I would think being declared a “person” would have unintended consequences. A “person” can be guilty of murder. If a chimpanzee was some kind of “person”, would we not have to determine their mental state / capacity if they killed another “person” (ape or human)? I see a pandora’s box of issues.
A legal person can have rights and duties, but not everyone who is legally a person has duties or culpability for actions. A chimpanzee could not be held to the same standard as even an older human juvenile, by reason of neurological capacity. One might be deemed a threat to himself or others, but that is not the same as being capable of criminality.
I think the better question:
Should Chimps be Considered Sentient; worthy of the same rights as homo sapiens?
They could not have all the same rights because they do not have all the same capacities.
You could not say a chimpanzee has the right to keep and bear arms, for instance, because they could not be presumed to have the same appreciation of the responsibilities that come with the use of deadly force.
I’m not terribly convinced by claims of human specialness. We are hominoids like chimps, we evolved from a common ancestor, and our suite of behaviors simply are not that different. It’s a difference of quantity to be sure, but ultimately we are animals.
You must be joking. A chimpanzee’s ability to manufacture or use tools is in the realm of finding a stick to lure ants out of an ant hill, which is in the realm that a bird could manage. Their mathematics ability amounts to adding or subtracting single-digit numbers.
What is being learned about the abilities of the other primates and even non-primate animals is very exciting, but there is a galaxy of difference between even the most advanced primate and humans.
We are the only animals with something like the capacity to have “dominion over the earth” in a way that can come to appreciate the repercussions of our actions. The cockroaches might be more able to take over the earth, but no animal has our ability to imagine and appreciate all the consequences of our actions, nor a similar capacity to look at our actions with the perspective of beings other than ourselves.
In other words, we have a level of responsibility for our
personal and societal choices that no other species on earth can approach. There is no comparison. When the Last Judgment comes, we will be the only beings standing up for assessment.
