Christopher wonders what I think about the Spanish Parliament’s recent move toward granting “the right to life, the freedom from arbitrary deprivation of liberty, and protection from torture” to great apes.

I touched on this briefly here, but that was mainly in the course of responding to William Saletan’s contention that animal equality of the sort supposedly favored by animal liberationists would be undermined by what he sees as a kind of creeping equality between humans and our nearest animal kin as a result of scientific discoveries. My point there was that “equality” in the sense favored by animal liberationists means the equal right of animals to have their interests –precisely as the kind of beings they are–taken into account. It doesn’t mean that animals all have the same interests, much less that human beings and animals would, in an animal liberationist utopia, have “equal rights.”

That said, I am broadly sympathetic to the aims of the Great Ape Project, if a little fuzzy on how these rights would be specified in law. As I read it, the underlying principle is that, with regard to these creatures, our general rule of thumb ought to be to do no harm and to enshrine a more or less hands-off policy. That makes sense to me: there’s really no good reason for us to keep great apes in captivity, to experiment on them, or to kill them (at least in so far as they don’t threaten vital human interests; at the margin there are always bound to be some conflicts between humans and animals, even if just in competition for resources).

There is arguably a case to be made for using apes in certain medical experiments given their similarity to human beings. But, in my judgment, the elimination or amelioration of some human diseases isn’t sufficient to justify imprisoning and experimenting on our cousins. This is where the much-discussed “argument from marginal cases” comes into play: we wouldn’t think it’s ok to use infants, or the severely mentally disabled as subjects in medical experiments, but great apes meet or exceed the mental capacity of at least some of these human subjects. So what makes it ok to use them? At the very least, the burden of proof is on would-be experimenters to show that there are no available alternatives.

The most common counterargument is usually that humans just count for more. But it’s possible to concede this and yet deny that our greater value gives us license to turn other creatures–particularly intelligent, social ones–into tools for use. If we really are worth more, than maybe the best way to show it is by being merciful to those over whom we have such great power. Incidentally, lest I be accused of diminishing the value of human life in order to raise the value of (non-human) animal life, I’d apply the same general principles to things like experimenting on human embryos. To use them as resources for experiments and medical treatment is, essentially, to deny them any non-instrumental value.

I am a little puzzled, along with the writer of the article Christopher links to, why Spain of all places would make this a priority since, it seems, there currently are no experiments being performed on apes there. After all, their national sport involves the bloody and pointless killing of bulls. Why not outlaw that?