Are Animals People?
The disparity between experiments that suggest sophisticated cognition in animals and those that find hard limits to animal intelligence has created a debate over animal “personhood.”
Animal Intelligence
"Until a landmark paper [pdf] by Erich Jarvis and colleagues in 2005, the answer to this question had been a resounding yes! Look at a mammalian brain and you are struck by the multiple folds of the massive cerebral cortex. Bird brains, it was said, don’t have such a cortex. Hence, their cognitive capacity should be extremely limited. This, essentially, was the argument I had faced through three decades of work with Alex. He was not supposed to be able to name objects and categories, understand “bigger” and “smaller,” “same” and “different,” because his was a bird brain. But, of course, Alex did do such things. I knew that Alex was proving a profound truth: brains may look different, and there may be a spectrum of ability that is determined by anatomical details, but brains and intelligence are a universally shared trait in nature—the capacity varies, but the building blocks are the same." -
http://discovermagazine.com/2009/feb/20-think-animals-dont-think-like-us-think-again
Spain Gives Great Apes Legal Rights:
"On June 25 the Spanish Parliament’s environmental committee approved a resolution to grant legal rights to great apes, covering chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans. The resolution, expected to be enacted into law by June 2009, gives great apes the right to life and protects them from harmful research practices and exploitation for profit, such as use in films, commercials, and circuses." -So while many animals display remarkable cognitive abilities, there are clearly limits to what they can do. Does this mean they aren’t entitled to be considered “non-human persons?” Is it even appropriate to judge non-human animals in such anthropomorphic terms? Suppose we decide it’s wrong to keep an orca in captivity because of its intelligence. Then what about a slightly less-intelligent animal like a pig or a dog? Where do you draw the line? These questions are still up for debate.
How smart is man's best friend?
The Pooch IQ Kit: $49.99
This references the issues addressed in JeongMee Yoon's Zoo series which I posted on Monday. Is it wrong to keep them captives because of their intelligence? Is it wrong to keep animals in captivity period? Where do you draw the line?
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