I find it funny that people main fear/objection to this is; what is next, do we give right to dogs or rats too? Godforbid we respect all life on this Earth! What are people so scared of, what do you think we are going to loose? It is only our arrogance as a human species that keeps us on our high and mighty pole and put our lives above theirs at all costs. Somehow it has come to be that humans are superior and all other beings are there for our use and entertainment. I guess people are scared of losing this superiority. I certainly am not because I see nothing to loose by giving apes rights only things to gain for us and for them.

Yeah, the right wing paranoia is killing me here.

All I hear on this board is a bunch of slippery slope arguements about how rights to apes will lead to a whole bunch of non-related laws.

The only thing this law attempts to prevent is apes being mistreated by circuses and medical research facilities. I don't see what has gotten everybodies' feathers so ruffled.

This fallacy of the animal rights logic. They operate under the premise that people and animals have similar or equal rights. Fine, but it is assumed that animals will be raised to the higher moral status we have made for ourselves. There is no reason why that should be assumed, as it is equally viable that instead of raising animals up to our standard, it is our morals that should be lowered to so that we operate based on the animal standard “law of the jungle.” Preposterous, I think not for how will you raise animals to our standard and hold them accountable? The entire carnivore population will be committing murder to survive. Should they get an exception? If so then the whole idea of equal right is moot.

What will it be? Do raise animals to our standards and start prosecuting cats when they kill mice for fun? Or do we lower our standards and adopt a free-for-all approach to laws?

We do not have similar and equal rights, nor should we as we live very different lives in very different environments. It is not about getting animals all human rights, it is about giving them basic rights, the right to be free and the right to be free from torture and abuse. It is really not asking much, just for compassion. It is not about "lowering" or "raising" which are used by humans with superiority complexes, it is about expanding our circle of compassion to encompass non humans. Humans live in their own society in which we have made rules that we must follow. Other animals live in their own society in which they follow their own rules. The right of freedom and the freedom from abuse from humans can have a place in both worlds.

Based on history and the present and from watching people all my life, I think it is an entirely fictitious illusion to describe humans as a moral species. For one moment, try to imagine yourself a member of any other species and observe humanity's impact on your life, or on humanity for that matter. Morality is entirely subjective and relative. We invent morality, and we can't even live up to the morality we have created for ourselves!

Truly, if we behaved "as animals" we would probably do a lot better and create a lot less chaos in the world than we do from our "superior" position now.

We cannot give animals 'human' rights as they are not human. It doesn't make sense. The point of this is making humans accountable for their treatment of animals. If humans are the stewards of the earth with a higher moral authority granted by God then it is our moral obligation to be kind and compassionate. It is our moral abligation to treat all animals with dignity not because we are superior but because we are caretakers. Cruelty is immoral. There is no justification for it, ever.

Nice. I agree with your conclusion but not with your premise. Our position in the world has not been granted by god. Our moral imperative has not been handed down to us. I believe we have acquired it by virtue of our nature, which is to become rational and conscious of what we do. That has been our evolutionary path. But it is not complete (if it was granted by god, why is it so undeveloped?). We tread a very fine line between consciousness and blind evolutionary advantages (opposing thumb, upright gait, and tool making ability). We really are not very much different from humans only 10,000 years ago; it's just that our tools are much more spectacular now. We still don't have much sense for how to use our tools without screwing everything up.

As for our relationship with other species........ I think the very best thing we can do is to simply leave them alone. We need to focus on our relationship with the planet, and if we do a good job with that, the other species will fare much better than they do now.

It's quite a paradox about the tools. One could argue its the tools that have gotten us into so much trouble. Yet, its the tools that will likely get us out.

And I agree that we aren't so very different from primitive humans. Ironically, we're not so very different from the apes...using tools, living in groups, societies governed by laws, etc. And then here we are, right back at the beginning. Maybe apes are enjoying the last laugh watching us ponder the same philosophical questions for a few thousand years.