Apes, Persons, and Bioethics

In the seventeenth century Rene Descartes argued for a fundamental separation between human and nonhuman animals, a separation reflecting the sharp distinction he drew on a more general level between thought and matter. While we have bodies and minds, animals only have bodies, and thus are locked into the inferior realm of matter. This absolute separation between humans and animals underlies the absolute dismissal, in Western thought, of animals from the sphere of moral concern. But Cartesianism is not the only doctrine in the history of Western moral philosophy that denies animals any intrinsic moral status. Kant’s moral philosophy also makes a radical break between rational beings and the domain of mere things, which includes animals. Kant argues that because only humans have reason and can be autonomous, only humans are ends in themselves. All other things, including all nonhuman animals, are mere means to human ends. True, Kant finds an indirect argument against cruelty to animals based on the claim that those who are cruel to animals may end up being cruel to humans as well, but this counts for very little, given Kant’s denial that the suffering of an animal is, in itself, a reason not to be cruel to it. As recently as 1992, the French philosopher Luc Ferry showed the continuing influence of Kant’s perspective when he defended the idea of a sharp moral distinction between