Activists want chimp declared a person - Science - MSNBC.com
Arguably, the primates are our closest biological kin. I'm not sure they're exactly up to 'person' status yet, and this would be an interesting precedent to fight out in the courts. Are they intelligent enough to be considered 'people'? Or is it a result of years of training?
My big problem with it is - where would it stop? I know a lot of folks who treat their pets like people - dogs, cats and so on. If speech is a trait that would define a person, then I know a bird or two that'd qualify. (Hi, Linda and James!) So once started - where would it stop?
Tis a puzzlement, to be sure.
J.
Comments (1)
I read somewhere that bonobos and orang-utans were sentient in the same fashion as we humans are, in the sense that not only are they aware of their own existance (most mammals are aware of their own existance, few if any invertebrates are), but are also aware that OTHERS are also. Beats the heck out of me how they proved this to their satisfaction, but that was what it said. I do not recall if regular chimpanzees were included, but gorillas were definitely not. If this were provable, then I can see a case for those species for whom it could be proven, but not for others.
It is an important legal point, though; someday, someone is going to write a sentient program, and its legal status needs to be established. If a sentient program is able to run only on a massive computer built by a corporation, university or government, and the program is ruled legally a person, who owns the computer it must be resident in? Is turning the computer off assault? Is deleting the program murder (or, under "I have No Mouth And I Must Scream" conditions, self-defense)? It is sounding less funny every day, and yet it is probably closer than most people think.
Posted by John C. | May 7, 2007 6:05 AM
Posted on May 7, 2007 06:05