The Great Ape Project Equality Beyond Humanity

A compelling and revolutionary work that calls for the immediate extension of our human rights to the great apes. The Great Ape Projectlooks forward to a new stage in the development of the community of equals, whereby the great apes-chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans-will actually receive many of the same protections and rights that are already accorded to humans. This profound collection of thirty-one essays by the world's most distinguished observers of free-living apes make up a uniquely satisfying whole, blending observation and interpretation in a highly persuasive case for a complete reassessment of the moral status of our closest kin.

Paola Cavalieri is the editor of the Milan-based quarterly review Etica e Animali.

Peter Singer, the renowned philosopher and bioethicist, is the author of Animal Liberation, the classic work that helped launch the modern Animal Rights movement. He teaches at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.

Preface

A Declaration on Great Apes


I Encounters with Free-living Apes

"Chimpanzees—Bridging the Gap" by Jane Goodall

"Meeting a Gorilla" by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine

"Chimpanzees Are Always New to Me" by Toshisada Nishida


II Conversations with Apes

"Chimpanzees' Use of Sign Language" by Roger S. Fouts and Deborah H. Fouts

"Language and the Orang-utan: The Old 'Person' of the Forest" by H. Lyn White Miles

"The Case for the Personhood of Gorillas" by Francine Patterson and Wendy Gordon


III Similarity and Difference

"Gaps in the Mind" by Richard Dawkins

"The Third Chimpanzee" by Jared Diamond

"Common Sense, Cognitive Ethology and Evolution" by Marc Bekoff

"What's in a Classification?" by R.I.M. Dunbar

"Apes and the Idea of Kindrid" by Stephen R. L. Clark

"Ambiguous Apes" by Raymond Corbey

"Spirits Dressed in Furs?" by Adriaan Kortlandt


IV Ethics

"Apes, Humans, Aliens, Vampires and Robots" by Colin McGinn

"Why Darwinians Should Support Equal Treatment for Other Apes" by James Rachels
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"Profoudly Intellectually Disabled Humans and the Great Apes: A Comparison" by Christoph Anstötz

"Who's Like Us?" by Heta Häyry and Matti Häyry

"A Basis for (Interspecies) Equality" by Ingmar Persson

"Ill-gotten Gains" by Tom Regan

"The Ascent of Apes—Broadening the Moral Community" by Bernard E. Rollin

"Sentientism" by Richard D. Ryder

"Great Apes and the Human Resistance to Equality" by Dale Jamison


V Apes as Persons

"The Wahokies" by Harlan B. Miller

"Humans, Nonhumans and Personhood" by Robert W. Mitchell

"Personhood, Property and Legal Competence" by Gary L. Francione

"Great Apes as Anthropological Subjects—Deconstructing Anthropocentrism" by Barbara Noske

"Aping Persons—Pro and Con" by Steve F. Sapontzis


VI Reality

"Items of Property" by David Cantor

"The Chimp Farm" by Betsy Swart

"They Are Us" by Geza Teleki


VII Epilogue

"The Great Ape Project—and Beyond" by Paola Cavalieri and Peter Singer