a millennium, Spain has distinguished itself by a return to the legal genius demonstrated by Francisco de Vitoria and Francisco Suarez in the 16th century. An eminent member of the Green party, and so of the Socialist Coalition now governing Spain, Francisco Garrido (note the name — is this the hand of God, or what?) has proposed legislation that would make Spain the first nation in the world to “give chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, and other great apes some of the fundamental rights granted to human beings.”
To the possible response “Why only some?” we can only counsel patience. As for Spain getting all the glory for this progressive effort, we Americans can take pride in the fact that the effort is by a Spanish sub-group of the Great Ape Project, a Seattle-based activist organization. And, lest we be disheartened because we Americans have fallen behind, let us note that this is an effort by what may rightly be styled “Apes without Borders.” We must not forget that Ruth Bader Ginsburg still sits on the United States Supreme Court. The Spanish law, if it passes, will perhaps be tested in the courts, and Justice Ginsburg has shown the way in which decisions of the more enlightened courts of Europe may find their way into the ongoing improvement of the tired, old United States Constitution. Come to think of it, there is no need to wait on the Spanish courts. The minute the Spanish parliament adopts Garrido’s proposal, it is fair game not only for the Spanish courts but also for ours. Borders are but nuisances — relics of the sinful past of mankind, along with judgmentalism. And surely the words that open Article I — “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress” — are broad enough to be understood in a progressive interpretation as really meaning “Congress or some court or other, whatever.”
The genius of the Spaniards is evidenced by their abandonment of the Aristotelian claptrap holding that what distinguishes man from the brutes is that man is endowed with logos, that is, reasoned speech that enables him to question the good and the bad, the just and the unjust, and the noble and the base. What Aristotle in his ignorance misses has been shown by modern science, namely, that the great apes and men have nearly identical DNA. And the assertion by the benighted Walter F. Berns that animals can’t have rights because they are incapable of contracting with others to respect each others’ rights is an expression of rank speciesism.
It is now nearly 300 years since Rousseau showed us that the defining characteristic of man is not logos, but a sentiment of being. Why parcel out a stingy handful of “human” rights to the apes? Recognizing that all animals are feeling beings, why not have the United Nations look into the formation of a “Universal Declaration of the Rights of Sentient Beings?” If snail darters can be saved, why not rats and roaches too?
Finally, now that affirmative action and the moral cry for “social justice” are on the front burner, let us abandon that favorite of the neocons and the Straussians, the antiquated notion that rights are for individuals, not for groups. We need to recognize that apes are a group with special, cultural characteristics and needs. If it is dehumanizing to suggest that one human culture is less worthy than another, it would certainly be de-being-izing to insist that apes, once freed, be compelled to assimilate their habits to ours.
Perhaps that group in Seattle could firm up a movement to secure apes’ rights to apes’ ways. Let apes be apes. No doubt there will be problems in the area of criminal justice. The first thing we need to fear is profiling. The answer to this and to the vacuous doubts of Walter Berns is simple. Since apes can’t talk — yet — let every law school mount mandatory courses in simian sign language so that attorneys can competently represent their simian clients, and let us compel all policemen to learn the sign language also so that they can Mirandize apes at the moment of arrest. Perhaps Yale or Princeton could offer experimentally to selected apes courses in ESSL, that is English as a Second Sign Language.
Let us move on. Let us show those Spaniards that we are second to no one when it comes to forward thinking.
–Richard G. Stevens is a retired political scientist living in McLean, Va.