* Steven M. Wise is president of The Center for the Expansion of Fundamental Rights, Inc., and has taught “Animal Rights Law” at the Harvard, Vermont, and John Marshall Law Schools, and in the master’s program in Animals and Public Policy at the Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine. He is the author of Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals (2000) and Drawing the Line: Science and the Case for Animal Rights (2002). He thanks the Glaser Family Foundation for its support, which allowed him to write this Article.
1 Richard A. Posner, Animal Rights, 110 Yale L.J. 527, 527 (2000) (book review).
2 Id. See generally Steven M. Wise, Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals (2000).
3 I did not argue, as some critics imply, that any nonhuman animal is entitled to constitutional rights. See, e.g., Posner, supra note 1, at 531, 538–39.
4 Martha C. Nussbaum, Animal Rights: The Need for a Theoretical Basis, 114 Harv. L. Rev. 1506, 1548–49 (2001) (book review).
5 Robert C. Speth, Review of Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals, in J. Soc’y for Veterinary Med. Ethics, May 2000, at 6, 7.
6 Posner, supra note 1, at 529.
7 Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Path of the Law, 10 Harv. L. Rev. 457, 469 (1897).
8 Martha C. Nussbaum, supra note 4, at 1513–14, 1522, 1526.
9 Id. at 1514.
10 Id. at 1526.
11 Lisa Stansky, Personhood for Bonzo? Animal Rights Lawyer Argues for Protections for Higher Primates, A.B.A. J., Mar. 2000, at 94.
12 See generally Richard Sorabji, Animal Minds and Human Morals (1993); Wise, supra note 2, at 272–75.
13 Even Professor Nussbaum understands how limitations of space can force an author to condense and omit. See Nussbaum, supra note 4, at 1523 n.80 (Bentham “was, however, preceded by Montaigne and Mandeville, whose contributions I have simply omitted here; less systematic than Bentham’s, they were nonetheless important.”). Id. at 1526 (“a real look at history (toward which I have made only a few gestures)”).
14 Sorabji, supra note 12, at 2.
15 Nussbaum, supra note 4, at 1526–27.
16 Id. at 1516.
17 Id. at 1517.
18 Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being 59 (1960).
19 Id.
20 Id. at 58.
21 Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393, 407 (1856).
22 Steven M. Wise, How Nonhuman Animals Were Trapped in a Nonexistent Universe, 1 Animal L. 15, 22 n.33 (1995) (citing D.M. Balme, Aristotle’s De Partibus Animalium I and De Generatione Animalium I 93–98 (1972); Ernst Mayr, Toward a New Philosophy of Biology 60–61 (1988); Martha C. Nussbaum, Aristotle’s De Motu Animalium 60 (1978)).
23 Nussbaum, supra note 4, at 1517, 1519.
24 As to Aristotle, see John Passmore, Man’s Responsibility for Nature—Ecological Problems and Western Traditions 13–14 (1974); Holmes Rolston, III, Environmental Ethics—Duties to and Values in the Natural World 45 (1988); Wise, supra note 2, at 17–34; Wise, supra note 22, at 21–34. For the process that led to Aristotelean and Stoic ideas to be taken into first Roman, then the common law, see Steven M. Wise, The Legal Thinghood of Nonhuman Animals, 23 B.C. Envtl. Aff. L. Rev. 471, 497–505, 516–21, 525–38 (1996); see also G. Inst. 1.53.
25 Peter Birks, An Unacceptable Face of Human Property, in New Perspectives in the Roman Law of Property 61, 65 (Peter Birks ed., 1989) (translated by editor from Greek) (quoting Aristotle, Politics 1256b20); see also A.M. Honor�, Gaius 96–116 (1962).
26 Wise, supra note 24, at 537–38.
27 Nussbaum, supra note 4, at 1519. Nussbaum also writes, “Wise does not acknowledge that the Stoics are the great moral egalitarians of the ancient world . . . .” Id. at 1520. But I did. See Wise, supra note 2, at 14, 33.
28 Nussbaum, supra note 4, at 1522.
29 Id.
30 Id. at 1523.
31 14 Parl. Deb., (1st ser.) (1809) 554.
32 See id. at 556–58.
33 Id. at 555; see also id. at 557.
34 Id. at 555.
35 Id. at 557.
36 Mike Radford, Animal Welfare Law in Britain—Regulation and Responsibility 39 (2001).
37 Id. at 33–40.
38 See id. at 39.
39 Id. at 261.
40 Id. at 99.
41 Radford, supra note 36, at 101–02.
42 See Wise, supra note 2, at 14–17.
43 Id. at 15.
44 Id. at 14–16.
45 See generally id. at 119–237.
46 Damon Linker, Reply to Letters from Readers, quoted in Comment., Jul.–Aug. 2001, at 8.
47 Wise, supra note 2, at 158.
48 See id. at 158–62, 194–237. In my upcoming book, I show that gorillas, orangutans, Atlantic bottle-nosed dolphins, and African grey parrots have also learned a human proto-language, complete with a proto-syntax. Steven Wise, Drawing the Line: Science and the Case for Animal Rights (forthcoming 2002) (manuscript at 87–108, 135–50, 199–202, 207–20, on file with author).
49 Antonio R. Damasio, The Feeling of What Happens 107 (1999).
50 Id.
51 See id. at 108–12.
52 Editorial, Legal Challenges to Animal Experimentation, 3 Nature Neuroscience 523, 523 (2000).
53 Michael Hutchins, Book Review, 61(4) Animal Behav. 855, 856 (2001) (reviewing Steven M. Wise, Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals (2000)).
54 Posner, supra note 1, at 529. He erred however in thinking that when I refer to consciousness, I mean self-consciousness. See id.; Wise, supra note 2, at 128–29.
55 Nussbaum, supra note 4, at 1533.
56 Wise, supra note 2, at 222–24.
57 See generally id. at 119–236.
58 Richard A. Epstein, The Dangerous Claims of the Animal Rights Movement, in 10(2) The Responsive Community 28, 30 (2000).
59 Id.
60 Id. at 32.
61 See id. Epstein may similarly overstate what mental complexities are generally accepted within the scientific community even today: nonhuman animals, he writes,
have extensive powers of anticipation and rationalization; they can form and break alliances; they can show anger, annoyance, and remorse . . . they can engage in acts of rape and acts of love; they respect and violate territories. Indeed, in many ways their repertoire of emotions is quite broad, rivaling that of human beings . . . .
Id. at 32.
62 See, e.g., G. Inst. 2.68; J. Inst. 2.1.15 (Peter Birks & Grant McLeod trans.).
63 G. Inst.supra note 62, at 2.68.
64 J. Inst., supra note 62, at 2.1.15.
65 7 Oxford English Dictionary 1044 (2d ed. 1989); 6 id. at 993.
66 Paul J. Liacos, Handbook of Massachusetts Evidence, � 4.4.9, at 170 (6th ed. 1994). McCormick, however, criticizes characterizing the difference between habit and character as “between Pavlov and Freud,” overstates the point, admonishing that “[t]he doing of the habitual act may become semiautomatic.” 1 McCormick on Evidence, � 195, at 825–26, 825 n.4 (John William Strong ed., 4th ed. 1992), (quoting 22 Charles Alan Wright & Kenneth W. Graham, Jr., Federal Practice and Procedure, � 5233 (1978)).
67 Liacos, supra note 66, � 4.4.9, at 174.
68 Dig. 9.1.1.3 (Ulpian, Ad Edictum 18) (Alan Watson trans.).
69 Id. at 1.1.4; see also id. at 9.1.1.8, 11; J. Inst., supra note 62, at 4.9 (nonhuman animals are devoid of reason and “cannot be said to have a wrong intent”; irrational animals can harm “through wantonness, rage, or ferocity”).
70 Epstein, supra note 58, at 30.
71 Birks, supra note 25, at 61.
72 Wise, supra note 2, at 1–2.
73 Id. at 1.
74 Id. at 2.
75 Laurence H. Tribe, Ten Lessons Our Constitutional Experience Can Teach Us About the Puzzle of Animal Rights: The Work of Steven M. Wise, 7 Animal L. 1, 4 (2001).
76 15 Oxford English Dictionary, supra note 65, at 665.
77 Slavery Convention, 60 L.N.T.S. 253, Article 1 (1926).
78 Robert B. Shaw, A Legal History of Slavery in the United States 158 (1991).
79 Thomas C. Sandars, Introduction to The Institutes of Justinian 27 (Bernard D. Reams ed., Thomas C. Sandars trans., William S. Hein & Co. 1984) (1876).
80 David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture 32 (1966); see Jarman v. Patterson, 23 Ky. 644, 644 (1828), available at 1828 WL 1332, at *3 (Ky. 1828) (“[A] slave by our code is not treated as a person . . . but a thing, as he stood in the civil code of the Roman Empire.”).
81 David Brion Davis, Slavery and Human Progress 13 (1984).
82 2 Patrick Mac Chombaich de Colquhoun, Roman Civil Law 13 (1851).
83 4 Roscoe Pound, Jurisprudence 192 (1959) (internal quotations omitted).
84 Barry Nicholas, An Introduction to Roman Law 69 (3d ed. 1962); see W.W. Buckland, A Manual of Roman Private Law 37 (2d ed. 1939); 3 E.C. Clark, History of Roman Private Law 61 (1990) (for almost the entire period of Roman law, the slave was “little more than a mere chattel”).
85 Nicholas, supra note 84, at 69; see John Chipman Gray, The Nature and Sources of the Law 43 (2d ed. 1931).
86 Birks, supra note 25, at 61.
87 Posner, supra note 1, at 538.
88 As did judges. See, e.g., Peter v. Hargrave, 45 Va. 95, 95 (Gratt) 12 (1848), available at 1848 WL 2754, at *2 (Va. 1848) (slaves “have no personal rights”). In the American South, slaves could sue for their freedom based on a claim that they shouldn’t be slaves. Shaw, supra note 78, at 110.
Freedom suits existed not as a means for blacks to alter their legal status from slave to free, but as a recourse for those who were in fact free, and who thus possessed a remedy for illegal enslavement. De jure, those enslaved illegally were not slaves at all, but free persons wrongly deprived of their legal rights. Thus, a claimant’s right to petition the court was not predicated on the assumption that a slave had any legal rights, but instead on her rights as a presumptively free person illegally held in slavery.
A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr. & F. Michael Higginbotham, “Yearning to Breath Free”: Legal Barriers Against and Options in Favor of Liberty in Antebellum Virginia, 68 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1213, 1234–35 (1993).
89 Shaw, supra note 78, at 160; see id. at 158 (“[I]t was invariably accepted that slaves did possess a right to life and limb.”).
90 I discuss, infra, at 52–59, whether this gave slaves or nonhuman animals any legal rights.
91 Posner, supra note 1, at 538.
92 Wise, supra note 2, at 239–66.
93 Union Pac. Ry. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U.S. 250, 251 (1891), (quoting Cooley on Torts 29).
94 Wise, supra note 2, at 267.
95 Id. at 66–67, (quoting Isaiah Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty, in Four Essays on Liberty 118, 169 (1969)).
96 Legal Challenges to Animal Experimentation, supra note 52, at 523.
97 Lt. Com. R.A. Conrad, Book Note, 166 Mil. L. Rev. 226, 230 (2000).
98 Posner, supra note 1, at 532.
99 Epstein, supra note 58, at 33.
100 Posner, supra note 1, at 527. I take the following discussion of practical autonomy from chapter two of my upcoming book. See Wise, supra note 48, at 9–34. I give “realistic autonomy” the more appropriate name of “practical autonomy.” Id.
101 Henry Cohen, Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals, 47 Fed. Law. 49, 50 (Mar./Apr. 2000) (book review).
102 Nussbaum, supra note 4, at 1548.
103 Robert M. Verchick, A New Species of Rights, 89 Cal. L. Rev. 207, 215, 219 (2001).
104 Epstein, supra note 58, at 37.
105 Id. at 37.
106 Kenan Malik, Rights and Wrongs, 406 Nature 675, 676 (2000).
107 See, e.g., United States v. Will, 449 U.S. 200, 213–16 (1980).
108 Laurence H. Tribe, American Constitutional Law 1518 (2d ed. 1988) (quoting Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303, 306 (1880)).
109 Martha C. Nussbaum, Women and Human Development 97 (2000).
110 Hutchins, supra note 53, at 856; see Malik, supra note 106, at 675.
111 E.g., Steven M. Wise, Hardly a Revolution, 22 Vt. L. Rev. 793, 806 (1998).
112 Mary Ann Glendon, A World Made New 176 (2001).
113 Posner, supra note 1, at 534.
114 Tribe, supra note 75, at 5.
115 Wise, supra note 111, at 846–57.
116 Glendon, supra note 112, at 175, 176. See generally Jack Donnelly, Human Rights as Natural Rights, 4 Hum. Rts. Q. 391, 401–02 (1982) (noting that natural rights theory preserves universality of human rights); Johannes Morsink, The Philosophy of the Universal Declaration, 6 Hum. Rts. Q. 309 (1984) (the Declaration’s rights are rooted in traditional natural rights).
117 Glendon, supra note 112, at 77, (quoting Jacques Maritain, Introduction, in Human Rights 9 (UNESCO ed., 1949)).
118 David P. Forsythe, The Internationalization of Human Rights 12 (1991). These include freedom from attacks upon bodily integrity, slavery, and torture. Id.; see also John Rawls, The Law of Peoples, in On Human Rights—The Oxford Amnesty Lectures 1993 62, 71 (Stephen Shute & Susan Hurley eds., 1993); Anthony D’Amato, The Concept of Human Rights in International Law, 82 Colum. L. Rev. 1110, 1128–29 (1982) (prohibitions against genocide, torture, and slavery are fundamental human rights under customary international law); John Rawls, The Idea of an Overlapping Consensus, 7 Oxford J. Legal Stud. 1, 14, 14 n.22 (1987) (designation of fundamental liberties and freedoms removes them from political debate). “‘Human rights’ refers to freedoms, immunities, and benefits which, according to widely accepted contemporary values, every human being should enjoy in the society in which he or she lives.” Restatement (Third) of the Law: The Foreign Relations Law of the United States, � 701, cmt. a (1986). For a discussion of international dignity-rights, see Wise, supra note 111, at 846–57.
119 See Samuel S. Kim, Global Human Rights and World Order, in The United Nations and a Just World Order 356, 358 (Richard A. Falk, et al. eds., 1991); Paul Sieghart, The Lawful Rights of Mankind—An Introduction to the International Legal Code of Human Rights 63 (1985); Burns H. Weston, Human Rights, 6 Hum. Rts. Q. 257, 264–65 (1984). These instruments implicitly recognize that human beings “share some common beliefs concerning human dignity but also . . . a common concern to protect human dignity by a body of law that stands above the law of individual states.” Harold J. Berman, Towards an Integrative Jurisprudence: Politics, Morality, History, 76 Cal. L. Rev. 779, 798 (1988). “The United Nations’ concept of human rights embraces this natural law concept of rights.” Louis B. Sohn, The New International Law: Protection of the Rights of Individuals Rather than States, 32 Am. U. L. Rev. 1, 17 (1982), despite the rejection of repeated attempts to attribute them to a divine source; see also Sieghart, supra at 63; Surya Prakash Sinha, What Is Law?—The Differing Theories of Jurisprudence 81–82 (1989).
120 See Louis Henkin, Rights: American and Human, 79 Colum. L. Rev. 405, 409 (1979); Warren Christopher, Democracy and Human Rights: Where America Stands, Address before the World Conference on Human Rights, Vienna, Austria (June 14, 1993), at 1 (“America’s identity as a nation derives from our dedication to the proposition ‘that all Men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.’”) (transcript on file with author).
121 While nonderogability and jus cogens are different principles with different concerns, a derogable human rights norm cannot be jus cogens. Restatement (Third) of the Law: The Foreign Relations Law of the United States, supra note 118, at � 702, rptrs. notes, � 11(1986).
122 Nussbaum, supra note 4, at 1521.
123 Id. at 1520.
124 Id. at 1521.
125 Id.
126 Posner, supra note 1, at 535. Posner’s and Nussbaum’s articles were written near the same time and each acknowledge the help of the other. See Nussbaum, supra note 4, at 1506; Posner, supra note 1, at 527.
127 Paul Waldau, The Specter of Speciesism—Buddhist and Christian Views of Animals 38 (2001).
128 See John Bowlby, Charles Darwin—A New Life 115, 134, 155 (1990); Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle 502, 526–27 (Charles W. Eliot ed., P.F. Collier & Son 1909) (1845).
129 See Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man 42–50 (1981); Louis Menand, The Metaphysical Club 124–29 (2001).
130 E.g., Wise, supra note 48, at 109–11, 152–54, 169–71, 188–89, 222–24 (gorillas, orangutans, Atlantic bottlenosed dolphins, African grey parrots, and Indian elephants show evidence of self-awareness); Wise, supra note 2, at 198–201 (chimpanzees and bonobos show evidence of self-awareness).
131 Posner, supra note 1, at 535.
132 See Nussbaum, supra note 4, at 1521.
133 Radford, supra note 36, at 33–34.
134 Hugh Thomas, The Slave Trade—The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade 1440–1870, at 506, 508, 513, 525, 528, 554 (1997).
135 See id. at 515.
136 Id. at 515–16.
137 Tribe, supra note 108, at 1515.
138 Wise, supra note 111, at 845–68.
139 Id. at 845–47.
140 Id. at 845.
141 Verchick, supra note 103, at 220.
142 See Wise, supra note 2, at 243–48.
143 See id. at 247–48; see also id. at 63–87, 243–70.
144 Nussbaum, supra note 4, at 1533–35.
145 Tribe, supra note 75, at 7.
146 Wise, supra note 2, at 342 (“autonomy—sufficient for legal rights”); Wise, supra note 111, at 868, 875.
147 Tribe, supra note 75, at 7.
148 Id.
149 See id.
150 Daniel Wikler, Concepts of Personhood: A Philosophical Perspective, in Defining Human Life: Medical, Legal, and Ethical Implications 13, 19 (Margery W. Shaw & A. Edward Doudera, eds., 1983).
151 Lloyd L. Weinreb, Oedipus at Fenway Park 110 (1994).
152 L.W. Sumner, The Moral Foundation of Rights 206 (1987) (referring to both the benefit/interest and choice/control models of claim-rights).
153 Wise, supra note 2, at 241.
154 See Edward O. Wilson, The Diversity of Life 38 (1992).
155 See id.
156 Wise, supra note 2, at 242–43.
157 Id. at 243.
158 Id. at 131.
159 Berlin, supra note 95, at 208.
160 Carleton Kemp Allen, Things, 28 Cal. L. Rev. 421, 424 (1940) (quoting Sir Thomas Erskine Holland, Jurisprudence 103 (13th ed. 1924) (emphasis added) (translating Baron, Pandekten, � 37)); see Pound, supra note 83, at 530–31.
161 See Pound, supra note 83, at 194–99.
162 Wise, supra note 2, at 246.
163 See Barbara Herman, The Practice of Moral Judgment 229 (1993).
164 See id. at 227–28. See also H.J. Paton, The Categorical Imperative—A Study in Kant’s Moral Philosophy 180–84, 199, 242–47 (1947).
165 See Berlin, supra note 95, at 170; see also Michael Allen Fox, Animal Experimentation: A Philosopher’s Changing Views, in 3 Between the Species 260 (Spring 1987).
166 Carl Wellman, Real Rights 113–14 (1995); see also Daniel A. Dombrowski, Babies and Beasts 45–140 (1997) (discussing many modern philosophers); R.G. Frey, Interests and Rights—The Case Against Animals 30 (1980); H.L.A. Hart, Are There Any Natural Rights?, in Theories of Rights 79, 82 (Jeremy Waldron ed., 1984); A. John Simmons, The Lockean Theory of Rights 201 n.93 (1992) (listing modern philosophers who claim that children cannot have rights because they lack the capacities for agency, rationality, or autonomy); Katherine Hunt Federle, On the Road to Reconceiving Rights for Children: A Postfeminist Analysis of the Capacity Principle, 42 DePaul L. Rev. 983, 987–99 (1993) (Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Bentham, and Mill).
167 See Hart, supra note 166, at 82.
168 Boy, 6, Fatally Shoots Classmate in Mich. School, Boston Globe, Mar. 1, 2000, at A1.
169 Id.
170 Berlin, supra note 95, at 148.
171 E.g., Airedale NHS Trust v. Bland, 1 All E.R. 821, 843, 848 (Fam. 1992), aff’d, 1 All E.R. 858, 858 (C.A. 1993); id. at 852 (Hoffman, L.J.) (C.A.); aff’d, 1 All E.R. 858, 862 (H.L. 1993) (Lord Goff of Chieveley); id. at 889 (Lord Mustill); see Wise, supra note 2, at 247.
172 Airedale, 1 All E.R. at 851, 852 (Hoffman, L.J.); id. at 846 (Butler-Sloss, L.J.) (both of the Court of Appeals); id. at 866 (Lord Goff of Chieveley).
173 E.g., O’Connor v. Donaldson, 422 U.S. 563, 576 (1975); Winterwerp v. Netherlands, A. 33 Eur. Ct. H.R. (1979).
174 E.g., Int’l Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310, 316 (1945); Guardianship of Doe, 583 N.E.2d 1263, 1268 (Mass. 1992); id. at 1272–73 (Nolan, J., dissenting); id. at 1275 (O’Connor, J., dissenting); Tauza v. Susquehanna Coal Co., 115 N.E. 915, 917 (N.Y. 1917); Pramatha Nath Mullick v. Pradyumna Kumar Mullick, 52 I.L.R. 245, 250 (1925); see Pound, supra note 83, at 195, 197, 198.
175 Gray, supra note 85, at 43.
176 Jeremy Bentham, The Elements of the Art of Packing as Applied to Special Juries, Particularly in Cases of Libel Law, in 5 The Works of Jeremy Bentham 92 (John Bowring ed., 1962).
177 See Christopher Cherniak, Minimal Rationality 3–17 (1985); James Rachels, Created From Animals 140, 147 (1990); Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights 84–85 (1983); William A. Wright, Treating Animals as Ends, 27 J. Value Inquiry 353, 357, 362 (1993).
178 Wise, supra note 2, at 247.
179 5 Oxford English Dictionary, supra note 65, at 269–70 (definitions A.I.1.a & b; A.I.2.a, b, & c).
180 See also Wise, supra note 2, at 82–87, 251–54.
181 Hutchins, supra note 53, at 856.
182 William H. Shaw, Costs and Benefits of Inflicting Pain, 414 Nature 396, 396 (2001) (reviewing Tom Regan, Defending Animal Rights (2001) & Ellen Frankel Paul & Jeffrey Paul, Why Animal Experimentation Matters: The Use of Animals in Medical Research (2001)).
183 Hutchins, supra note 53, at 856.
184 Id. at 856.
185 Id.; see also supra note 57 and accompanying text.
186 Communication from Professor Barbara J. King (Nov. 25, 2001).
187 Communication from Rob Shumaker (May 12, 2001).
188 Michael Hutchins & Christen Wemmer, Wildlife Conservation and Animal Rights: Are They Compatible?, in Advances in Animal Welfare Science 1986/87, at 112 (Michael W. Fox & Linda D. Mickley eds., 1987).
189 See id.
190 Hutchins, supra note 53, at 857. See Hutchins & Wemmer, supra note 188, at 128.
191 Hutchins, supra note 53, at 857.
192 See generally The Animal Rights/Environmental Ethics Debate—The Environmental Perspective (Eugene C. Hargrove ed., 1992).
193 Hutchins, supra note 53, at 129.
194 Id. at 857.
195 Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia 39 (1974).
196 See id.
197 Wise, supra note 111, at 888–90.
198 Hutchins & Wemmer, supra note 188, at 129 (citations omitted).
199 Damon Linker, Rights for Rodents, Comment., Apr. 2001, at 41, 43.
200 Hutchins, supra note 53, at 856.
201 Nussbaum, supra note 4, at 1548 (citations omitted).
202 Posner, supra note 1, at 532. Conservationist Michael Hutchins, whose views on the complexities of the judicial system should probably be taken with the seriousness of Judge Posner’s views, if any, on the complexities of conservation, insists “[o]ne of the most cogent arguments against ‘legal personhood’ for nonhuman animals is that it could plunge our judicial system into chaos.” Hutchins, supra note 53, at 857. It is hard to imagine how granting basic legal rights to three thousand chimpanzees and bonobos, at least, could plunge the American judicial system into chaos.
203 The same is true for those who argue that if nonhuman animals get legal rights, we will be morally obligated to keep the peace in the animal kingdom. See Linker, supra note 46, at 10; Epstein, supra note 58, at 37.
204 Harold Holzer, Introduction to The Lincoln-Douglas Debates 1–3 (Harold Holzer ed., 1993).
205 See The Fifth Joint Debate at Galesburg (Oct. 7, 1858), in The Lincoln-Douglas Debates 246 (Harold Holzer ed., 1993); The Sixth Joint Debate at Quincy (Oct. 13, 1858), in The Lincoln-Douglas Debates, supra note 205, at 300.
206 J.G. Randall, Lincoln and the South 33 (1946).
207 The Fifth Joint Debate, in The Lincoln-Douglas Debates, supra note 205, at 248.
208 David Herbert Donald, Lincoln 221 (1995).
209 Id.; see David Zarefsky, Lincoln, Douglas, and Slavery—In the Crucible of Public Debate 149 (1990); The Sixth Joint Debate, in The Lincoln-Douglas Debates, supra note 205, at 290.
210 See Zarefsky, supra note 209, at 53.
211 See id.
212 See David M. Potter, The Impending Crisis—1848–1861, at 346 (1976).
213 See id.
214 The Fourth Joint Debate at Charleston (Sept. 18, 1858), in The Lincoln-Douglas Debates, supra note 205, at 189.
215 The Sixth Joint Debate, in The Lincoln-Douglas Debates, supra note 205, at 284.
216 Zarefsky, supra note 209, at 243.
217 Id.
218 Potter, supra note 212, at 346; Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg—The Words that Remade America 97 (1992); Zarefsky, supra note 209, at 34–35, 60–61, 193–94; see The First Joint Debate at Ottawa (Aug. 21, 1858), in The Lincoln-Douglas Debates, supra note 205, at 63; The Fourth Joint Debate, supra note 205, at 189; The Sixth Joint Debate, supra note 205, at 284.
219 Nussbaum, supra note 4, at 1548 (citations omitted).
220 Posner, supra note 1, at 539.
221 Id.
222 See Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497, 497 (1954); Brown v. Bd. of Educ., 347 U.S. 483, 483 (1954).
223 Wise, supra note 2, at 260; see Bolling, 347 U.S. at 500; Brown, 347 U.S. at 495; Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, 548, 550–51 (1896). Between Brown and Bolling, the Justices unanimously held that segregated schools violated both the liberty rights and equality rights of black children. See Bolling, 347 U.S. at 500; Brown, 347 U.S. at 495.
224 Norway Plains Co. v. Boston & Me. R.R., 67 Mass. (1 Gray) 263, 267 (1854).
225 98 Eng. Rep. 499, 510 (K.B. 1772).
226 See Wise, supra note 2, at 94–100.
227 See id. at 94–95.
228 Id. at 95–97.
229 Id. at 96.
230 See id. at 97.
231 See Wise, supra note 2, at 97.
232 Id.
233 Id. at 99.
234 Id. at 99–100.
235 See Warren Hoge, Lord Denning, 100, A Populist Who Enlivened British Courts, N.Y. Times, Mar. 6, 1999, at A11.
236 Id.
237 Posner, supra note 1, at 533.
238 Byrn v. N.Y. City Health & Hosp. Corp., 335 N.Y.S.2d 390, 393 (1972).
239 Id. at 397 (Burke, J., dissenting).
240 See, e.g., Richard A. Posner, The Problems of Jurisprudence 353–92 (1990) [hereinafter The Problems of Jurisprudence]. See generally Richard A. Posner, Economic Analysis of Law (3d ed. 1986).
241 The Problems of Jurisprudence, supra note 240, at 361.
242 Id. at 376–77.
243 Posner, supra note 1, at 537. Judge Posner says he does not seek to defend the humanocentric approach, but to explain it “because it is the approach most likely to recommend itself to most people in wealthy, basically secular societies, such as the present-day United States.” Id.
244 The Problems of Jurisprudence, supra note 240, at 377.
245 Id. at 379.
246 Id. at 378.
247 See id. at 379–80.
248 Posner, supra note 1, at 539.
249 Id.
250 Elizabeth Anderson, Value in Ethics and Economics 71 (1993).
251 USDA, Livestock Slaughter 2000 Summary 1 (2000). This includes 41.7 million cattle and calves, 115.2 million pigs, 4.3 million sheep and lambs, 8.792 billion ‘broiler’ chickens, 429.7 million laying hens, 304 million turkeys, and 26.1 million ducks, for a total of 9.713 billion nonhuman animals.
252 Nozick, supra note 195, at 39. Here I rebut Professor Epstein’s unusual claim that animal rights activists often deny that human beings benefit from their current use (and abuse) of animals. See Epstein, supra note 58, at 34. Slave-owners always benefit from the use (and abuse) of slaves.
253 Steven M. Wise, Recovery of Common Law Damages for Emotional Distress, Loss of Society, and Loss of Companionship for the Wrongful Death of a Companion Animal, 4 Animal L. 33, 44–50 (1998).
254 See id. at 67–68.
255 Wise, supra note 2, at 270.
256 Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld, Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning 64 (Walter Wheeler Cook ed., 1919); see W.L. Morison, John Austin 164–65 (1982); Walter J. Kamba, Legal Theory and Hohfeld’s Analysis of a Legal Right, Jurid. Rev. 249, 249 (1974); Joseph William Singer, The Legal Rights Debate in Analytical Jurisprudence from Bentham to Hohfeld, 1982 Wis. L. Rev. 975, 989 n.22 (1982).
257 Wise, supra note 111, at 800–01; see Wise, supra note 2, at 53–61.
258 See Sumner, supra note 152, at 19–20; Wise, supra note 2, at 53.
259 See David Lyons, The Correlativity of Rights and Duties, 4 No�s 45–46 (1970).
260 See Wise, supra note 111, at 799–822 (discussing Hohfeld’s system of rights).
261 Rex Martin, A System of Rights 30 (1993).
262 See id.
263 See id.
264 Hohfeld, supra note 256, at 38–39.
265 See Frans de Waal, Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals 215 (1996); D. Balasubramanian, Are Animals Persons?, The Hindu, Dec. 7, 2000, available at http://www.indiaserver.com:80/thehindu/2000/12/07/ stories/08070007.htm; Frans de Waal, Editorial, We the People (and Other Animals) . . . , N.Y. Times, Aug. 20, 1999, at A21; Hutchins, supra note 53, at 856; Linker, supra note 199, at 43; Malik, supra note 106, at 675–76.
266 See, e.g., Hart, supra note 166, at 171, 191–92, 196–97.
267 Wise, supra note 2, at 57.
268 See Virani v. Jerry M. Lewis Truck Parts & Equip., Inc., 89 F.3d 574, 578 (9th Cir. 1996) (quoting Judith Jarvis Thomson, The Realm of Rights 59 (1990)); P.J. Fitzgerald, Salmond on Jurisprudence 229–30 (12th ed. 1966).
269 I implied, however, that they should have these rights. Wise, supra note 2, at 59–60.
270 Kamba, supra note 256, at 257.
271 Sumner, supra note 152, at 37–38.
272 United States v. Choctaw Nation, 38 Ct. Cl. 558, 566 (1903), aff’d, 193 U.S. 115 (1903); see Martin, supra note 261, at 30.
273 Wise, supra note 2, at 56–57, 59–60.
274 See id. at 59.
275 See id.
276 H.L.A. Hart, Bentham on Legal Rights, in Oxford Essays in Jurisprudence 171, 197, 198 (A.W.B. Simpson ed., 1973); see Wellman, supra note 166, at 113.
277 Wellman, supra note 166, at 113–14; see, e.g., Malik, supra note 106, at 676.
278 Malik, supra note 106, at 676.
279 Rachels, supra note 177, at 187.
280 Tribe, supra note 108, at 1527–28, 1589.
281 See, e.g., Wittmer v. Peters, 87 F.3d 916, 918 (7th Cir. 1996); Tribe, supra note 108, at 1523.
282 Sam Howe Verhovek, In Poll, Americans Reject Means But Not Ends of Racial Diversity, N.Y. Times, Dec. 16, 1997, at A1.
283 Tribe, supra note 75, at 6.
284 See Tribe, supra note 108, at 1451–54, 1463–65, 1514–21.
285 Marc D. Hauser, Wild Minds—What Animals Really Think 159 (2000).
286 Irene Pepperberg, The Alex Studies—Cognitive and Communicative Abilities of Grey Parrots 184 (1999).
287 Tribe, supra note 108, at 1589–90.
288 Wise, supra note 111, at 897.
289 Eric Rakowski, Equal Justice 359 (1991).
290 See Joel Feinberg, Potentiality, Development, and Rights, in The Problem of Abortion 145 (Joel Feinberg ed., 2d ed., Wadsworth Publishing 1984).
291 Id. at 145; see H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr., The Foundations of Bioethics 143 (1986).
292 Stanley I. Benn, Abortion, Infanticide, and Respect for Persons, in The Problem of Abortion, supra note 290, at 143.
293 See Jeffrey Reiman, Abortion and the Ways We Value Human Life 63–64 (1999).
294 See In re Farmers Mkts., Inc., 792 F.2d 1400, 1403 (9th Cir. 1986); Standard Oil Co. v. Clark, 163 F.2d 917, 930 (2d Cir. 1947); Douglas v. E. & J. Gallo Winery, 137 Cal. Rptr. 797, 801 n.7 (Cal. Ct. App. 1977); Sumner, supra note 152, at 48; Wellman, supra note 166, at 7–8, 81, 108–09; Jeremy Waldron, Introduction to Theories of Rights 8 (Jeremy Waldron ed., 1984).
295 Sumner, supra note 152, at 19.
296 John Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights 200–01 (1980).
297 Sumner, supra note 152, at 48; see Wellman, supra note 166, at 7–8.
298 Hart, supra note 276, at 180.
299 Wise, supra note 2, at 59; see Somerset, 98 Eng. Rep. at 510.
300 Wise, supra note 2, at 236.
301 Verchick, supra note 103, at 222.
302 See Wise, supra note 2, at 239–65. I did not argue, as some have written, that chimpanzees and bonobos are entitled to constitutional rights. But see, e.g., Posner, supra note 1, at 531, 539.
303 Posner, supra note 1, at 539.
304 Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 766 (9th ed. 1991).
305 Nussbaum, supra note 4, at 1547.
306 Conrad, supra note 97, at 231.
307 Stansky, supra note 11, at 95.
308 Verchick, supra note 103, at 221–22.
309 Id. at 222.
310 Id. at 224.
311 Id. at 222 (quoting Patricia J. Williams, Alchemical Notes: Reconstructing Ideals from Deconstructed Rights, 22 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 401, 424 (1987)).
312 Id.
313 Tribe, supra note 75, at 3.
314 Nussbaum, supra note 4, at 1547 n.151 (citations omitted).
315 Cass R. Sunstein, The Chimps’ Day in Court: A Lawyer Argues that Animals Should Have Legal Rights, N.Y. Times, Feb. 20, 2000 (Book Review), at 26.
316 Id.
317 Id.
318 Cass R. Sunstein, Standing for Animals, 47 UCLA L. Rev. 1333, 1335 (2000).
319 Id. at 1335 n.9.
320 Id. at 1336.
321 Id. at 1337 n.16.
322 See id. at 1365.
323 Sunstein, supra note 318, at 1363.
324 Id. at 1335.
325 Id. at 1361.
326 See Higginbotham & Higginbotham, supra note 88, at 1234–35.
327 See id.
328 See A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., In the Matter of Color—Race and the American Legal Process: The Colonial Period 194–95, 252–53 (1978); Higginbotham & Higginbotham, supra note 88, at 1235 n.125.
329 See Higginbotham & Higginbotham, supra note 88, at 1234.
330 Id. at 1234–36 (discussing the Virginia Freedom Suit Act of 1795); Higginbotham, supra note 328, at 194–95 (South Carolina), 252–53 (Georgia); see Peter, 1848 WL 2754, at *1; Coleman v. Dick & Pat, 3 Va. (1 Wash) 233, available at 1793 WL 378, *5 (Va. 1793); Shaw, supra note 78, at 110 (“Briefly, and for the purpose of the trial, he could assume the guise of a free man.”).
331 Scott v. Emerson, 15 Mo. 387, 395 (1852).
332 16 U.S.C. � 1532 (16) (2000).
333 Note, What We Talk About When We Talk About Persons, 114 Harv. L. Rev. 1745, 1746 (2001).
334 Id. at 1746, 1762.
335 Arthur L. Corbin, Legal Analysis and Terminology, 29 Yale L.J. 163, 165 (1919–20); Kamba, supra note 256, at 251.
336 Louis Henkin, The Age of Rights 38 (1990).
337 See Cass R. Sunstein, On the Expressive Function of Law, 144 U. Pa. L. Rev. 2021, 2044–48 (1996).
338 Posner, supra note 1, at 538; see Shaw, supra note 78, at 160.
339 Tribe, supra note 75, at 3.
340 Id.
341 Id. at 3–4.
342 Id. at 4. The case was First National Bank v. Bellotti, 435 U.S. 765 (1978).
343 Tribe, supra note 75, at 4 (quoting U.S. Const. amend. XIII).
344 Tribe, supra note 75, at 108.
345 See 410 U.S. 113, 159–62 (1973).
346 See id.
347 See id. at 164–65.
348 See Witty v. Am. Gen. Capital Distrib., Inc., 727 S.W.2d 503, 504–06 (Tex. 1987).
349 Id. at 506.
350 See id.
351 Davis v. Davis, 842 S.W.2d 588, 597 (Tenn. 1992). “It follows that any interest that [the parties] have in the preembryos . . . is not a true property interest.” Id. at 597; cf. La. Rev. Stat. Ann. � 9:123 (West 2000) (“An in vitro fertilized human ovum exists as a juridical person until such time as the in vitro fertilized ovum is implanted in the womb; or at any other time when rights attach to an unborn child in accordance with law.”); id. at � 9:124 (an in vitro fertilized human ovum has the right to sue and be sued); id. at � 9:126 (allowing a court to appoint a curator “to protect the in vitro fertilized human ovum’s rights”); id at � 9:129 (forbidding the intentional destruction of an in vitro fertilized human ovum).
352 Davis, 842 S.W.2d at 597.
353 Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651, 668–69 (1977).
354 U.S. Const. amend. XIII.
355 83 U.S. 36, 69 (1872) (emphasis added).
356 Hodges v. United States, 203 U.S. 1, 17 (1906) (emphasis added).
357 Wilson v. Sandstrom, 317 So. 2d 732, 738 (Fla. 1975).
358 Abraham Lincoln, State of the Union Address (Dec. 1, 1862), in 5 Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln 537 (Roy P. Basler ed., 1953).
359 Tribe, supra note 75, at 5.
360 Henkin, supra note 336, at 183–88.
361 See Davis, supra note 81, at 82–101; Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death—A Comparative Study 40–41, 117 (1982).
362 Patterson, supra note 361, at 117; Ronald Segal, Islam’s Black Slaves—the Other Black Diaspora 1–12 (2001); Thomas, supra note 134, at 37–39; see Davis, supra note 81, at 22.
363 See Thomas, supra note 134, at 29–31.
364 Thornton Stringfellow, Scriptural and Statistical Views in Favor of Slavery 105 (1856); see Thornton Stringfellow, The Bible Argument, or, Slavery in the Light of Divine Revelation, in Cotton is King and Pro-slavery Arguments 462 (1860).
365 Davis, supra note 81, at 112.
366 E.g., Nancy Tuana, The Less Noble Sex—Scientific, Religious, and Philosophical Conceptions of Woman’s Nature 10–14, 157–59 (1993).
367 1 Gratian, Decretum, col. 1254.
368 Anonymous, The Lawes Resolutions of Women’s Rights: Or, the Lawes Provisions for Women 125 (1632); see Eleanor Flexner, Century of Struggle: The Woman’s Rights Movement in the United States 7–8 (1996).
369 Ronald Dworkin, Life’s Dominion—An Argument About Abortion, Euthenasia, and Individual Freedom 35, 36 (1993).
370 Lynn White, The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis, 155 Sci. 1204, 1204 (1967); see also Roderick Frazier Nash, The Rights of Nature—A History of Environmental Ethics 88–96 (1989) (discussing White’s essay).
371 See supra note 12 and accompanying text.
372 Waldau, supra note 127, at 200.
373 Id. at 200–01.
374 See generally id. at 189–96, 205–06.
375 Xavier Bosch, Vatican Approves Use of Animal Transplants ‘to Benefit Humans,’ 413 Nature 445, 445 (2001).
376 Archbishop Monsignor Elio Sgreccia et al., Church Backing Depends on Ethical Use of Animals, 414 Nature 687, 687 (2001).
377 Catechism of the Catholic Church para. 2415 (2d ed. 1994).
378 Waldau, supra note 127, at 216. The Judeo-Christian tradition does not stand alone. Professor Waldau explores Buddhist attitudes toward nonhuman animals. While not speciesist to the degree of the Christian tradition, the Buddhist traditon is also hierarchical and accepts uses of nonhuman animals that harm them. Id. at 113–15.
379 Gordon G. Gallup, Jr., Chimpanzees: Self-recognition, 167 Sci. 86 (1970).
380 Id.
381 See Michael Tomasello & Josep Call, Primate Cognition 68–69 (1997) (explaining how certain animals engage in symbolic play); Bernd Heinrich, Testing Insight in Ravens, in The Evolution of Cognition 289, 300–01 (Cecilia Heyes & Ludwig Huber eds., 2000); Sandra T. deBlois et al., Object Permanence in Orangutans (Pongo Pygmaeus) and Squirrel Monkeys (Saimiri Sciureus), 112 J. Comp. Psychol. 137, 148 (1998).
382 Bernd Heinrich, The Mind of the Raven—Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds 337 (1999).
383 Naomi Roht-Arriaza, Precaution, Participation, and the “Greening” of International Trade Law, 7 J. Envtl. L. & Litig. 57, 60 (1992).
384 Id.
385 Ellen Hey, The Precautionary Concept in Environmental Policy and Law: Institutionalizing Caution, 4 Geo. Int’l Envtl. L. Rev. 303, 311 (1992).
386 Charmian Barton, The Status of the Precautionary Principle in Australia: Its Emergence in Legislation and as a Common Law Doctrine, 12 Harv. Envtl. L. Rev. 509, 513 (1998) (quoting Daniel Bodansky, Scientific Uncertainty and the Precautionary Principle, 33 Env’t 4, 4 (1991)).
387 Alan Gewirth, Reason and Morality 111, 121 (1978); Wellman, supra note 166, at 129.
388 Wellman, supra note 166, at 130–31.
389 Henry Beston, The Outermost House 25 (1967).
390 Stuart Sutherland, The International Dictionary of Psychology 211 (1989).
391 Heinrich, supra note 381, at 327.
392 Diana Reiss, The Dolphin: An Alien Intelligence, in First Contact—The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence 31 (Ben Bova & Bryon Press eds., 1990).
393 Id. at 39.
394 Thomas Nagel, What is it Like to Be a Bat?, 83 Phil. Rev. 435, 438 (1974), reprinted in The Nature of Consciousness—Philosophical Debates 519, 520 (Ned Block et al. eds., 1997).
395 Id. at 520–21.
396 See de Waal, supra note 265, at 64–65 (1996); Frans de Waal, Foreword to Anthropomorphism, Anecdotes, and Animals, at xiii, xiv (Robert W. Mitchell et al. eds., 1997) (“[I]f closely related species act the same, the underlying mental processes are probably the same, too.”); Frans de Waal, The Chimpanzee’s Sense of Social Regularity and Its Relation to the Human Sense of Justice, 34 Am. Behav. Scientist 335, 341 (1991) (“[S]trong arguments would have to be furnished before we would accept that similar behaviors in related species are differently motivated.”).
397 Georgia J. Mason et al., Frustrations of Fur-Farmed Mink, 410 Nature 35, 35–36 (2001).
398 Joyce Poole, Coming of Age with Elephants 120–21 (1996).
399 Id.
400 Id. at 121, 126.
401 Id. at 121.
402 Harry F. Harlow, The Evolution of Learning, in Behavior and Evolution 269, 269 (Anne Roe & George Gaylord Simpson eds., 1958).
403 Harry J. Jerison, The Perceptual Worlds of Dolphins, in Dolphin Cognition and Behavior: A Comparative Approach 141, 148 (Ronald J. Schusterman et al. eds., 1986).
404 Id. at 148–49.