14AR19-18

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Apologia Report 19:18 (1,201)

June 11, 2014

Subject: Should cognitive abilities determine personal rights?

In this issue:

BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION - surveying the broad spectrum of approaches

PERSONHOOD - a legal strategy for enshrining the "personhood" of nonhumans

SPONG, JOHN SHELBY - his dubious views on the afterlife

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BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION

Biblical Hermeneutics: Five Views, Stanley E. Porter and Beth E. Stovell, eds. [1] -- UK minister (Southend-on-Sea) Stephen Dray's review is interesting for his observations. The Historical-Critical/Grammatical view is presented by Craig L. Blomberg (Denver Seminary). Dray explains that Blomberg "does not reject other approaches but claims his has 'logical priority. Without an anchor in the historical context and the original meanings of words and grammatical structures, other methods lack an adequate foundation.

F. Scott Spencer (Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond), presenter of the second view, Literary/Postmodern, is "uncertain that original meaning can be recovered." For him, "Blomberg's approach is dependent on hypotheses and theories, mere 'shaky underpinnings.'" Instead, Spencer says the text is "open to multiple readings, re-readings and mis-readings."

Merold Westphal (Fordham University), who champions the Philosophical/Theological view, finds that objectivity is "a chimera." For him, "to interpret cannot consist in merely reproducing what the author said to the original, intended audience."

Of Richard B. Gaffin, Jr. (Westminster Theological Seminary) and the Redemptive-Historical view, Dray writes that "revelation is only accessible through the biblical canon and to this extent [Gaffin's] method seeks to affirm *sola Scriptura* and is consistent with the hermeneutics of the [early Church] Fathers."

Last, in his case for the Canonical method, Robert W. Wall (Seattle Pacific University) argues for "hermeneutics to be linguistic more than historical and application 'more incarnational than intellectual.'" For Wall, "interpretation is constrained by the 'so-called rule of faith' and that the 'Bible works best as a complete whole' even if this goes against the grain of modern criticism."

Dray's conclusion briefly notes the "allergy of several of the contributors to inerrancy." Evangelical Quarterly, 86:2 - 2014, pp157-160.

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PERSONHOOD

"The Rights of Man ... and Beast" by Charles Siebert -- profiles Steven Wise a 63-year-old legal scholar in the field of animal law who teaches animal rights law at Harvard Law School, Vermont Law School, John Marshall Law School, Lewis & Clark Law School, and Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine, and is affiliated with the Nonhuman Rights Project (Nh.R.P.) <www.ow.ly/xRnXa>. Siebert introduces his readers to Wise's legal strategy for the personhood of nonhumans. "Along with chimps, the Nh.R.P. plans to file similar lawsuits on behalf of other members of the great ape family (bonobos, orangutans and gorillas) as well as dolphins, orcas, belugas, elephants and African gray parrots - all beings with higher-order cognitive abilities." Last year, Wise represented a unique client: "The first nonhuman primate [Tommy] to ever sue a human captor in an attempt to gain his own freedom. ...

"It has been only in the last 30 years or so that a distinct field of animal law - that is laws and legal theory expressly for and about nonhuman animals - has emerged. ...

"Not in order to cast cognitively advanced beings like Tommy in a human light, but rather to ask a judge to recognize them as individuals in and of themselves: Beings entitled to something that, without us, no wild animal would ever require - the fundamental right, at least, not to be wrongfully imprisoned."

Siebert notes another case filed in 1991 by Wise "on behalf of Kama, a 6-year-old dolphin, and several animal rights groups that objected to the aquarium's transfer of Kama to the Navy for training at the Naval Ocean Systems Center in Hawaii, a violation, the suit claimed, of the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Wise, "a crusader against speciesism and ordained hierarchies," emphasizes that "the issue wasn't really about standing at all. What lawyers and judges had been calling an 'animal-standing problem' was really a 'not-being-a-legal-person problem.' We could show the animals had been injured, that the defendants were responsible and that the judge could remedy it. But because animals are not legal persons, they don't even have the capacity to sue in the first place. They're totally invisible. I knew if I was going to begin breaking down the wall that divides human and nonhumans, I first had to find a way around this issue of personhood.

"'A legal person is not synonymous with a human being,' [Wise] told me [Siebert]. 'A legal person is an entity that the legal system considers important enough so that it is visible and [has] interests' and also 'certain kinds of rights. I often ask my students: 'You tell me, why should a human have fundamental rights?' There's not a single person on earth I've ever put that question to who can answer that without referring to certain qualities that a human has.'

"In his animal-law classes, Wise told me, he has his students consider the actual case of a 4-month-old anencephalic baby - that is, a child born without a complete brain. Her brain stem allows her to breathe and digest, but she has no consciousness or sentience. No feelings or awareness whatsoever. He asks the class why we can't do anything we want with such a child, even eat her. ...

"'We're all instantly repelled by that, of course,' Wise said. When he asked his students that question, they 'get all tied up in knots and say things like 'because she has a soul' or 'all life is sacred.' I say: 'I'm sorry, we're not talking about any characteristics here. It's that she has the form of a human being.' Now I'm not saying that a court or legislature can't say that just having a human form is in and of itself a sufficient condition for rights. I'm simply saying that it's irrational. . . . Why is a human individual with no cognitive abilities whatsoever a legal person with rights, while cognitively complex beings such as Tommy, or a dolphin, or an orca are things with no rights at all?'

"'We're definitely asking a judge to make a leap of faith here; what some might see as a quantum leap. My job is to make it seem as small as possible.' ...

"As recently as 10 years ago Wise's effort would have been laughed out of a courtroom. What has made his efforts viable now, however, is in part the advanced neurological and genetic research, which has shown that animals like chimpanzees, orcas and elephants possess self-awareness, self-determination and a sense of both the past and future. They have their own distinct languages, complex social interactions and tool use. They grieve and empathize and pass knowledge from one generation to the next. The very same attributes, in other words, that we once believed distinguished us from other animals. Wise intends to wield this evidence in mounting the case that his clients are 'autonomous beings,' ones who are able, as Wise defines that term, 'to freely choose, to self-determine, to make their own decisions without acting from reflex or innate behavior.' He sees these abilities as the minimum sufficient requirement for legal personhood."

Wise believes that "for any nonhuman animal who is autonomous, whatever species they may be, then we will go into court and make the argument that they have a sufficient condition for rights. ...

"In a 2001 debate with Peter Singer, Judge Richard Posner of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit - who has debated Wise as well - argued that only facts will lead to according animals rights, not intuitions. 'Much is lost,' Posner stated at one point, 'when . . . intuition is made a stage in a logical argument.'

"And yet in that same debate, Posner stated that the special status we humans accord ourselves is based not on tests or statistics but on 'a moral intuition deeper than any reason that could be given for it and impervious to any reason that you or anyone could give against it.' That inherent irrationality at the heart of humanity's sense of exceptionalism is what most worries Wise. ...

"Much like other civil rights movements, the Nh.R.P.'s efforts are designed to be a systematic assault; a continued and repeated airing of the evidence now at hand so that other lawyers and eventually judges and society as a whole can move past what Wise considers the increasingly arbitrary distinction of species as the determinant of who should hold a right."

Wise concludes: "If we lose, we keep doing it again and again, until we find a judge who doesn't feel that the way is closed off. Then our job is to produce the facts that will allow that judge to make that leap of faith." Cover story. New York Times Magazine, Apr 27 '14, pp28-33, 49-50, 53. <www.ow.ly/xLpI9>

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SPONG, JOHN SHELBY

"Understanding Death beyond Religion in the Thought of John Shelby Spong" by Corneliu C. Simuţ (Emanuel University, Romania) -- from the abstract: "The liberal Episcopal bishop of Newark (New Jersey), John Shelby Spong (b. 1931), is convinced that religion cannot be seen as a proper tool to discuss the issues of human existence and neither is it an adequate instrument to fathom the reality of death as part of man's being in the world. Thus, his thought is an attempt to move beyond theology into some sort of secular thinking which avoids theology in particular and religion in general. Such convictions stem from his belief that man's most fundamental attitude to death - which is characterized by fear-is the result of religion, because to this very age death has been shaped by various religious views. Consequently, in order for man to regain a natural approach to death as part of his own existence, he must put aside religious persuasions and, in doing so, adopt a perspective that allows him to embrace death fearlessly. Religion cannot simply be erased, which means that it has to be studied in order for man to move beyond it; having done so, man should be able to elevate himself above religion which offers him the chance to seek the truth within his own humanity. The externality of religion, therefore, should be excluded from man's quest for meaning; when this happens, death becomes internal, inherent to man's most intimate existence and also the most fundamental aspect of truth. In other words, traditional religion must turn itself into some sort of lay (specifically secular) philosophy which only retains religious language and imagery to explain that religion is not needed for man's contemporary approach to death. Fear of death can be dealt with successfully if aging and death are seen in the light of meaningful relationships which are able to transform the finitude of life in the eternity of existence as reflected in the memories of those who survive the deceased." Expository Times, 125:8 - 2014, pp375-382.

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SOURCES: Monographs

1 - Biblical Hermeneutics: Five Views, Stanley E. Porter and Beth E. Stovell, eds. (IVP, 2012, paperback, 224 pages) <www.ow.ly/xKoqW>

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