Animals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation by Gary L. Francione

Author:Gary L. Francione [Francione, Gary & Steiner, Gary]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Nature, Animal Rights, Philosophy, Ethics & Moral Philosophy, Abolitionism
ISBN: 9780231139519
Google: ME-rAgAAQBAJ
Amazon: 0231139519
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2008-07-14T21:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 3 / TAKING SENTIENCE SERIOUSLY

INTRODUCTION

In 1993, a number of scholars collaborated on a book of essays entitled The Great Ape Project (GAP).1 The book was accompanied by a document, A Declaration on Great Apes, to which the editors and contributors subscribed. The Declaration stated that the great apes “are the closest relatives of our species” and that these nonhumans “have mental capacities and an emotional life sufficient to justify inclusion within the community of equals.”2 In recent years, reflecting the inquiry and concerns of GAP and the organization of the same name that evolved from it,3 a considerable literature has developed that discusses the extent to which the great apes, dolphins, parrots, and perhaps other animals have certain cognitive characteristics thought to be uniquely human.4 These characteristics include self-awareness, emotions, and the ability to communicate with a symbolic language. This literature poses the question whether we must, therefore, rethink our relationship with nonhumans and accord those who possess these characteristics greater moral consideration and legal protection. GAP popularized what I call the “similar-minds theory” of the human / nonhuman relationship.5

The similar-minds approach has spawned an industry of cognitive ethologists eager to investigate—ironically often through animal experiments—the extent to which nonhumans have human-like cognitive characteristics. The flipside of the similar-minds theory is that those nonhumans who are merely sentient—capable of experiencing pain and suffering but who lack these other cognitive capacities—are still things, entitled to “humane” treatment but not the preferential treatment that we are obligated to accord nonhumans with minds like ours.

I was a contributor to GAP6 and an original signatory to A Declaration on Great Apes. Nevertheless, in my 1993 essay in GAP7 and at greater length in my subsequent writing, particularly in Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog?,8 I have expressed the view that sentience alone is sufficient for full membership in the moral community and that no other cognitive characteristic is required.

The similar-minds theory is presented by its proponents as progressive because it appears to allow the inclusion of at least some nonhumans in the community of equals. This characterization is inaccurate in that the opposite is true: similar-minds theory will only facilitate our continuing to exclude virtually all nonhumans from the moral community. The problem lies in the attempt to link cognitive characteristics with moral significance. Although similar-minds theory is ostensibly a recent phenomenon, linking the moral status of nonhumans to cognitive characteristics beyond sentience is not new. Indeed, this idea has, in one form or another, characterized our thinking about the moral status of nonhumans for a long time, and it is responsible for a good deal of mischief.

In this Article, I very briefly discuss the history of this idea. I then present several reasons why we should abandon the theory in favor of requiring only sentience for full membership in the moral community.

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