Animal Wrongs and Rights - Antennae The Journal of Nature in ...

journeys. At present we do not have sufficient
evidence on which to base the claim to which you
refer. As I indicated in my answer to the previous
question, I am talking about the kind of personal
interest that requires self-awareness. It is not a
matter of mere biological function.
Aloi: In 1993, you became the moving force
behind the Great Ape Project (GAP). The
project’s main goal was that of obtaining a
United Nations declaration that apes,
chimpanzees, bonobos, and orangutans are
members with human beings in the "community
of equals.” What are the challenges the project
has encountered thus far and what have been
its most relevant steps forward?
Singer: Paola Cavalieri and I were the co-editors of
the book The Great Ape Project and co-founders of
the organization, so we played equal roles in it. The
main challenge we faced was, of course,
speciesism. No legal system, and no UN
Declaration, has ever recognized nonhuman beings
as having a similar moral or legal status to humans.
In addition, even though people in industrialized
nations do not think of great apes as sources of
food, chimpanzees have been used in medical
research, and there is some resistance from the
scientists who conduct such experiments.
Fortunately, in other quarters, the idea that
great apes should not be treated as tools for
research has made some progress since 1993.
Experiments on great apes are now either banned
or severely restricted in New Zealand, Australia,
Japan, and throughout the European Union. In the
United States, at the time of writing, a bipartisan
group of members of Congress is supporting
legislation to end the use of chimpanzees in
invasive research. I hope this will succeed.
Aloi: A follow up to In Defence of Animals, titled
In Defence of Animals: The Second Wave, was
published in 2005. What prompted you to edit
this book?
Singer: I did so because In Defence of Animals
had appeared in 1984 and the essays in it set out
the ideas and strategies of the first phase of the
movement. Twenty years later, much had changed,
and I wanted to present the ideas and strategies of
the contemporary movement.
Aloi: In 2007, you gave a talk at the Getty
Centre on the subject of animal representation
in art. What brought you to consider the subject
of animals in art? In this talk you extensively
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Peter Singer & Paola Cavalieri
The Great Ape Project, 1993
dwelled on a painting by Oudry of Clara the
rhinoceros questioning the artist’s level of
empathy with the animal portrayed. What is your
take on the treatment of animals in
contemporary art by artists like Abdle
Abdessemed or Huang Yo Ping?
Singer: The Getty Museum invited me to give a
lecture that coincided with an exhibition they were
having of Oudry and his contemporaries. I saw this
as an opportunity for my views about the ethics of
how we treat animals to reach a wider audience
(the same reason that led me to agree to answer
your questions), and most of my talk sought to set
the context for Oudry’s paintings by describing
Western attitudes to animals. I also explained what
was wrong with those attitudes. But I am no expert
on animals in art, and I am not familiar enough with
the work of the artists you mention to comment on
it.
Aloi: In the 2007 talk, the ideas of
empathy/sympathy for animals, as reflected by