Rights

This afternoon Slashdot brought me to a blog that carried a story about a Brazilian court making a chimpanzee a litigant. The blogger mentioned his belief in "the philosophy of Human exceptionalism," hence that reference in my reply below.

There's no evidence that rats are sentient beings, but plenty of evidence that both chimps and great apes are.

I also believe as you do that human life matters, but that doesn't mean that other species aren't as exceptional as we.

Please consider your evolutionary history. Homo sapiens modern once shared this planet with at least two other sentient species, Homo Neanderthalensis and Homo Erectus. Both other species showed advanced tool use, ritualistically buried their dead and created art.

We are almost certainly the most intelligent species on the planet, but intelligence neither determines sentience nor rights. I am more intelligent than a human infant, but that infant holds as many rights as I do. If chimps display self-awareness (recognition of themselves in the mirror is one test of this) and use of language (well documented cases of chimps using American Sign Language exist, in addition to the more well known Koko the ape) then they can do everything that my small children can do. Aside from the roughly two percent genetic difference between us and them, what else separates our species so severely that they shouldn't hold the same rights as we?

After posting that I checked out the blog and realized that Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at The Discovery Institute, home of Intelligent Design. Ah, so that's where the belief in Human exceptionalism comes from.