"Drawing the Line" by Steven M. Wise

A Harvard professor says science itself proves that such animals as parrots, apes and elephants should be considered persons with legal rights.

By Kurt Kleiner

Sep 4, 2002 | Is a parrot a person? How about a chimpanzee? Or a honeybee? Of course any kid can tell you that they're not. Only people are people. Animals are animals.

But Steven M. Wise says it's not that simple. In "Drawing the Line: Science and the Case for Animal Rights," he argues that science shows that some animals really are people. At least, they're legally entitled to be treated that way.

Wise is a lawyer and well-known animal rights activist who teaches a course on animal rights law at Harvard University. In his previous book, "Rattling the Cage," he argued that chimpanzees and bonobos deserve protection as legal persons. Here he extends the argument, and asks whether seven different animals -- gorillas, orangutans, parrots, dolphins, elephants, dogs and honeybees -- are entitled to legal rights.

If your high school biology classes were anything like mine, you were taught that animals are instinct-driven automatons. If we think we see intelligence, reasoning, even emotion in animals, then we're anthropomorphizing. But Wise details scientific work that shows some animals' minds really do seem to work like our own. He thinks he can use these studies, combined with the legal principle of equality, as a crowbar to pry animal rights out of existing law.

So what makes a person? Wise quotes legal scholars and philosophers to make the case that the defining aspect of a person is autonomy; a person can desire, reason and act. Wise argues that many animals have what he calls "practical autonomy," a quality that makes them much more like people than they are like things. The three-part test for practical autonomy he devises asks whether the animal 1) can desire something; 2) can intentionally act to fulfill those desires; and 3) knows that it's he, the animal, who is doing the desiring and the acting.

Seem simple? It's not. Concepts like intention and self-consciousness are maddeningly difficult to define, much less detect. Wise asks whether even his 4-year-old son, Christopher, has actually achieved the status of person. Does he have intentions and act on them? Does he have a sense of self? The kid passes, but it's closer than you'd expect. If Christopher had been 1 year old when Wise asked the question, he might have been judged less worthy of personhood than an adult parrot.

Psychologists and animal behaviorists use a number of tests to try to detect various kinds of mental activity (and then argue among themselves about what the results mean). For instance, does the child or animal recognize itself in the mirror? Kids do this from about the age of 6 months. All of the adult apes are good at it, but it's not as clear whether other animals recognize themselves.

Another basic test is for "object-permanence" -- does the child or chimp understand that an object placed under a cup still exists even when it's out of sight? Kids as young as 4 months may do this. So does Alex, an African gray parrot, who isn't fooled when a hidden nut is transferred from one container to another.

Does the subject possess a "theory of mind" -- in other words, does it seem to understand that other creatures have their own points of view and mental processes? It won't surprise dog owners that dogs are good at this one. A dog playing fetch with a human who intentionally turns his back will put the ball down in front of the person. The dog seems to understand that the human has to see the ball before he'll throw it.

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