
An Orangutan Has Some Human Rights, Argentine Court Rules - gpvos
http://www.wired.com/2014/12/orangutan-personhood/
======
pizza234
I find very interesting the court argument: "chimpanzees can't fulfill the
social obligations expected of anyone with rights".

Philosophically, the same could be applied to a paraplegic, or in most cases
to somebody with Down syndrome, so I wonder if there was more in the ruling; I
find this argument very poor.

~~~
Retra
I find any argument involving rights to be poor.

Our goals in a social context are always to make the best possible decisions
with what we know, and to enable each other to do the same. We have goals,
information, communication, and laws. Rights are inarticulate and overly-
understand things -- almost to the point of purposelessness.

People should not be making arguments based on rights, but upon what is known
about ourselves and our reality. We should use what can be rationally
supported and what can be reasonably predicted based upon shared experiences
and cultural knowledge. Rights are just a vague and small slice of this,
easily made muddy by the fact that people can know they have rights without
even knowing why they should have them, where they apply, or when to give them
up.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Rights try to predefine 'best possible' for a culture.

This is a good thing because it provides a written moral standard and a legal
basis for further argument - rather like a constitution.

Relying on 'rational argument' doesn't work as well because most 'rational
argument' in politics, law, and economics is persuasion through sophistry,
custom, tribalism, rhetoric, appeal to self-interest, and/or the application
or threat of force.

None of these have much to do with rationality in the scientific sense of
being able to build useful models of reality from data.

tl dr; Defining rights makes spurious political plays more difficult.

~~~
ars
You haven't done much by defining rights, because who defines those rights?

ISIS will say everyone has the right to have a slave. The UN says everyone has
the right to paid vacations (yes, it really does say that).

Who decides which rights should be accepted?

There is no one who can do so. Rights are arbitrary and reflect the culture of
those who defined them.

You either decide to accept them or you don't. i.e. it's pretty much identical
to "rational argument".

~~~
mbrock
They may be ultimately arbitrary, but until you come up with a final
conclusive objective ethics, proven metaphysically beyond questioning, the
rest of us have to make actual decisions today. The UN, as a collective body,
defines various normative concepts, e.g., by defining "human rights." If you
have issues with them, you join the proverbial mailing list and state your
case.

~~~
ars
My point is that there is no difference between the "rational argument"
TheOtherHobbes doesn't like and rights.

He has tried to define a difference between them that doesn't actually exist.

------
jjgreen
Philosophy, rest quiet for a moment --
[http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/dec/22/monkey-
sa...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/dec/22/monkey-saves-dying-
friend-train-station-india-video)

------
sethbannon
If anyone is interested in the sate of legal thinking around "animal rights",
I recommend this excellent book by Cass Sunstein and Martha Nussbaum, which
offers a nice overview of the field: [http://smile.amazon.com/Animal-Rights-
Current-Debates-Direct...](http://smile.amazon.com/Animal-Rights-Current-
Debates-Directions/dp/0195305108)

It includes leading proponents and opponents of legal protections for non-
human animals.

------
krylon
After school, I first attempted to study philosophy, before I got into
computers and networks and such.

I got disillusioned _very_ quickly, but one _very_ interesting course I took
was on the definition of personhood, and I had to give short talk on the "grey
areas" of personhood. Biology alone is not going to cut it, and once we begin
to extend personhood status to beings other than homo sapiens, it is going to
get very fuzzy.

~~~
waps
I once heard this from my philosophy professor. Philosophy is trying to answer
questions you can't answer with current knowledge, or better put : science is
what you get when you answer questions with the right answer, philosophy is
all other answers.

Given that no important scientific advance has ever originated from philosophy
... (ie. the ones by accomplished mathematicians that were -usually
posthumously- declared philosophers don't count)

It's like the "we have to redesign the methodology, find the lessons for the
company" discussion at the end of every software project. It takes time and
effort, makes management and project managers and even customers very happy,
it involves programmers listening to the "good" advice of everybody who can't
program and is about as productive as suicide, without the satisfaction at the
end.

~~~
lotharbot
Science is when you try to answer questions about evidence, with evidence.

Philosophy is when you try to answer questions about definitions/language,
with definitions/language.

That doesn't make philosophy useless. It just makes philosophy one part of the
system -- a lot of times philosophy generates questions and ideas which are
later addressed in a scientific way. It's a useful tool; be careful not to
either overvalue or undervalue it. (Likewise, AFAIK no important scientific
advance has ever originated from a grammar instructor, but coherent language
is an important tool for allowing science to be performed and communicated.)

~~~
waps
> That doesn't make philosophy useless. It just makes philosophy one part of
> the system -- a lot of times philosophy generates questions and ideas which
> are later addressed in a scientific way.

There is some truth to this. It is what I mentioned before : "Given that no
important scientific advance has ever originated from philosophy ... (ie. the
ones by accomplished mathematicians that were -usually posthumously- declared
philosophers don't count)", specifically by the don't count part.

So two points :

1) this definition actually excludes most parts of philosophy [1]

2) This part of philosophy can only be exercised productively by people who
also have extensive credentials in at least one other field (otherwise the
"later addressed" part doesn't work). Which brings the question, is this
philosophy ? Or is this logic ? (taking one example field that's well
represented in philosophy's claims).

And to be honest, this is the same argument Religious studies makes. With one
huge difference. Most important researchers were actually learned in Religion
(vast majority were very learned in Christian religion, and they did credit or
at least reference their religious knowledge with part of important
discoveries, with Newton and Einstein as 2 very well known examples. Even
though nearly universally learned in Christianity, I should probably mention
some of them were Jews (including Einstein, of course). But there's examples
of people of other religions further back. Weird part is that there seem to be
very large differences between religions on this point. From the large
majority of islamic scientists, for instance, it is well known that they
weren't muslims, but rather non-muslim slaves at some court [2]. For Hinduism
the reverse seems to be true. Like Christians, many Indian scientists credit
their faith with pushing them to research nature (and like with Christians,
the general population did not always agree with that assessment and killed a
number of them for it))

I have actually seen this at university. There were several (about to retire,
or even emeriti) professors that were monks. Given how they lived, I can
understand how that would help with scientific research. One should take a
look at, say the Jesuit atlasses of the sky, and you'll be impressed with the
quality and quantity of their work. They are not just credited with lots of
discoveries, but also with absolutely incredible amounts of grunt work, and
with keeping knowledge of science spread throughout western culture.

For philosophers you can say the exact opposite. There are many "pure"
philosophers. None, to my knowledge, have been credited with large amounts of
grunt work.

And sadly, like Christianity before it, philosophy can be credited with
inhibiting science as well. The big current example is research into human
races, but there are other examples. From the closely related "bon sauvage"
incidents, the "green" morality (believe it or not, nature is what might be
termed chaotic neutral, it is decidedly NOT "lawful good", but we're
repressing knowledge about this). The same thing is true for research about
humans themselves, where lots of things are repressed (e.g. the reason that
Freud is so fixated on sexual experiences during early age is understood to be
that a significant portion of his patients were victims of paedophilia, but
again I'm told you can't say this directly in papers). Humans must be good,
especially scientists themselves (e.g. Galileo Galilei was deservedly a famous
scientist ... who then decided to become a politician and a horrible, horrible
human being. Which of those 2 things got him in trouble with the church (and
with the state) ? Let's be honest here : the second (otherwise the timing
becomes very hard to explain). General lesson to be drawn here : no matter how
you are, if you start sending letters to every politician and priest how
"their kind" will all get tortured and hanged as soon as he can make it
happen, you'll be in serious trouble if it appears you are getting a
following).

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy)

[2] For instance Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwārizmī al-Majousi al-Katarbali, who
was instrumental in helping Greek and Roman algebra survive the Dark Ages was
very likely a Zoroaster

------
alimoeeny
\- I personally find this idea of "the closer your `intelligence` is to man
the more rights you get" hard to understand. If a chimp has "some human
rights" then why not a dog, or a cow can get "some" too.

\- Also, I find this whole thing distracting, if you have any energy to put
into "rights", there are billions of humans in need of help for very basic
things (including rights). Am I overlooking something?

~~~
skj
Dogs do have more rights than other animals. If you take a dog to the zoo and
feed it to a lion, you're going to have a problem. If you take a mouse to the
zoo, and feed it to a snake, no problem.

Cows have no rights because they're tasty and boring.

~~~
longlivegnu
I don't understand this either. What objectively makes an animal any less
animal. I mean a mouse feels the pain of being eaten and so does a dog.

~~~
skj
Given that at the end of the process they're both dead, the amount of pain
felt ends up being irrelevant.

What matters is the amount of empathy we feel with the creature. With dogs, we
often think of them as our friends and companions. With mice, we often think
of them as vermin and a problem.

Though, I'm sure if you took George's mouse Milo and fed it to a snake George
would be extremely upset.

~~~
repsilat
> Given that at the end of the process they're both dead, the amount of pain
> felt ends up being irrelevant.

That's pretty far outside the mainstream -- lots of jurisdictions have laws
about the humane slaughter of animals.

For obvious reasons, people tend not to restrict their moral consideration of
pain to those beings that will never die.

~~~
skj
> That's pretty far outside the mainstream -- lots of jurisdictions have laws
> about the humane slaughter of animals.

The vast majority of people don't care at all. But the people who do care care
a _lot_ , and make a lot of racket.

> For obvious reasons, people tend not to restrict their moral consideration
> of pain to those beings that will never die.

I honestly have no idea what you could possibly be talking about. Can you
rephrase? Specifically, since the set of "those beings that will never die"
has size zero, the sentence seems like a truism.

~~~
repsilat
>> Given that at the end of the process they're both dead, the amount of pain
felt ends up being irrelevant.

If I understand this correctly, you were saying that the animals' deaths
essentially render their suffering irrelevant. It seems to logically follow
that if _everything_ is dead "at the end of the process" then there's no
suffering that we need ever care about.

I don't honestly think you hold that position, but it's at least consistent
with your earlier post, so it'd be nice to know where your logic breaks from
mine.

------
Shivetya
Next up, you cannot have pets.

edit, namely I have found the long term of many similar groups who support
animal "rights" do not want people to keep pets. Having family members who
breed and show dogs it is not uncommon to find these groups trying to get laws
passed limiting pet ownership or worse.

Animals have rights, not human rights.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
I dont have a problem with this. I keep hearing about how people can't train
dogs, how dogs "misbehave," etc.

Oh course they have issues, pets aren't designed to live domestic suburban
human lives. I just don't believe humanity automatically and morally should
have dominion of all animals. I think giving up on non-working pet ownership
is a step in the right direction. And when sci-fi style robotics gets here,
give up on working animals altogether.

I say this as someone who loves and has owned several dogs. They're just not
cut out for our lives. I think there was a study that showed most pets have
severe mental illness. Not to mention, the ones that can't play the human
domestic game and heaven forbid show their natural aggression or dominance
traits, well they get killed. How the hell is this moral? Why is the loss of
pet ownership this horrific thing? It seems like thats the way a compassionate
society should be leaning towards.

------
swombat
I applaud this decision. At least some people are recognising the direction of
the arrow of history here.

My thoughts on this last time this concept emerged on HN:
[http://swombat.com/2012/11/6/dolphin-
history](http://swombat.com/2012/11/6/dolphin-history)

~~~
ars
I hope you realize that by giving rights in abundance you have diminished the
very meaning of the concept.

You have this assumption that in the future everything will have rights. All
that will happen if that occurs is that the concept of "rights" will be
laughed at and ignored.

The more rare something is, the more powerful and special, and meaningful.

~~~
learnstats2
What absolute nonsense.

Diminishing the meaning of 'rights' is great: if everyone and everything had
appropriate rights, there would be no further need for the concept to be
discussed. That's a good thing.

~~~
repsilat
Giving puppies a legal right to have silly hats and birthday parties obviously
diminishes the real rights that we all care about. Rights-proliferation leads
to governments taking a pick-and-choose approach to enforcement, and many
people would argue that having selectively enforced rights is tantamount to
not having any rights at all.

See also: [http://www.theguardian.com/news/2014/dec/04/-sp-case-
against...](http://www.theguardian.com/news/2014/dec/04/-sp-case-against-
human-rights)

~~~
learnstats2
OK, I agree that you don't really have "rights" if they are unenforced.

Giving the rights to puppies as you mention doesn't chanage that either way;
this is a red herring.

And I suspect it was not the parent commenter's point.

------
Link-
To get this straight: we pulled animals from their 'righteous' sanctuaries,
where they were free, put them in captivity, and now we're asking them to be
human to set them free, again?

~~~
VMG
You phrased it as if recognizing an injustice is weird

~~~
Link-
That was not the intention at all. In fact, the comment is quite sarcastic and
if I'm to rephrase it, it will be: We're asking animals to be humans to grant
them their freedom which is quite absurd.

------
higherpurpose
Waiting for the day a robot has the same trial.

~~~
MarkPNeyer
[http://markpneyer.me/2014/03/05/the-rule-of-
threes/](http://markpneyer.me/2014/03/05/the-rule-of-threes/)

------
hawleyal
Compared to corporations, animals, and especially our great ape cousins should
have as much or more rights.

------
neverminder
Rise of the Planet of the Apes?

------
breakingcups
Human rights are an interesting phenomenon.

Us humans don't even have basic human rights, as evidenced by the recent
extensive publications regarding the torture practices of the US (rectal
feeding?). Such a contrast to this (otherwise completely unrelated) article.

~~~
chton
There is a big difference between having your rights violated and not having
rights at all. The fact that we know the torture practices are wrong is
because they violate our rights. We treat apes badly because they have no
rights to which to compare the treatment.

~~~
jjgreen
"we have a right to not be tortured" is synonymous for "torture practices are
wrong", rights do not exist in any other sense (ask yourself, where are they
located?) unless you are a 18th century religious philosopher.

