Ape and essence.

Nearly 20 years ago in this column ("Learning from Apes," November/December 1975), I commented on the experimental teaching of language to chimpanzees, which had begun in the late 1960s. I concluded that, if chimps can function as humans--even if only on the level of human children--we would need to include them in our legal and social definitions of "persons" and accord them something like the legal rights that we enjoy. (Nearly 300 scientists and philosophers in several countries requested reprints of the column.) I explored this subject in greater depth in my short 1974 novel Eden II.

Two decades later, we know a great deal more about our nearest evolutionary cousins, the great apes (gorillas, orangutans, and two species of chimpanzees). Genetically we and the great apes are quite closely related. They, like us, can make and use shelters and tools, tie knots, and recognize themselves in mirrors. They can understand spoken language and learn to communicate with humans and each other in human sign language at a level comparable to that of pre-kindergarten humans. They can make jokes and puns, lie and deceive, insult, and teach language to younger apes. They can use language to express emotions and to show that they have at least some comprehension of past and future.

The bottom line is that the great apes are so much like us that there is no logical reason not to treat them as "persons"--at least to the same degree as children and mentally impaired human adults.

This topic is explored in rich detail in The Great Ape Project: Equality Beyond Humanity, edited by Paola Cavalieri and Peter Singer (St. Martin's press, 1994). Project brings together 34 scientists and scholars from nine countries, including Jane Goodall, Roger and Deborah Fouts, Francine Patterson, and others with years of hands-on experience with great apes. The purpose of the book is to garner support for "A Declaration on Great Apes," which demands

the extension of the community of equals to include all great apes: human beings, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orang-utans. "The community of equals" is the moral community within which we accept certain basic principles or rights as governing our relations with each other and enforceable at law.

The declaration is aimed at protecting the lives and liberties of these species and at prohibiting torture and mistreatment. Medical experiments without the consent of both humans and apes would be banned. The Great Ape Project makes a convincing case for including the apes--all of whom are threatened or endangered species--in the community of persons. Those interested in further information can write to the Great Ape Project, P.O. Box 1023, Collingwood, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 3066.

The question of "personhood" is an important one. Not only does it touch on whether chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans should be included in our legal and social definitions of persons, but it is also relevant to these questions: When in the course of evolution did our ancestors qualify as persons? When in the development of a human individual, from conception on, can we say that personhood begins? At what point in the process of dying does personhood cease? Will artificial intelligence develop to the point that a computer or robot could qualify as a person? Could other creatures, such as dolphins and whales, be considered persons? These questions, though they might seem unsettling to some, are far from frivolous.

Personhood, of course, is a social and legal concept, not a scientific one--a subject that Jim Prescott and I explored at length in our anthology Abortion Rights and Fetal "Personhood" (Centerline Press, 1989, 1990). Societies, legal systems, religions, families, and individuals define personhood, and do so using various criteria. The U.S. Constitution, as the Supreme Court held in Roe v. Wade, defines persons as those born or naturalized in the United States. Some states define murder as the killing of "reasonable creatures." Neither definition directly or clearly answers the question about the personhood of apes. Science, while it does not define personhood, can, however, tell what fits the parameters of personhood if society provides some description of what persons should be like. Some such minimal definition would probably include having the capability for self-awareness, the ability to interact consciously with the environment, and the ability to use language, reason, and tools.

As Isaac Asimov, Carl Sagan, and others have written, personhood has to do largely with brain function. A certain level of neocortical capability, then, is essential to human functioning.

So, back to our questions.

Great apes function mentally at the level of children or impaired adults and thus should be as much a part of our moral community as our children. The sign-language-using female gorilla Koko has taken human I.Q. tests and scored variously from 71 to 91.7, which means that she is smarter than some people we could name.

We cannot with any precision say when our ancestors became persons, but brain development at Koko's level could have been present more than two million years ago.

In human fetal growth, the neocortex is not sufficiently developed for sustained functioning until sometime after 28 weeks of gestation--a useful bit of information which supports the prochoice position.

Under most U.S. state laws, personhood ceases at brain death, though even that definition needs refinement.

Whether the development of artificial intelligence will ever qualify a computer to be a person is a question that cannot yet be answered.

Large-brained cetaceans (whales, dolphins) certainly appear to have high intelligence, but they are sufficiently different from primates that it may be some time before we know enough to ascribe personhood to them.

What we now know about apes and their abilities also provides support for evolutionary theory and confirms our connection with the rest of life on our planet.

Meanwhile, our human cousins in Bosnia and elsewhere are having almost as much trouble surviving and enjoying basic rights as the threatened great ape species. They all deserve more concern than we have been giving them.