IMAGO DEI :

REVIEW : of "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. (Kurt Kleiner, Sept. 3, 2002, salon)

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.

Here are a couple of philosophical sources he might have looked to:

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

and

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights...

Something like 90+% of Americans derive their philosophy from the former and one hopes 100% from the latter. Posted by Orrin Judd at September 7, 2002 8:55 AM