On Nonhumans and High Culture

Posted: 19 Mar 2008 08:29 AM CDT

I didn't closely follow the case of Hiasl the 26-year old chimpanzee, for whom a lawsuit was brought to have him declared a "person" and assigned a legal guardian. I'm not one who thinks chimps should be granted personhood unless the rest of the sentient nonhuman world qualifies as well.

On page 18 of the April 2008 issue of Harper's, there's a translation of a brief (from German) from the lawsuit that was apparently in response to the notion that Hiasl shouldn't be granted personhood because he is a chimp and does not have culture. Here's the gist:

Admittedly, they have no high culture. The produce no computers, build no skyscrapers, write no books. Homo sapiens has done these things, however, for only a short time span--about 1 percent of the existence of the species. In spite of the influence of industrial societies, there are still indigenous peoples who live as if now is the Stone Age. To deny these peoples their humanity because they have no high culture would be absurd. . . . Homo sapiens needed roughly 190,000 years to develop anything like high culture. Chimpanzees already have a culture, a language, tools, and awareness; they can produce pictures, and, under the right conditions, they could take on a Western way of life. Perhaps chimpanzees will develop a high culture later. . . . If one does not wish to deny the human rights of Homo sapiens as it lived 150,000 years ago, one must give chimpanzees today at least as much consideration.

The court ruled against the suit.

Of course those petitioning for Hiasl had his best interests in mind; I have no doubt about that. However, they were using speciesism as a weapon against speciesism, and I'm not sure why they thought that would work.