What it Means to be Human

Why is it that humans are the only animal species granted legal rights? The answer is as complex as it is simple: Because we’re humans. A case currently headed to the European Court of Human Rights will cause us all to ponder what exactly that means and the answer is not as simple as you might expect.

I wrote about the case of Matthew Hiasl Pan in the last issue of the Animal Legal Defense Fund’s print newsletter, The Animals’ Advocate (PDF). Matthew is a 26 year-old chimpanzee living in a sanctuary in Vienna, Austria. His fate is now uncertain as the sanctuary is facing bankruptcy. An update and more background on his case can be found here.

Matthew’s case is important because the distinction the law makes between humans and all other animals has enormous ramifications. Humans are the only living "legal persons" (which can include, for various purposes, inanimate entities like corporations and ships) -- and you must be a legal person to be able to sue to protect your interests or to have someone sue on your behalf. This lies at the heart of the difficulty animal advocates, like ALDF, face when trying to file lawsuits to stop animal abuse.

So, what does it mean to be human? What is the characteristic that distinguishes us so absolutely from all other animal species? There is currently no scientific consensus. And the more we learn about other animals, the more blurry any such distinction becomes. The absolute differences relied on in the past have fallen one by one to scientific research and observation. Tool use; tool making; abstract thought; self awareness; compassion, have all been found to exist in nonhumans. Intelligence? We now know that some animals are more intelligent (even by our own species-biased tests) than some humans such as young children, the mentally disabled, etc. which does not deny the latter their rights. So what is it?

In the case of Matthew Hiasl Pan, the chimpanzee, it may very well be human beings who are on trial. We’ll keep you posted.