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131-446: The Nonhuman Rights Project ( NhRP ) is an American nonprofit animal rights organization seeking to change the legal status of at least some nonhuman animals from that of property to that of persons , with a goal of securing rights to bodily liberty (the right not to be imprisoned) and bodily integrity (the right not to be experimented on). The organization works largely through state-by-state litigation in what it determines to be

262-583: A mirror test , commonly used by scientists to gauge self-awareness through an animal’s ability to recognize itself back in 2005. This case is the first time in history the highest court of any English-speaking jurisdiction agreed to hear a habeas corpus case brought on behalf of someone other than a human being. In 2018, the NhRP brought a petition for a writ of habeas corpus on Happy’s behalf, seeking recognition of her fundamental right to bodily liberty and transfer to an elephant sanctuary. Shortly after, Happy became

393-562: A social contract , and thus cannot have rights, a view summarised by the philosopher Roger Scruton , who writes that only humans have duties, and therefore only humans have rights. Another argument, associated with the utilitarian tradition, maintains that animals may be used as resources so long as there is no unnecessary suffering; animals may have some moral standing, but any interests they have may be overridden in cases of comparatively greater gains to aggregate welfare made possible by their use, though what counts as "necessary" suffering or

524-478: A brain-damaged human could not make moral judgments, moral judgments cannot be used as the distinguishing characteristic for determining who is awarded rights. Cohen writes that the test for moral judgment "is not a test to be administered to humans one by one", but should be applied to the capacity of members of the species in general. Judge Richard Posner of the United States Court of Appeals for

655-660: A central role in animal advocacy since the 19th century. The anti-vivisection movement in the 19th and early 20th century in England and the United States was largely run by women, including Frances Power Cobbe , Anna Kingsford , Lizzy Lind af Hageby and Caroline Earle White (1833–1916). Garner writes that 70 per cent of the membership of the Victoria Street Society (one of the anti-vivisection groups founded by Cobbe) were women, as were 70 per cent of

786-425: A common law right to liberty, specifically, to be recognized as autonomous and self-determining beings that cannot be legally considered as property. and 2. To have the chimpanzees released and transferred to a North American Primate Sanctuary Alliance (NAPSA) sanctuary. A writ of habeas corpus allows an individual to assert one's right to liberty and demand for release from unlawful imprisonment. The right to file

917-502: A fantasy, a world of escape. Scruton singled out Peter Singer , a prominent Australian philosopher and animal-rights activist, for criticism. He wrote that Singer's works, including Animal Liberation , "contain little or no philosophical argument. They derive their radical moral conclusions from a vacuous utilitarianism that counts the pain and pleasure of all living things as equally significant and that ignores just about everything that has been said in our philosophical tradition about

1048-406: A gradation or spectrum with other types of sentient rights, including human rights and the rights of conscious artificial intelligences (posthuman rights). According to sociologist David Nibert of Wittenberg University , the struggle for animal liberation must happen in tandem with a more generalized struggle against human oppression and exploitation under global capitalism . He says that under

1179-402: A human being, but instead refers to an entity with a capacity to possess legal rights. It emphasized that there are no necessary conditions for determining that an entity is a legal person, and that going back to the 18th century there have been cases granting legal rights to non human entities such as corporations. NhRP argued that the fact that a chimpanzee is not a human being should not prevent

1310-523: A human prisoner convicted of a crime and ignores numerous cases spread over 200 years involving humans who were NOT prisoners convicted of a crime successfully using a writ of habeas corpus to move from one place to another. The NhRP will therefore be asking the Fourth Department for leave to file an appeal to the Court of Appeals within the next week. If the Fourth Department says "no," we will ask

1441-834: A legitimate sacrifice of interests can vary considerably. Certain forms of animal-rights activism, such as the destruction of fur farms and of animal laboratories by the Animal Liberation Front , have attracted criticism, including from within the animal-rights movement itself, and prompted the U.S. Congress to enact laws, including the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act , allowing the prosecution of this sort of activity as terrorism . The concept of moral rights for animals dates to Ancient India , with roots in early Jain and Hindu history, while Eastern, African, and Indigenous peoples also have rich traditions of animal protection. In

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1572-510: A means to an end, a view that places him firmly in the abolitionist camp. His theory does not extend to all animals, but only to those that can be regarded as subjects-of-a-life. He argues that all normal mammals of at least one year of age would qualify: ... individuals are subjects-of-a-life if they have beliefs and desires; perception, memory, and a sense of the future, including their own future; an emotional life together with feelings of pleasure and pain; preference- and welfare-interests;

1703-492: A mistake to portray animal rights activists as homogeneous." Even though around 90% of US adults regularly consume meat, almost half of them appear to support a ban on slaughterhouses: in Sentience Institute 's 2017 survey of 1,094 U.S. adults' attitudes toward animal farming, 49% "support a ban on factory farming, 47% support a ban on slaughterhouses, and 33% support a ban on animal farming". The 2017 survey

1834-440: A more egalitarian democratic socialist system, one that would "allow a more just and peaceful order to emerge" and be "characterized by economic democracy and a democratically controlled state and mass media", there would be "much greater potential to inform the public about vital global issues—and the potential for "campaigns to improve the lives of other animals" to be "more abolitionist in nature." Philosopher Steven Best of

1965-606: A new area often tend to take on an unusual level of importance. When you litigate in a novel area, you want to begin with your strongest suits in the most favorable jurisdictions. The rule for the Nonhuman Rights Project is: Win big and, if we must lose, lose small. PETA had virtually no chance of even winning small and a tremendous chance of losing big. Documentary filmmakers D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus announced in July 2012 that their next project, Unlocking

2096-421: A particular situation". The idea that nonhuman animals are worthy of prima facie rights is to say that, in a sense, animals have rights that can be overridden by many other considerations, especially those conflicting a human's right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. Garry supports his view arguing: ... if a nonhuman animal were to kill a human being in the U.S., it would have broken

2227-541: A patriarchal society: both are "the used"; the dominated, submissive " Other ". When the British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) published A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), Thomas Taylor (1758–1835), a Cambridge philosopher, responded with an anonymous parody, A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes (1792), saying that Wollstonecraft's arguments for women's rights could be applied equally to animals,

2358-429: A philosophical context, a prima facie (Latin for "on the face of it" or "at first glance") right is one that appears to be applicable at first glance, but upon closer examination may be outweighed by other considerations. In his book Ethics: A Pluralistic Approach to Moral Theory , Lawrence Hinman characterizes such rights as "the right is real but leaves open the question of whether it is applicable and overriding in

2489-479: A position he intended as reductio ad absurdum . In her works The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory (1990) and The Pornography of Meat (2004), Carol J. Adams focuses in particular on what she argues are the links between the oppression of women and that of non-human animals. Some transhumanists argue for animal rights, liberation, and "uplift" of animal consciousness into machines. Transhumanism also understands animal rights on

2620-498: A positive view of universal healthcare, favor reducing discrimination against African Americans, the LGBT community and undocumented immigrants, and expanding welfare to aid the poor. Two surveys found that attitudes towards animal rights tactics, such as direct action , are very diverse within the animal rights communities. Near half (50% and 39% in two surveys) of activists do not support direct action. One survey concluded "it would be

2751-523: A right to liberty, and that its captivity is a violation of that right. Win or lose, they plan to bring more habeas petitions on behalf of other animals, hoping to win enough small victories to lay a foundation of precedent for animal personhood. It's unlikely to be a quick and easy fight, but Wise says he accepts that he's in the animal-personhood game for the long haul. "This is a long-term, strategic, open-ended campaign," he says. The NhRP's legal claims on behalf of captive nonhuman animals are based in part on

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2882-411: A right to life, some control over their environment, company, play, and physical health. Stephen R. L. Clark , Mary Midgley , and Bernard Rollin also discuss animal rights in terms of animals being permitted to lead a life appropriate for their kind. Egalitarianism favors an equal distribution of happiness among all individuals, which makes the interests of the worse off more important than those of

3013-779: A sanctuary affiliated with the North American Primate Sanctuary Alliance. The NhRP's New York plaintiffs were Tommy, a privately owned chimpanzee living in a cage in a shed on a used trailer lot in Gloversville, NY; Kiko, a privately owned chimpanzee living on private property in Niagara Falls, NY; and Hercules and Leo, two chimpanzees owned by New Iberia Research Center and loaned to the Anatomy Department at Stony Brook University for use in locomotion research. In response to

3144-404: A transfer to another location be considered as a release from confinement, the purpose of the writ of habeas corpus . NhRP argued that the issue of whether or not Kiko actually desired to be released was regularly resolved in cases dealing with autonomous and self-determining human beings who at that time are incompetent or are too young to make those decisions. When asked which one of those grounds

3275-484: A working memory, language, metacognition, numerosity, and material, social and symbolic culture, their ability to plan, engage in mental time travel, intentional action, sequential learning, mediational learning, mental state modeling, visual perspective-taking, cross-modal perception, their ability to understand cause-and-effect, the experiences of others, to imagine, imitate, engage in deferred imitation, emulate, to innovate and to make and use tools. NhRP emphasized that it

3406-429: A worse outcome. There are a number of positions that can be defended from a consequentalist or deontologist perspective, including the capabilities approach , represented by Martha Nussbaum , and the egalitarian approach , which has been examined by Ingmar Persson and Peter Vallentyne . The capabilities approach focuses on what individuals require to fulfill their capabilities: Nussbaum (2006) argues that animals need

3537-408: Is a 'person' is not a question of biology, but of public policy and principle." He finished by quoting the last paragraph of Justice Jaffe's decision: Efforts to extend legal rights to chimpanzees are thus understandable; some day they may even succeed. Courts, however, are slow to embrace change, and occasionally seem reluctant to engage in bolder, more inclusive interpretations of the law, if only to

3668-497: Is a moral intuition of many, probably most, Americans. We realize that animals feel pain, and we think that to inflict pain without a reason is bad. Nothing of practical value is added by dressing up this intuition in the language of philosophy; much is lost when the intuition is made a stage in a logical argument. When kindness toward animals is levered into a duty of weighting the pains of animals and of people equally, bizarre vistas of social engineering are opened up. Roger Scruton ,

3799-406: Is an entity that the legal system considers important enough so that it is visible and [has] interests [and] certain kinds of rights. I often ask my students: 'You tell me, why should a human have fundamental rights?' There's not a single person on earth I've ever put that question to who can answer that without referring to certain qualities that a human has. Some legal scholars have publicly opposed

3930-624: Is demanding that Kiko be moved from his solitary caged confinement to the spacious sanctuary of Save the Chimps in Fort Pierce, Florida, where he will live his life on a semi-tropical island surrounded by dozens of other chimpanzees.) Every single one of the eight cases cited by the Fourth Department concerns a human prisoner convicted of a crime using a writ of habeas corpus for some other purpose other than seeking immediate release from prison. The Fourth Department's decision treats Kiko as if he were

4061-526: Is enslaved within the meaning of the Thirteenth Amendment is unlikely even to receive a single vote from a federal appellate court in 2011," Wise wrote on the NhRP's website. "It is unthinkable that the present United States Supreme Court would agree." In January 2012, the presiding judge, the Hon. Richard Miller, granted permission to the NhRP to appear in the case as an amicus curiae (or Friend of

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4192-492: Is exemplified by Peter Singer , and the latter by Tom Regan and Gary Francione . Their differences reflect a distinction philosophers draw between ethical theories that judge the rightness of an act by its consequences (consequentialism/teleological ethics, or utilitarianism), and those that focus on the principle behind the act, almost regardless of consequences (deontological ethics). Deontologists argue that there are acts we should never perform, even if failing to do so entails

4323-638: Is limited only to human beings, and certain species fit the profile that courts have used in the past to recognize legal personhood. The NhRP emphasizes the fact that currently all nonhuman animals are considered merely property, or legal "things", without the capacity for rights. In an article published five months before the NhRP first filed suit, Chris Berdick of Boston Globe explains the organization's claims and strategy as follows: Armed with affidavits from scientists, including Jane Goodall, about chimps' capacities, [the NhRP] will argue that their plaintiff deserves

4454-484: Is most similar to the circumstances of this petition, NhRP replied that a chimpanzee is more akin to a child near the age of five rather than a mentally disabled adult. On January 2, 2015, the appellate court issued its decision, denying the petition on the grounds that "habeas corpus does not lie where a petitioner seeks only to change the conditions of confinement rather than the confinement itself. We therefore conclude that habeas corpus does not lie herein." Commenting on

4585-418: Is right. "The holders of rights must have the capacity to comprehend rules of duty governing all, including themselves. In applying such rules, [they] ... must recognize possible conflicts between what is in their own interest and what is just. Only in a community of beings capable of self-restricting moral judgments can the concept of a right be correctly invoked." Cohen rejects Singer's argument that, since

4716-527: Is that it applies to persons, and not to non-persons such as orcas." In an interview with the blog Earth in Transition , Wise said of the ruling Sometimes it's better to do nothing than to do something harmful. The problem with the PETA suit is that it was doomed from the beginning, and we in the Nonhuman Rights Project immediately recognized that. When you study legal process you learn that the first cases in

4847-409: Is this incapability to bear any legal responsibilities and societal duties that renders it inappropriate to confer upon chimpanzees the legal rights — such as the fundamental right to liberty protected by the writ of  habeas corpus  — that have been afforded to human beings. On December 18, 2014, the NhRP announced that it had filed a motion for permission to appeal to New York's highest court,

4978-854: The British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection by Cobbe in London in 1898; the Animal Welfare Board of India by Rukmini Devi Arundale in 1962; and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals , co-founded by Ingrid Newkirk in 1980. In the Netherlands, Marianne Thieme and Esther Ouwehand were elected to parliament in 2006 representing the Parliamentary group for Animals. The preponderance of women in

5109-587: The Global Journal of Animal Law that the Nonhuman Rights Project was expanding its work into other countries, beginning in Switzerland, Argentina, England, Spain, Portugal, and Australia. The Nonhuman Rights Project was one of Animal Charity Evaluators ' Standout Charities from 2015 to 2019. Founded by attorney Steven M. Wise , the Nonhuman Rights Project began in 2007 as a project of the Center for

5240-1000: The Guthrie Theater , the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, Chicago's Goodman Theatre , and Baltimore 's Center Stage . He spent seven summers at the Williamstown Theatre Festival and was a charter member of the American Conservatory Theater . He made his Broadway debut in 1967 in Bertolt Brecht 's Life of Galileo followed by the role of Michael Leon in John Sebastian and Murray Schisgal 's 1968 musical Jimmy Shine with Dustin Hoffman in

5371-598: The Sharia . This recognition is based on both the Qur'an and the Hadith . The Qur'an contains many references to animals, detailing that they have souls, form communities, communicate with God, and worship Him in their own way. Muhammad forbade his followers to harm any animal and asked them to respect animals' rights. Nevertheless, Islam does allow eating of certain species of animals. According to Christianity , all animals, from

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5502-498: The University of Texas at El Paso states that the animal liberation movement, as characterized by the Animal Liberation Front and its various offshoots, "is a significant threat to global capital." ... Animal liberation challenges large sectors of the capitalist economy by assailing corporate agriculture and pharmaceutical companies and their suppliers. Far from being irrelevant to social movements, animal rights can form

5633-538: The Bell . Film roles throughout the mid to late 1970s included ...And Justice for All with Al Pacino , Michael Crichton 's Coma , All Night Long with Barbra Streisand and Gene Hackman , and White Water Summer with Sean Astin and Kevin Bacon . In 1979, Siebert was cast in his most important role to date, Dr. Stanley Riverside II, on Trapper John, M.D. where he also began his directing career. He played

5764-411: The British philosopher, argued that rights imply obligations. Every legal privilege, he wrote, imposes a burden on the one who does not possess that privilege: that is, "your right may be my duty." Scruton therefore regarded the emergence of the animal rights movement as "the strangest cultural shift within the liberal worldview", because the idea of rights and responsibilities is, he argued, distinctive to

5895-716: The Cage , would follow the NhRP's efforts to achieve legal rights for nonhuman animals. In April 2014, Pennebaker-Hegedus Films released a preview of the as-yet-unfinished documentary in the form of a New York Times Op-Doc called Animals Are Persons Too . Unlocking the Cage was released in 2016. Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE) named NhRP one of its Standout Charities in its 2015 and 2016 annual charity recommendations. ACE designates as Standout Charities those organizations which they do not feel are as strong as their Top Charities, but which excel in at least one way and are exceptionally strong compared to animal charities in general. Among

6026-529: The Cartesian view of animals. Darwin noted the mental and emotional continuity between humans and animals, suggesting the possibility of animal suffering. The anti-vivisection movement emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, driven significantly by women. From the 1970s onward, growing scholarly and activist interest in animal treatment has aimed to raise awareness and reform laws to improve animal rights and human–animal relationships. For some

6157-401: The Court are quite impressive. The Court will not entertain the application, will not recognize a chimpanzee as a human or as a person who can seek a writ of habeas corpus under Article 70. I will be available as the judge for any other lawsuit to right any wrongs that are done to this chimpanzee because I understand what you're saying. You make a very strong argument. However, I do not agree with

6288-626: The Court of Appeals itself for leave to appeal. On April 20, 2015, the NhRP filed a motion for permission to appeal in New York's highest court, the Court of Appeals. NhRP also filed an appeal to Hercules and Leo's lower court decision. On April 3, 2014 the appeal was denied by the Second Appellate Department in Brooklyn, this dismissal was based on a technicality and NhRP's briefs were not considered. On March 19, 2015, NhRP

6419-612: The Court of Appeals. The NhRP also appealed the lower court's decision in Kiko's case. Like Tommy's, Kiko's appeal was also granted and oral argument took place on December 2, 2014 before the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division, Fourth Department in Rochester, NY. At Kiko's hearing the two main issues were: how could it be determined that a chimpanzee actually wanted to be released, and could

6550-613: The Court's decision in a blog post on the NhRP's website, Wise wrote: Yesterday the Fourth Department ignored both the Second Department and the Third Department. It threw out Kiko's case not because the NhRP had no right to appeal and, significantly, not because Kiko could not be a "person." It was, the court wrote, because not even a human being can use a writ of habeas corpus to move from a place of stark imprisonment to another place of vastly more freedom. (The NhRP

6681-467: The Court) to, as Wise said, "ensure that the orcas' best interests are being properly represented, that their legal status is advanced, and that an unfavorable ruling inflicts the least possible harm on the development of an animal rights jurisprudence." In February 2012, the case was dismissed. The judge wrote in his ruling that "the only reasonable interpretation of the Thirteenth Amendment's plain language

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6812-708: The Expansion of Fundamental Rights. In 2012, the Center for the Expansion of Fundamental Rights officially changed its name to the Nonhuman Rights Project. According to the NhRP's website, the mission of the Nonhuman Rights Project is, through education and litigation, to change the common law status of at least some nonhuman animals from mere "things", which lack the capacity to possess any legal right, to "persons", who possess such fundamental rights as bodily integrity and bodily liberty and those other legal rights to which evolving standards of morality, scientific discovery, and human experience entitle them. To advance this mission,

6943-545: The First Department and the Fourth Department where Tommy's case was decided, Justice Jaffe relied on the Third District's Tommy decision. That appellate court ruled that a chimpanzee could not be considered a person with the right to liberty because there is no precedent for such a decision, and that rights cannot be granted without social responsibilities. She further stated that even if she was not bound by

7074-645: The Law (1995) was the first extensive jurisprudential treatment of animal rights. In it, Francione compares the situation of animals to the treatment of slaves in the United States , where legislation existed that appeared to protect them while the courts ignored that the institution of slavery itself rendered the protection unenforceable. He offers as an example the United States Animal Welfare Act , which he describes as an example of symbolic legislation, intended to assuage public concern about

7205-529: The NhRP's activities will eventually expand to larger groups of animals. Animal rights Many advocates of animal rights oppose the assignment of moral value and fundamental protections on the basis of species membership alone. They consider this idea, known as speciesism , a prejudice as irrational as any other. They maintain that animals should not be viewed as property or used as food, clothing, entertainment, or beasts of burden merely because they are not human. Multiple cultural traditions around

7336-501: The NhRP's mission and goals. Federal appeals judge Richard Posner , for example, is opposed to legal personhood for nonhuman animals on the basis that the law grants humans special status not because of their intelligence but out of "a moral intuition deeper than any reason that could be given for it and impervious to any reason that you or anyone could give against it." Attorney and Pepperdine Professor of Law Richard Cupp has argued that animal welfare laws should be sufficient for ensuring

7467-399: The NhRP's specific goals are: The NhRP argues that nonhuman animals who are scientifically proven to be self-aware, autonomous beings, such as great apes , elephants , dolphins , and whales , should be recognized as legal persons under U.S. common law, with the fundamental right to bodily liberty. According to the NhRP, there is nothing in the common law that suggests that legal personhood

7598-485: The NhRP's strengths, according to ACE, is the fact that it is the only organization they know of directly working towards legal personhood for animals, which "could be the most promising avenue for the proper consideration of nonhuman animals in our society." The NhRP has also garnered public attention with their cases, which has plausibly helped the animal advocacy cause. ACE states as a weakness NhRP's focus on certain cognitively complex animals, and uncertainty about whether

7729-472: The Save the Chimps sanctuary. Because this order was titled as ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE & WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS it immediately made the headlines around the world as granting the right to liberty to the chimpanzees. "Justice Recognizes Two Chimpanzees as Legal Persons, Grants them Writ of Habeas Corpus" was the headline of NhRP's breaking news post on its website. Because of the global headlines, Justice Jaffe's order

7860-567: The Seventh Circuit debated the issue of animal rights in 2001 with Peter Singer. Posner posits that his moral intuition tells him "that human beings prefer their own. If a dog threatens a human infant, even if it requires causing more pain to the dog to stop it, than the dog would have caused to the infant, then we favour the child. It would be monstrous to spare the dog." Singer challenges this by arguing that formerly unequal rights for gays, women, and certain races were justified using

7991-526: The State University of New York at Stoney Brook was ordered to show why Hercules and Leo should be not be released and transferred to the Save the Chimps sanctuary. Because the order's title included the phrase "WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS" it made headlines around the world and was misinterpreted as granting the right to liberty to a chimpanzee. Justice Jaffe's order was amended and refiled with the phrase WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS manually crossed out. A hearing

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8122-680: The Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Judicial Department in Albany, NY. The hearing received significant media attention. On December 5, 2014, the appellate court issued its ruling. In its decision the court confirmed the earlier ruling that there is no precedent for finding that an animal could be thought of as a person. It further reasoned that in accordance with the social contract one's rights cannot come without obligations: The lack of precedent for treating animals as persons for  habeas corpus  purposes does not, however, end

8253-530: The Third Department decision in Tommy it should be up to the legislature or higher courts given their role in setting government policy. Even though the petition was denied, NhRP interpreted Justice Jaffe's decision as a victory. In his posting titled "That's One Small Step for a Judge, One Giant Leap for the Nonhuman Rights Project", Wise emphasized the fact that Justice Jaffe agreed with NhRP when finding that "'persons' are not restricted to human beings, and that who

8384-461: The US before 1989 were taught to ignore pain, he writes, and at least one major veterinary hospital in the 1960s did not stock narcotic analgesics for animal pain control. In his interactions with scientists, he was often asked to "prove" that animals are conscious, and to provide "scientifically acceptable" evidence that they could feel pain. Scientific publications have made it clear since the 1980s that

8515-544: The Western world, Aristotle viewed animals as lacking reason and existing for human use, though other ancient philosophers believed animals deserved gentle treatment. Major religious traditions, chiefly Indian or Dharmic religions , opposed animal cruelty. While scholars like Descartes saw animals as unconscious automata and Kant denied direct duties to animals, Jeremy Bentham emphasized their capacity to suffer. The publications of Charles Darwin eventually eroded

8646-628: The ability to initiate action in pursuit of their desires and goals; a psychophysical identity over time; and an individual welfare in the sense that their experiential life fares well or ill for them, logically independently of their utility for others and logically independently of their being the object of anyone else's interests. Whereas Singer is primarily concerned with improving the treatment of animals and accepts that, in some hypothetical scenarios, individual animals might be used legitimately to further human or nonhuman ends, Regan believes we ought to treat nonhuman animals as we would humans. He applies

8777-554: The ability to suffer, nothing more, and once it is established that a being has interests, those interests must be given equal consideration. Singer quotes the English philosopher Henry Sidgwick (1838–1900): "The good of any one individual is of no more importance, from the point of view ... of the Universe, than the good of any other." Singer argues that equality of consideration is a prescription, not an assertion of fact: if

8908-630: The animal rights movement; indeed, the terms "animal protection" and "protectionism" are increasingly favored. His position in 1996 was that there is no animal rights movement in the United States. Mark Rowlands , professor of philosophy at the University of Florida, has proposed a contractarian approach, based on the original position and the veil of ignorance —a "state of nature" thought experiment that tests intuitions about justice and fairness—in John Rawls 's A Theory of Justice (1971). In

9039-429: The argument only insofar as Article 70 applies to chimpanzees. Good luck with your venture. I'm sorry I can't sign the order, but I hope you continue. As an animal lover, I appreciate your work. The judge in Kiko's Fourth district case, the Hon. Ralph A. Boniello III, also held a hearing, denying the NhRP's petition on the grounds that Kiko is not a person for purposes of habeas corpus and stating that he did not want to be

9170-433: The argument that it is a legal person with a habeas corpus right to liberty. It then made its central point, that based on previous common law decisions such as Somerset v Stewart , autonomy and self-determination are the human qualities that are intended to be protected by the writ of habeas corpus. And because chimpanzees are now known to possess the same qualities, the habeas corpus right to liberty should be expanded to

9301-531: The attitude of individuals regarding the treatment of animals and animal rights. These include gender, age, occupation, religion, and level of education. There has also been evidence to suggest that prior experience with pets may be a factor in people's attitudes. According to some studies, women are more likely to empathize with the cause of animal rights than men. A 1996 study suggested that factors that may partially explain this discrepancy include attitudes towards feminism and science, scientific literacy, and

9432-538: The basis for a broad coalition of progressive social groups and drive changes that strike at the heart of capitalist exploitation of animals, people and the earth. R. G. Frey , professor of philosophy at Bowling Green State University, is a preference utilitarian. In his early work, Interests and Rights (1980), Frey disagreed with Singer—who wrote in Animal Liberation (1975) that the interests of nonhuman animals must be given equal consideration when judging

9563-487: The basis of animal rights is in religion or animal worship (or in general nature worship ), with some religions banning killing any animal. In other religions animals are considered unclean . Hindu and Buddhist societies abandoned animal sacrifice and embraced vegetarianism from the 3rd century BCE. One of the most important sanctions of the Jain , Hindu, and Buddhist faiths is the concept of ahimsa , or refraining from

9694-452: The better off. Another approach, virtue ethics , holds that in considering how to act we should consider the character of the actor, and what kind of moral agents we should be. Rosalind Hursthouse has suggested an approach to animal rights based on virtue ethics. Mark Rowlands has proposed a contractarian approach. Nussbaum (2004) writes that utilitarianism, starting with Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill , has contributed more to

9825-498: The case of Somerset v Stewart . In that 1772 case, William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield , the chief justice of the English Court of King's Bench, issued a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a slave named James Somerset ; Somerset was subsequently freed. NhRP argues that it was the first time a human slave was considered to be a person and who was allowed to petition for and be granted the writ for habeas corpus. The decision

9956-418: The chimpanzee species. More than thirty pages of the petition were devoted to going over chimpanzee evolutionary development, neurology, social practices and complex cognition. NhRP argued that a chimpanzee possesses qualities such as: the possession of an autobiographical self, episodic memory, self-determination, self-consciousness, self-knowing, self-agency, referential and intentional communication, empathy,

10087-412: The chimpanzees are persons who could file them. NhRP's arguments were partially based on precedent , a legal term that encompasses all previous legal decisions and reasoning also known as common law . These cases can be considered to be relevant and sometimes decisive to the current facts and circumstances at hand. As its first step, NhRP argued that the legal term  person  is not a synonym for

10218-399: The consequences of an act—on the grounds that animals have no interests. Frey argues that interests are dependent on desire, and that no desire can exist without a corresponding belief. Animals have no beliefs, because a belief state requires the ability to hold a second-order belief—a belief about the belief—which he argues requires language: "If someone were to say, e.g. 'The cat believes that

10349-516: The destruction of life. According to Buddhism, humans do not deserve preferential treatment over other living beings. The Dharmic interpretation of this doctrine prohibits the killing of any living being. These Indian religions' dharmic beliefs are reflected in the ancient Indian works of the Tolkāppiyam and Tirukkural , which contain passages that extend the idea of nonviolence to all living beings. In Islam, animal rights were recognized early by

10480-469: The door is locked,' then that person is holding, as I see it, that the cat holds the declarative sentence 'The door is locked' to be true; and I can see no reason whatever for crediting the cat or any other creature which lacks language, including human infants, with entertaining declarative sentences." Carl Cohen , professor of philosophy at the University of Michigan, argues that rights holders must be able to distinguish between their own interests and what

10611-410: The equality of the sexes were based only on the idea that men and women were equally intelligent, we would have to abandon the practice of equal consideration if this were later found to be false. But the moral idea of equality does not depend on matters of fact such as intelligence, physical strength, or moral capacity. Equality therefore cannot be grounded on the outcome of scientific investigations into

10742-449: The extent to which it satisfies the preferences (interests) of those affected. His position is that there is no reason not to give equal consideration to the interests of human and nonhumans, though his principle of equality does not require identical treatment. A mouse and a man both have an interest in not being kicked, and there are no moral or logical grounds for failing to accord those interests equal weight. Interests are predicated on

10873-479: The first "to make that leap of faith." The judge in Hercules' and Leo's Second District case, the Hon. W. Gerard Asher, did not hold a hearing, writing in a decision that he was denying the petition for habeas corpus on the basis that chimpanzees are not considered legal persons. The NhRP appealed the lower court's decision in Tommy's case. The appeal was granted and oral argument took place on October 8, 2014 before

11004-583: The first elephant in the world to be granted a habeas corpus hearing to determine the lawfulness of her imprisonment. The lower court heard several days of arguments relating to Happy's rights, but the trial court “regrettably” denied the petition on technical grounds. The Court of Appeals agreed to hear arguments regarding whether Happy, an elephant and an autonomous nonhuman animal should be released pursuant to habeas corpus. On June 14, 2022, New York State Court of Appeals ruled 5-2 that elephants have no constitutional rights, with Chief Judge Janet DiFiore writing in

11135-558: The human condition, and it makes no sense to spread them beyond our own species. He accused animal rights advocates of "pre-scientific" anthropomorphism , attributing traits to animals that are, he says, Beatrix Potter -like, where "only man is vile." It is within this fiction that the appeal of animal rights lies, he argued. The world of animals is non-judgmental, filled with dogs who return our affection almost no matter what we do to them, and cats who pretend to be affectionate when, in fact, they care only about themselves. It is, he argued,

11266-538: The ideals of freedom and democracy at the core of our system of government. Under this view, society extends rights in exchange for an express or implied agreement from its members to submit to social responsibilities. In other words, rights are connected to moral agency and the ability to accept societal responsibility in exchange for those rights. ... Needless to say, unlike human beings, chimpanzees cannot bear any legal duties, submit to societal responsibilities or be held legally accountable for their actions. In our view, it

11397-458: The inquiry, as the writ has over time gained increasing use given its great flexibility and vague scope. While petitioner proffers various justifications for affording chimpanzees, such as Tommy, the liberty rights protected by such writ, the ascription of rights has historically been connected with the imposition of societal obligations and duties. Reciprocity between rights and responsibilities stems from principles of social contract, which inspired

11528-406: The intelligence of nonhumans. All that matters is whether they can suffer. Commentators on all sides of the debate now accept that animals suffer and feel pain, although it was not always so. Bernard Rollin , professor of philosophy, animal sciences, and biomedical sciences at Colorado State University, writes that Descartes's influence continued to be felt until the 1980s. Veterinarians trained in

11659-584: The late 1960s and early 1970s, mostly in soap operas like Another World , As the World Turns , Search for Tomorrow , The Nurses , and One Life to Live . Moving to Los Angeles in 1976 Siebert made his first feature film appearance in the horror cult classic Blue Sunshine . He then began appearing as a guest artist on numerous television programs such as One Day at a Time , The Blue Knight , The Rockford Files , Murder, She Wrote and Mancuso, F.B.I. starring Robert Loggia . Also, he

11790-591: The laws of the land and would probably get rougher sanctions than if it were a human. My point is that like laws govern all who interact within a society, rights are to be applied to all beings who interact within that society. This is not to say these rights endowed by humans are equivalent to those held by nonhuman animals, but rather that if humans possess rights then so must all those who interact with humans. In sum, Garry suggests that humans have obligations to nonhuman animals; animals do not, and ought not to, have uninfringible rights against humans. Women have played

11921-418: The lawsuit, Tommy's owner, Patrick Lavery, defended the chimpanzee's living conditions: "He's really got it good. He's got a lot of enrichment. He's got color TV, cable and a stereo." All of the petitions were rejected. On March 19, 2015, the case of Hercules and Leo was refiled, and on April 20, 2015, Justice Barbara Jaffe issued an Order to Show Cause and Writ of Habeas Corpus. A hearing was scheduled at which

12052-419: The majority decision, “nothing in our precedent or, in fact, that of any other state or federal court, provides support for the notion that the writ of habeas corpus is or should be applicable to nonhuman animals.” In October 2011, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals ( PETA ) filed a complaint in a California federal district court alleging that SeaWorld was enslaving its captive orcas in violation of

12183-473: The majority of researchers do believe animals suffer and feel pain, though it continues to be argued that their suffering may be reduced by an inability to experience the same dread of anticipation as humans or to remember the suffering as vividly. The ability of animals to suffer, even it may vary in severity, is the basis for Singer's application of equal consideration. The problem of animal suffering, and animal consciousness in general, arose primarily because it

12314-718: The membership of the British RSPCA in 1900. The modern animal advocacy movement has a similar representation of women. They are not invariably in leadership positions: during the March for Animals in Washington, D.C., in 1990—the largest animal rights demonstration held until then in the United States—most of the participants were women, but most of the platform speakers were men. Nevertheless, several influential animal advocacy groups have been founded by women, including

12445-434: The mistreatment of animals, and in many countries there are laws that seem to reflect those concerns, "in practice the legal system allows any use of animals, however abhorrent." The law only requires that any suffering not be "unnecessary". In deciding what counts as "unnecessary", an animal's interests are weighed against the interests of human beings, and the latter almost always prevail. Francione's Animals, Property, and

12576-486: The modest extent of affording them greater consideration. As Justice Kennedy aptly observed in Lawrence v. Texas (the 2003 gay rights case that struck down a state sodomy statute), albeit in a different context, "times can blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws once though necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress. The pace may be accelerating (citing the recent gay marriage case "granting

12707-690: The moral rights of humans are based on their possession of certain cognitive abilities, and because these abilities are also possessed by at least some nonhuman animals, such animals must have the same moral rights as humans. Although only humans act as moral agents, both marginal-case humans, such as infants, and at least some nonhumans must have the status of "moral patients". Moral patients are unable to formulate moral principles, and as such are unable to do right or wrong, even though what they do may be beneficial or harmful. Only moral agents are able to engage in moral action. Animals for Regan have " intrinsic value " as subjects-of-a-life, and cannot be regarded as

12838-710: The most appropriate common law jurisdictions and bases its arguments on existing scientific evidence concerning self-awareness and autonomy in nonhuman animals. Its sustained strategic litigation campaign has been developed primarily by a team of attorneys, legal experts, and volunteer law students who have conducted extensive research into relevant legal precedents. The NhRP filed its first lawsuits in December 2013 on behalf of four chimpanzees held in captivity in New York State. In late 2014, NhRP President Steven Wise and Executive Director Natalie Prosin announced in

12969-408: The movement has led to a body of academic literature exploring feminism and animal rights, such as feminism and vegetarianism or veganism , the oppression of women and animals, and the male association of women and animals with nature and emotion, rather than reason—an association that several feminist writers have embraced. Lori Gruen writes that women and animals serve the same symbolic function in

13100-606: The orcas' rights under the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution . The NhRP, while acknowledging that the orcas might be considered slaves according to common usage of the term, vehemently opposed the lawsuit on the grounds that it was strategically misguided and counter-productive; the NhRP's critique highlighted the existence of differing strategies for achieving rights and protections for nonhuman animals. "The claim that an orca

13231-415: The original position, individuals choose principles of justice (what kind of society to form, and how primary social goods will be distributed), unaware of their individual characteristics—their race, sex, class, or intelligence, whether they are able-bodied or disabled, rich or poor—and therefore unaware of which role they will assume in the society they are about to form. The idea is that, operating behind

13362-421: The practice of keeping chimpanzees and other cognitively complex nonhuman animals in captivity and also does nothing to address the larger issue of their status as legal property. The NhRP filed its first lawsuits on December 2, 2013, in New York State on behalf of four captive chimpanzees, demanding that the courts grant them the right to bodily liberty via the writ of habeas corpus and to immediately send them to

13493-453: The presence of a greater emphasis on "nurturance or compassion" among women. A common misconception on the concept of animal rights is that its proponents want to grant non-human animals the exact same legal rights as humans, such as the right to vote . This is not the case, as the concept is that animals should have rights with equal consideration to their interests (for example, cats do not have any interest in voting, so they should not have

13624-409: The purpose of an Article 70 common law writ of habeas corpus proceeding." On May 27, a hearing was held for the purposes of the initial evaluation of Hercules and Leo's Petitions. Justice Jaffe's ruling was entered on July 29, 2015. In her ruling Justice Jaffe stated that in making her decision she was obliged to follow the ruling of a higher court. Because of a conflict in relevant decisions of between

13755-415: The real distinction between persons and animals." Tom Regan countered this view of rights by distinguishing moral agents and moral patients. According to a paper published in 2000 by Harold Herzog and Lorna Dorr, previous academic surveys of attitudes towards animal rights have tended to suffer from small sample sizes and non-representative groups. However, a number of factors appear to correlate with

13886-407: The recognition of the moral status of animals than any other ethical theory. The utilitarian philosopher most associated with animal rights is Peter Singer, professor of bioethics at Princeton University . Singer is not a rights theorist, but uses the language of rights to discuss how we ought to treat individuals. He is a preference utilitarian , meaning that he judges the rightness of an act by

14017-531: The respondents who were strong Christian fundamentalists and believers in creationism were less likely to advocate for animal rights than those who were less fundamentalist in their beliefs. The findings extended previous research, such as a 1992 study which found that 48% of animal rights activists were atheists or agnostic . A 2019 study in The Washington Post found that those who have positive attitudes toward animal rights also tend to have

14148-446: The right to marry to same sex couples and acknowledging that institution of marriage has evolved over time notwithstanding its ancient origin"). For now, however, given the precedent to which I am bound, it is hereby ORDERED, that the petition for a writ of habeas corpus is denied. Despite the ruling in its favor, the university released an official statement that it would no longer conduct scientific studies on Hercules and Leo. An appeal

14279-406: The right to vote). A 2016 study found that support for animal testing may not be based on cogent philosophical rationales, and more open debate is warranted. A 2007 survey to examine whether or not people who believed in evolution were more likely to support animal rights than creationists and believers in intelligent design found that this was largely the case—according to the researchers,

14410-574: The same district as the one where Justice Jaffe issued her ruling. In May of 2021, NhRP filed what has arguably been referred to as the most important animal rights case of the 21st century with the New York Court of Appeals . The Court agreed to hear a habeas corpus case of the Asian elephant Happy, who has been at the Bronx Zoo for over four decades. Happy was the first Asian elephant to pass

14541-635: The same set of intuitions. Posner replies that equality in civil rights did not occur because of ethical arguments, but because facts mounted that there were no morally significant differences between humans based on race, sex, or sexual orientation that would support inequality. If and when similar facts emerge about humans and animals, the differences in rights will erode too. But facts will drive equality, not ethical arguments that run contrary to instinct, he argues. Posner calls his approach "soft utilitarianism", in contrast to Singer's "hard utilitarianism". He argues: The "soft" utilitarian position on animal rights

14672-545: The smallest to the largest, are cared for and loved. According to the Bible, "All these animals waited for the Lord, that the Lord might give them food at the hour. The Lord gives them, they receive; The Lord opens his hand, and they are filled with good things." It further says God "gave food to the animals, and made the crows cry." The two main philosophical approaches to animal ethics are utilitarian and rights-based. The former

14803-725: The species barrier, but others oppose it because it predicates moral value on mental complexity rather than on sentience alone. As of November 2019 , 29 countries had enacted bans on hominoid experimentation ; Argentina has granted captive orangutans basic human rights since 2014. Outside of primates , animal-rights discussions most often address the status of mammals (compare charismatic megafauna ). Other animals (considered less sentient) have gained less attention— insects relatively little (outside Jainism ) and animal-like bacteria hardly any. The vast majority of animals have no legally recognised rights. Critics of animal rights argue that nonhuman animals are unable to enter into

14934-524: The strict Kantian ideal (which Kant himself applied only to humans) that they ought never to be sacrificed as a means to an end, and must be treated as ends in themselves. Gary Francione, professor of law and philosophy at Rutgers Law School in Newark, is a leading abolitionist writer, arguing that animals need only one right, the right not to be owned. Everything else would follow from that paradigm shift . He writes that, although most people would condemn

15065-572: The title role. Subsequent Broadway appearances included Neil Simon 's The Gingerbread Lady , with Maureen Stapleton , David Storey 's The Changing Room , David Rabe 's Sticks and Bones , and the 1974 revival of Tennessee Williams ' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof starring Elizabeth Ashley , Fred Gwynne , and Keir Dullea . Notable Off-Broadway appearances include Colette starring Zoe Caldwell , and Rubbers directed by Alan Arkin . Siebert began appearing regularly on New York television during

15196-492: The treatment of animals, but difficult to implement. He argues that a focus on animal welfare, rather than animal rights, may worsen the position of animals by making the public feel comfortable about using them and entrenching the view of them as property. He calls animal rights groups who pursue animal welfare issues, such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals , the " new welfarists ", arguing that they have more in common with 19th-century animal protectionists than with

15327-578: The veil of ignorance, they will choose a social contract in which there is basic fairness and justice for them no matter the position they occupy. Rawls did not include species membership as one of the attributes hidden from the decision-makers in the original position. Rowlands proposes extending the veil of ignorance to include rationality, which he argues is an undeserved property similar to characteristics including race, sex and intelligence. American philosopher Timothy Garry has proposed an approach that deems nonhuman animals worthy of prima facie rights. In

15458-416: The well-being of captive nonhuman animals and that the NhRP's strategy is unnecessarily extreme. In an interview with James Gorman of The New York Times following the organization's first lawsuits, Cupp said, "The courts would have to dramatically expand existing common law for the cases to succeed." In response, the NhRP argues that an animal welfare approach is insufficient and ineffective in terms of ending

15589-597: The world such as Jainism , Taoism , Hinduism , Buddhism , Shinto and Animism also espouse forms of animal rights. In parallel to the debate about moral rights, law schools in North America now often teach animal law , and several legal scholars, such as Steven M. Wise and Gary L. Francione , support the extension of basic legal rights and personhood to non-human animals. The animals most often considered in arguments for personhood are hominids . Some animal-rights academics support this because it would break

15720-504: The writ is protected in the US Constitution under Article 1, Section 9, and in New York State it is to be filed under article 70 which states that "a person illegally imprisoned or otherwise restrained with his liberty within the state ... may petition without notice for a writ of habeas corpus to inquire into the cause of such detention and for deliverance." In order for their petitions to be considered, NhRP had to first show that

15851-568: Was a regular on the comedy program Husbands, Wives & Lovers . In 1987, he was cast alongside Hayley Mills as her husband on the NBC pilot Good Morning, Miss Bliss ; however, NBC passed on the program and it was then picked up by the Disney Channel , which made numerous casting changes including dropping Siebert's role. The program would evolve into the Saturday morning hit Saved by

15982-569: Was allowed to refile the petition at the county court in Manhattan which is under the First Appellate Department. Justice Barbara Jaffe was assigned to the case. On April 20, 2015, Justice Barbara Jaffe issued an Order To Show Cause & Writ of Habeas Corpus. A hearing was scheduled at which the State University of New York at Stoney Brook was ordered to show why Hercules and Leo should be not be released and transferred to

16113-473: Was amended and refiled with the phrase WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS manually crossed out. It is likely that this was done to make it clear that the order was granted only to allow a hearing for an evaluation of arguments made in NhRP's petition. The next day NhRP updated its posting stating that "the Order does not necessarily mean that the Court has declared that the two chimpanzees, Hercules and Leo, are legal persons for

16244-498: Was an American actor and television director . As an actor, he is best known for his role as Dr. Stanley Riverside II on the television series Trapper John, M.D. , a role he portrayed from 1979 to 1986, and for his numerous appearances on the $ 25,000 Pyramid . After 1986, although he continued working as an actor, Siebert's career was focused on working as a director for episodic television for such shows as Xena: Warrior Princess , and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys . Siebert

16375-699: Was argued that animals have no language . Singer writes that, if language were needed to communicate pain, it would often be impossible to know when humans are in pain, though we can observe pain behavior and make a calculated guess based on it. He argues that there is no reason to suppose that the pain behavior of nonhumans would have a different meaning from the pain behavior of humans. Tom Regan, professor emeritus of philosophy at North Carolina State University, argues in The Case for Animal Rights (1983) that nonhuman animals are what he calls "subjects-of-a-life", and as such are bearers of rights. He writes that, because

16506-875: Was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin . He studied acting at Marquette University and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA). He began his career appearing in regional theatre productions throughout the United States during the 1960s with such companies as Shakespeare in the Park in New York City, the Lincoln Center Repertory Company, the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Connecticut ,

16637-636: Was filed in August 2015, however that December Stony Brook transferred the chimpanzees back the New Iberia Research Center, ending the case, since the New York State Court no longer had jurisdiction over them. On September 1, 2015, NhRP's requests to file appeals to the highest court in Tommy's and Kiko's cases were denied. On December 2, 2015 NhRP refiled Tommy's petition in the First Department in Manhattan, New York City,

16768-431: Was held on May 27 and on July 29, 2015, Justice Jaffe issued an order denying Hercules and Leo's petition. Because the petition was reviewed as well as the reasoning in the decision, NhRP considered it to be a "one giant leap for the Nonhuman Rights Project in its fight for the fundamental rights of nonhuman animals." In filing the petitions NhRP's intent was: 1. To have the chimpanzees recognized as human-like beings with

16899-547: Was made even though there was no precedent that it relied on. The NhRP views the writ of habeas corpus as a powerful form of redress for the denial of their plaintiffs' right to bodily liberty. Commenting on the importance of the Somerset case to the NhRP in a 2014 article by Charles Siebert in The New York Times Magazine , Wise said: A legal person is not synonymous with a human being. A legal person

17030-445: Was not seeking a granting of human rights for its plaintiffs but only a narrow expansion of the right to bodily liberty protected by the writ of habeas corpus. All three petitions where denied on the grounds that the chimpanzees were not persons and thus the issues in the petitions would not be considered. In an hour long hearing regarding Tommy's Third District case, the Hon. Joseph Sise stated that: Your impassioned representations to

17161-922: Was replicated by researchers at the Oklahoma State University , who found similar results: 73% of respondents answered "yes" to the question "Were you aware that slaughterhouses are where livestock are killed and processed into meat, such that, without them, you would not be able to consume meat?" In the U.S., many public protest slaughters were held in the late 1960s and early 1970s by the National Farmers Organization . Protesting low prices for meat, farmers killed their animals in front of media representatives. The carcasses were wasted and not eaten. This effort backfired because it angered television audiences to see animals needlessly and wastefully killed. Charles Siebert Charles Alan Siebert (March 9, 1938 – May 1, 2022)

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