Customer Reviews

The Great Ape Project: Equality Beyond Humanity

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have to admit, our family's copy of the Great Ape Project sat on the shelf for a few years before I got around to looking at it.I had deep reservations about the book, fearing that it would lead to a reinforcement of anthropocentric criteria for moral standing.However, once I started reading I was hooked. The huge number of contributors with many different viewpoints ranging from rather anthropocentric to radical animal rights make for a lively read. In addition, the book is chockablock full of fascinating information about the great apes--they really are more similar to us than even I, an animal rightist for years, would have thought possible. A challenging book that raises the questions: what does it mean to be human? And how can we justify treating our fellow great apes the way we do?

This book is an excellent source of information provided by a variety of scientific and legal experts. The authors show us the rich emotional and cultural lives of non-human great apes. Researchers who use other apes because of their genetic and psychological complexity ought to be required to read this book. Indeed, the one flaw of this book is the fact that a few chapters are the works of researchers who have used, for example, the linguistic talents of other apes to advance their own careers. Other sections of the book, including a chapter vividly comparing the non-human and human slave trade, and a description of the case for legal rights based on the personhood of hominids, underscore that flaw with haunting and brilliant sensitivity.

Overall, The Great Ape Project lucidly demonstrates the unconscionability of continuing to use the other apes for experimentation, for teaching, for trade in their body parts, and in the entertainment industry. Moreover, it inspires us to broaden our definition of slavery to include our nearest living relatives.

The essays in this book are remarkable and well done. A very important work for the animal rights movement. I did find it a little repetitive at times, but this did not detract from the point of the book, to make us aware of how closely related great apes really are to us, and their capacity to communicate in a human language.

The contributors make a compelling case for sentience rights for higher primates based on strong empirical evidence and demonstrable harm caused to other higher primates that infringes on their rights claims as sentient beings. I would ask if the authors might consider a similar work that expands the case for cetacean rights on the same basis, though.

The Great Ape Project (GAP) is an organization demanding that human rights be extended to the great apes, i.e. chimpanzees, gorillas, orang-utans and bonobos. Or, as GAP puts it, the non-human great apes. Most of the people involved in GAP seem to be animal rights activists, whose ultimate goal is to end all human use of (non-human) animals. Somebody might argue that GAP is therefore a clever, tactical move to mainstream the animal liberation movement. Since the great apes are very similar to ourselves, very few, and usually not turned into steak, extending human rights to them might be relatively easy. At the same time, this would presumably call into question *all* species barriers between ourselves and the animal kingdom (the rest of it).

The book "The Great Ape Project. Equality Beyond Humanity" was published in 1993. It contains contributions from luminaries such as Peter Singer, Tom Regan, Richard Dawkins, Jared Diamond, Jane Goodall and Colin McGinn. (Frans de Waal is notably absent, however.) Some theologians have been invited as well, including the curious Stephen R.L. Clark whose personal philosophy attempts to combine Plato, Aristotle, nominalism, Darwin and God!

Now, such a collection simply cannot be boring, can it?

Unfortunately, it can...

The contributions are too short to be really interesting, and I suspect many were written during a coffee break in between two college lectures. "Oh, that reminds me. I have to write something for that darn anthology". Publish or perish? Frankly, the book is a major disappointment. It's also unclear who the intended readership is. It's obviously not the general public, or decision-making politicians. Other philosophy professors, perhaps?

Frankly, the book feels monkey-wrenched!

I can therefore only give it two stars. Besides, the gorilla at the cover of the British edition looks better.

But yes, I was intrigued by Clark, LOL.

"The Great Ape Project" is a good collection of reasons for supporting the project of the same name.