"Dolphins are people too," say Scientists

[Patticus]

"Man [has] always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars, and so on - while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man - for precisely the same reason." - Douglas Adams

Dolphins should be treated as non-human "persons", with their rights to life and liberty respected, scientists meeting in Canada have been told.

Experts in philosophy, conservation and animal behaviour want support for a Declaration of Rights for Cetaceans.

They believe dolphins and whales are sufficiently intelligent to justify the same ethical considerations as humans.

Recognising their rights would mean an end to whaling and their captivity, or their use in entertainment.

The move was made at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Vancouver, Canada, the world's biggest science conference.

It is based on years of research that has shown dolphins and whales have large, complex brains and a human-like level of self-awareness.

This has led the experts to conclude that although non-human, dolphins and whales are "people" in a philosophical sense, which has far-reaching implications.

'Self-aware'

Ethics expert Prof Tom White, from Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, author of In Defence of Dolphins: The New Moral Frontier, said dolphins were "non-human persons".

"A person needs to be an individual. If individuals count, then the deliberate killing of individuals of this sort is ethically the equivalent of deliberately killing a human being.

"We're saying the science has shown that individuality - consciousness, self-awareness - is no longer a unique human property. That poses all kinds of challenges."

The declaration, originally agreed in May 2010, contains the statements "every individual cetacean has the right to life", "no cetacean should be held in captivity or servitude, be subject to cruel treatment, or be removed from their natural environment", and "no cetacean is the property of any state, corporation, human group or individual".

It adds: "The rights, freedoms and norms set forth in this declaration should be protected under international and domestic law."

Psychologist Dr Lori Marino, from Emory University in Atlanta, told how scientific advances had changed the view of the cetacean brain.

She said: "We went from seeing the dolphin/whale brain as being a giant amorphous blob that doesn't carry a lot of intelligence and complexity to not only being an enormous brain but an enormous brain with an enormous amount of complexity, and a complexity that rivals our own."

Dolphins had a sense of self which could be tested by the way they recognise themselves in mirrors, she added.

"When you get up in the morning and look in the mirror and know that's you, you have a sense of 'you'," said Dr Marino.

"They have a similar sense. They can look in a mirror and say, 'Hey, that's me'."

http://www.bbc.co.uk.../world-17116882

It's certainly a very interesting viewpoint. Scientists are saying that Dolphins and Whales have demonstrated a similar level of self-awareness to that of humans in some cases, and that they should be granted 'people' status and granted all the rights afforded to creatures with that status. Basically, it would mean that no more dolphins/whales could be held in captivity, and it would become a much more serious crime to hunt them (just as serious as if I were to go hunting people of a different ethnicity to myself). One has to wonder, however, how Norway and Japan would react if other countries suddenly started granting Cetaceans almost human levels of legal rights.

Remember, it isn't just animal rights activists saying this, these are people who actually know what they're talking about. Scientists with years of research to back up their viewpoint and now presenting their view at the largest science convention in the world.

[Tornado]

Already posted in the PETA thread, as an FYI.

Edited February 23, 2012 by Gilda

[JezMM]

Probably will come as no surprise that this is very fascinating to me. The co-operation between the whales and fisherman in particular is amazing. There are so few animals that show off such foresight and partially selfless behaviour.

[Patticus]

Already posted in the PETA thread, as an FYI.

Edited February 23, 2012 by Patticus

[PSI Wind]

Hehe, nice quote, Patt. Love the Hitchhicker series.

[Old dead account]

Dolphins representin'! I wonder how long until we can actually get technology that let us hold a conversation with them.

[Tori Himemiya]

Ehhh... I suppose its nice to see something else intelligent in nature but no one else is giving other animals any rights like this like say primates or corvids (I swear they're the smartest group of birds) but its an oh well.

Honestly I wouldn't trust a dolphin. They may look cute but they are the jackasses of the sea. Ask a shark about it.

[Your Vest Friend]

(I swear they're the smartest group of birds)

Pretty sure scientific evidence has confirmed this several times by now.

Honestly I wouldn't trust a dolphin. They may look cute but they are the jackasses of the sea. Ask a shark about it.

Jackass seems a very light term for a gang rapist/murderer.

[Amomynous]

Let me note that I think that the concepts of 'personhood' and 'rights' are highly flawed ones, it's useful for law, since law works in 'black and white' (it has to so it can establish order, it's highly flawed but it's the best we can do.) and requires 'black and white' concepts like 'rights' and 'personhood'.

Dolphins do not come under law, if they are given rights, they are placed under law and have to be held accountable under our laws.

Outside the law, I think concepts of personhood and rights are quite useless, in nature there is no such thing as a 'person' and putting a line between what animals are 'beasts' and which animals are 'people' is just as innacurate as designating every colour on the spectrum to be either 'black' or 'white', and that's putting it lightly, becuase black and white actually exist, we're all animals in the end.

It just seems logical that in reality some lives are more important than others. This falls in a spectrum, not in designated catagories,and we are not good judges of this, that said, it seems dolphins have some sort of kinship to us through likenesses that even fellow apes don't seem to share, and they should be respected for that fact.

Edited February 23, 2012 by Mysterics

[Solkia]

Does this mean I can marry a dolphin with out being criticized?

MY DREAM HAS COME TRUE.

[Stacy]

THOSE BASTARDS NUKE 'EM.

Seriously, I don't think they should be classed as 'people' but yes they should be protected more so that they don't become are new overlords.

[Chaos Warp]

They should definitely be protected more, because they are quite human-like in a lot of ways. Not all the way to the extent of humans though, I think they still qualify as animals.

[Starman Swift]

Well that's certainly more professional than bringing them to court.

Dolphins being near-human I expected. I didn't expect whales to be included. They have been in trouble for a while due to hunting and poaching though, so I suppose this will help them out a little more. The experts don't seem to be asking for too much right now, either, just higher protectionism for some of the more intelligent creatures on our planet. I'm fine with that.

[SuperStingray]

Not that dolphins aren't intelligent, but if they're smart enough to deserve involvement in our legal system, why don't they already have one of their own? If that Declaration of Rights for Cetaceans is put into play, how many dolphin diplomats would be there to read it and approve it? If a dolphin kills a human, would they receive a sentence at least similar to the human's in the reciprocal scenario? And how many dolphins would be on the jury? Not that I don't think dolphins deserve protection from human actions and byproducts in their ecosystem or general carelessness and cruelty towards them, but evidence of intelligence and self-awareness alone isn't enough to merit quasi-equal coverage by our law, in my opinion; if it was, then we could grant the same rights to any machine that passes the Turing Test.

Edited February 23, 2012 by SuperStingray

[Emmett L. Brown]

Considering that dolphins have been known to rape and kill members of their own species at the drop of a hat, I have to agree with this article. That does sound a lot like people. We're not always nice, and having free will seperate from overriding instinctive responses doesn't always mean we do nice things.

Yes, I know I'm Norwegian, but I'm not happy about the whale hunting thing. I think of them like elephants, which are also too intelligent for me too feel comfortable about eating.

[Patticus]

Not that dolphins aren't intelligent, but if they're smart enough to deserve involvement in our legal system, why don't they already have one of their own?

[TheGerkuman]

So basically the scientists want to elevate the position of Cretaceans above the other animals but below humans because of their intelegence?

I dunno, I just don't see them reaching that far yet. I don't see the gorillas get this sort of special treatment.

[Cola]

I KNEW IT

THANK YOU HITCH-HIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY

No, but seriously, this is pretty cool!

[Patticus]

So basically the scientists want to elevate the position of Cretaceans above the other animals but below humans because of their intelegence?

It's self awareness, which is completely different to intelligence.

[Noir]

Every single time the prospect of a species besides humans being considered "people" comes up, I think of the Mulefa from His Dark Materials. I think Pullman did a really fantastic job of painting what it means to be a person through Mary's descriptions of them.

Personally I think this is very interesting and more likely than not, something I would support. If research has truly shown that dolphins have the same or even an extremely close level of self-awareness as humans then I feel like this would be great.

I don't honestly see how someone would argue that we should allow hunting and captivation of cetaceans because they don't have a legal system or because ours couldn't apply perfectly to them. The matters of what this would do to economies and whether it could be properly enforced are valid points, but past that I don't see a single thing about this that's silly or overreaching.

[Stacy]

Am I high reading this?

Knowing you and your ideas, probably!

[#EndyGate]

If you listen closely you can hear the violent cursing of the owners of SeaWorld

Though i would kinda like this, I mean it would be nice to have a species aside from humans to be considered as incredibly advanced. Maybe we'll eventually develop a way to communicate with whales and dolphins, and when the Ice Caps melt and water levels rise, maybe Dolphins and humans could live in harmony in some of the flooded locations.

Also we could finally build/find Atlantis with their help and maybe even turn them all into cyborgs to use as war machines (Im lookin at you Blue Whale)

[Emmett L. Brown]

I don't like what this is goin' and I don't wanna live on this planet anymore.

Because sentient animals being treated as people will seriously upset your quality of life.

[SuperStingray]

I don't quite see the connection between self-awareness / sentience / sapience and having a legal system comparable to human efforts. Eastern North American native justice systems were always (to our knowledge) based around reciprocity and respect between people and other-than-human persons (spirits, deities etc), and taking care of the victim rather than punishing the offender. They were systems entirely alien to the European explorers and colonists who first encountered them, as European legal systems were dedicated to the punishment of offenders and the eternal hellfire brought by sin, rather than seeing to it that the victim was repaid/healed/etc sufficiently.

Don't see what that has to do with their complexity so much as representative of a differing core ideology between subsets of the same species.

If mankind can develop such wildly diverse legal structures within itself, who is to say that any potential Cetacean legal system would even appear to be a legal system to us?

A legal system is pretty easy to identify, it's the complexity OF the legal system that I'm questioning, or more specifically the species ability to create a justice system . If an animal can reward another's good behavior or punish another's bad behavior, then you have justice. The point here is, if dolphins are intelligent enough to form a society around a codified set of laws as we are, they'd probably also have the brainpower to create technology, infrastructure, philosophy, art, economics and written language by now, in which case they wouldn't really need our protection much to begin with. I realize it's difficult to quantify a difference in awareness but it's usually pretty obvious when they differ; for instance, both humans and bears are smarter than bees, yet only one came up with the idea to farm honey. Until we see another species have their own Neolithic Revolution, I believe we should take ourselves in priority.

If mankind can develop such wildly diverse legal structures within itself, who is to say that any potential Cetacean legal system would even appear to be a legal system to us?

Boy, I'd hate to see your opinions on the treatment of sapient alien life when we do finally make contact with it/them.

"They aren't human, throw them in a zoo!"

Hey, if they're intelligent enough to have the technology to MAKE contact with us, they're probably evolved enough to have a social structure equal to or greater than our own in general complexity. I mean, there's a difference between the Asari from Mass Effect and the Sarlacc from Return of the Jedi. And hell, if they're substantially more sapient, they could probably put US in THEIR zoos.

Edited February 24, 2012 by SuperStingray

[Agent York]

Are some of you really that closed minded to think that animals don't deserve rights because they don't have a legal system? Do you even realize our own legal system as it is now hasn't even been in place for that long? That the light bulb has only existed for 133 years? Compare that to how long man has been alive.

And somehow saying treating animals that are proven to have the self-consciousness and a deeper level of sense and place that humans also possess with more respect is somehow a bad thing? What is wrong with some of you?

"People" is being used as a simpler means to explain that their brains have the capacity to evolve, think, and feel. Not that they actually are human, because their dolphins of course! Being intelligent doesn't just qualify as being human or living in human ways.

Edited February 24, 2012 by Agent York