And you look like one, too

Hey, it turns out Chimpanzees are smarter than us, at least at some stuff. Which means when they decide to force billions of us into concentration camps where they sever our limbs without anesthetics, restrict our free movement, sensory stimuli and social interaction, leave us in piles of our own feces, give us feed that makes our stomachs swell and rupture and then kill and consume us, it'll be totally fine. You know, because you're allowed to do that to animals that aren't as good at arbitrary mental tasks. Right?

A Toe for a Toe

I just read a super interesting article in the Times on the development or evolution of morality in primates. Often using words like morality confuses things a fair amount, but the the subject of the article, Dr. Frans de Waal, makes a very convincing case that various apes and monkeys can empathize, enforce social rules, and can take actions for the good of the community, not just the individual.

What rights animals should have is, to be sure, a complicated issue, but in the case of chimpanzees it seems almost impossible to draw a distinction between us and them that would render their wellbeing worthless.

Of course, given the variation between human populations on issues of rules and punishment, its not surprising that other species have modes of enforcement we would never consider. I learned that "Young rhesus monkeys learn quickly how to behave, and occasionally get a finger or toe bitten off as punishment."

More on chimps

DailyKos blogger Devilstower has a pretty good write up of the chimp thing. He seems to agree that whatever it is that we think defines us as different from them* is not as clear as most people would like it to be.

*I'm inclined to think we're the only species capable of communicating abstract thoughts. We can imagine places infinitely far away, the beginning of time, etc., and actually communicate it to each other. On the other hand, I don't see why the right to life, or the right to live with some modicum of dignity, really stems from that.

They're so cute!

Via Matt Yglesias*, we find out that Chimpanzees are killing other primates with spears**. This, I think, leads to two conclusions that are becoming more and more obvious in regards to Chimpanzees in particular, and perhaps large primates in general. They are an awful lot like us, and they aren't very nice.
Despite the chimps not living up to their cuddly image, this study should probably strengthen the argument that these animals deserve at least some fairly basic rights. Their brains clearly function very similarly to ours, there is no reason to think they have any less ability to feel pain, they have complex social arrangements, they communicate and socialize in ways similar to humans, and many people who have spent any time with them will will attest to the complexity of their emotions. It's hard to think of a philosophical justification (aside from "they have no soul") for completely disregarding their wellbeing. No group of great apes breeding in the wild has managed to avoid the endangered species list, and things aren't looking so hot for them. It would be a real tragedy if any of our cousins went extinct, even if they do spend their time attacking each other with sharpened branches.

And isn't there a Michael Chrichton book about this?

* Read Matt's comment thread for many chimpanzee/spear jokes.
** The people who did the study didn't photograph or videotape any of this, so I'm inclined to take it with a grain of salt for now.