the Iberian Peninsula, if we stick to two events that have taken place on the aforementioned date. On the one hand, the famous "carnation revolution" that ended fifty years of Salazarist dictatorship in Portugal, and incidentally an endless and painful decolonization for the neighboring country in its African possessions. The other twenty-fifth of April of a revolutionary nature takes place thirty-two years later, when one of the political groups represented in the Lower House, this time in Spain, presents a Non-Legislative Proposal for the approval of one of the most audacious initiatives in terms of moral progress: the Great Ape Project. This is a theoretical proposal launched by two renowned philosophers in 1993, and whose purpose is that all Great Apes enjoy the same basic rights, understanding these as those concerning life and physical and emotional integrity. Five are the species that make up the group referred to, and each and every one of the readers of these lines belongs to one of them. Well yes, what are we going to do, we are humans, and therefore monkeys, "great apes" to be more precise, and our zoological group companions are orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos. This is neither good nor bad, but a scientific evidence on which no moral conjectures can be made. It is so and period.
The question is that the thorough studies carried out to date continue to shed more and more light on the phylogenetic relationship that unites all the members of this exclusive club, a similarity that in some cases, such as that of chimpanzees, exceeds 99%. This is no joke. And it is not to such an extent that, with the data in hand, certain moral theories that we believed until now to be solid as rocks, are already shaking like leaves. The dilemma is served. Can we allow the destruction of the orangutans' home in Borneo without doing anything, while we assume the right to decent housing for human monkeys as a social achievement worthy of praise? Is it consistent to prohibit medical experiments on men, women and children, while allowing it on bonobos? Are we equal, and if so, in what aspects and degrees?
We are undoubtedly facing a second stage of the moral revolution that Charles Darwin began back in the mid-nineteenth century, and which provoked all sorts of satirical criticism around the thesis according to which we not only descend from monkeys, but are in fact one more monkey. The cartoons in the newspapers then became a platform for judges, and the illustrators of the time made their August at the expense of the famous theory of the English naturalist that time and science have ended up turning into a clear reality. Even some of those ridicule drawings still preside over the label of a certain traditional alcoholic beverage with great popular roots in our country.
In view of what has just happened on this occasion, it would seem that few things have changed in our mentality over the last two centuries. Or certainly far fewer than our arrogance pretends to demonstrate. Because the socialist initiative has opened the floodgates for a whole cohort of paid thinkers, without the slightest rigor or information (one thing leads to another), to launch themselves to pour out their criticisms, either establishing a crude comparison between monkeys and the politician on duty, or taking out of the hat (which not of what he usually intends to cover) all sorts of jokes and supposed witticisms, of such low quality that they barely have a place in the internal market of "unconditional". But the thing could remain in simple anecdote if it were not for the circumstance that in the field of the most elaborate argumentation -which there is- the thing does not improve, and the worrying thing is that it should do so if we want to make ourselves worthy of the shiny label of "rational" with which we so frequently give ourselves to the ears. Making an effort to synthesize the arguments used by the detractors of the initiative, I think that two of them can be identified above any others.
The first refers to the alleged impropriety of granting human rights to individuals who are not. Impropriety that we fully assume from our association. So much so, that nobody, as far as we know, has proposed such a thing. Orangutans do not need "human rights", but rather "orangutanian rights". It is quite different that some (such as those mentioned above to life and integrity) coincide, but such a fact derives only from the also coincident nature that characterizes humans and orangutans: both possess a similar capacity to suffer physical pain and to experience intense psychological suffering. And it is at this point where the dilemma reaches its peak. Because you will tell me how we reconcile identical sufferings with different moral considerations. Are we willing to accept a harmful fact proscribing it if the victim is human and at the same time show indifference for the sole fact that the protagonist belongs to another species? Does this scenario not fall fully into the field of arbitrary discrimination? What substantial difference exists between discriminating humans on the basis of their race, gender or sexual orientation and doing so with other individuals for reasons of species? Known is the extraordinary difficulty of overcoming mentalities forged over millennia, of tearing down ideologies that weigh like slabs, for better and for worse. But that is precisely the challenge, to be able to overcome mistakes and incorporate into our reality novelties that make this world a better place for an increasing number of beneficiaries.
And with this we go to the second question adduced by the detractors. The hackneyed and yet unfortunately efficient argument of "us first". Following this simplistic thinking, it is assumed that the human community should not do anything for anyone (with the exception of ourselves) until each and every one of the problems that haunt us have been definitively overcome. But such a claim is selfish as few, especially considering that the central problem of chimpanzee monkeys and all other "great ape" species are human monkeys. Trying to leave their misfortunes parked until we solve our misfortunes is like trying to silence the mouths of abused women arguing that "men come first", with the aggravating circumstance that they are precisely the perpetrators of those. It takes large doses of bad faith for someone who attacks an innocent person to then tell him that he must wait for him to solve his problems before proceeding to attend to his wounds.
Well, that's how things are. It seemed that the current political legislature, and in terms of achievements of a moral nature, had reached its peak with the police stations specialized in domestic violence and the civil rights granted to homosexuals. But everything points to the fact that this exciting stage can still give a lot of play, taking into account that we have barely passed the equator of it.
I end by recovering the capricious initial connection with the dates. If bloodless -or almost- was the first, the second intends to be more so, given its essentially protective roots and characteristics and oriented in any case to guarantee the welfare of innocents. In the end, and no matter how you look at it, the granting of rights to communities that until then were denied them is a matter of simple and plain generosity. Nothing more. And nothing less.
Kepa Tamames
ATEA (Association for Ethical Treatment of Animals)
