In this month's National Geographic is an article Almost Human by Mary Roach about Senegalese spear using chimps.
In 2006 an Austrian animal rights organization submitted an application to a district court in Modling to appoint a legal guardian for a chimp named Hiasl. The strategy was to establish "legal person" status for the hairy defendant. (The judge was sympathetic but refused.) It is perhaps less problematic to view the situation as does The Third Chimpanzee author Jared Diamond: not that chimps are a kind of human, but that humans are a kind of chimp
(My emphasis)
"Less problematic?" Currently (and properly) the law values humans and considers chimps negligible in comparison. Do Diamond and Roach really think that lowering human value to that of a chimp causes fewer problems than giving human honor to chimps? We can abide the occasional Incitatus. It disrupts things, but doesn't generally do any lasting damage. But redefining humanity to be no better than property doesn't help the chimps and it is hell for the luckless or weak.
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