Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
that are immediately recognizable: mirth and curiosity; concern and hesitation; and, in a request for
comfort, a plaintive pout so compelling that, seeing it, I feel inclined to reassure the bonobo myself.
Unless we think that only humans have a right to live or deserve a public outcry when killed,
there can be no justification for not caring. Even the smallest amount of empathy gives us a window
into our kinship with great apes, a sense of how much we share with them. And as for their altruism,
we have only to recall Sally's stories of going into the forest with Panbanisha or Kanzi, the way
they would worry about her health, groom her and examine every scratch and bug bite.
We can find similar stories in all species of great apes, and yet the sentiency of non-humans re-
mains problematic for us, given that we lack the tools and opportunities to perceive it. In all fairness,
the same has been true historically among human societies, who have demonized each other and
been incapable of recognizing similarities across the boundaries of language and culture. But just
as we increasingly understand foreign societies, our observations of gorillas, orangutans, chimpan-
zees, and bonobos have provided us with enough information that we can begin to understand their
social and interior lives. They play with toys and make up imaginary scenarios; they also watch TV
and become concerned about the lives of the apes they see there. They recognize themselves in the
mirror, lie to hide misbehavior, learn sign language and teach it to their children, and use language
that is self-descriptive, humorous, and metaphorical, as well as that which refers to events in the
past and future. Even in the wild, Wrangham observed a two-year-old chimpanzee whose mother
was soon to give birth playing with a piece of wood as if it were a baby. The young chimp was
almost surely excited about having a sibling, and was treating the wood like a newborn, carrying it
in all the same ways a mother would, even playing with it in his nest.
Writing about the use of chimpanzees for medical testing, Jane Goodall points out that if their
brains, central nervous systems, immune systems, and blood compositions so closely resemble
those of humans that they can serve as stand-ins for us in experiments, it should follow that the two
species share intellectual and emotional qualities as well. It would seem that people choosing to use
chimps for medical research are either oblivious to this contradiction or ignoring the evidence of
our similarities. Philosopher James Rachels writes: “A fundamental moral principle, which was first
formulated by Aristotle, is that like cases should be treated alike. I take this to mean that individuals
are to be treated in the same way
unless there is a relevant difference between them
.” He points out
that humans believed themselves to be set apart from the rest of creation until Darwin challenged
this vision of humankind and offered a new one in which we share a common heritage with the rest
of the animal kingdom.
Do humans, as several authors in
The Great Ape Project
suggest, perceive the animal kingdom
as a hierarchy that culminates in human superiority and goodness, and has the way we self-servingly
define superiority blinded us to our similarities with our great ape cousins? Some scientists even
emphasize the violent traits of chimpanzees in order to distinguish them from humans, describ-
ing how chimps in lab cages throw fecal matter and scream. Rather than address the injustice that
caused this pent-up fury, they use the anger as a justification. We don't put forth similar arguments
for humans, concluding that because of prison violence, inmates can be used in laboratories.
Bonobos, on the other hand, challenge our sense of superiority, and some writers have subjected
their putative goodness to scrutiny. In his
New Yorker
article, “Swingers,” Ian Parker questions
whether the bonobo, “equal parts dolphin, Dalai Lama, and Warren Beatty,” has been too idealized.
He goes on to enumerate every violent act a bonobo can commit, from hunting for meat to inflicting
