WFHB Bloomington Community Radio
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We begin with some “Happy” news…last week the New York Court of Appeals—one of the most influential state courts in the United States—agreed to hear the habeas corpus case Happy the elephant – an autonomous and cognitively complex nonhuman animal who has been imprisoned at the Bronx Zoo for over four decades. This marks the first time in history that the highest court of any English-speaking jurisdiction will hear a habeas corpus case brought on behalf of someone other than a human being.
Nonhuman animals – are they subjects or objects, persons or things? Currently, those are the only options available in the legal system; you’re either a person, and so have attendant basic and legal rights, or you’re a thing to be used (and abused and wasted and eradicated) by those deemed persons. A change in the legal status of nonhuman animals from “thing” to “person” or even perhaps to some new third category, might be the way humans begin to address their role as the great exterminator of living beings on the planet.
GUEST
With us today to discuss personhood and other political rights for nonhuman animals is Jeff Sebo, Clinical Associate Professor of Environmental Studies, Affiliated Professor of Bioethics, Medical Ethics, and Philosophy, and Director of the Animal Studies M.A. Program at New York University. His research focuses on bioethics, animal ethics, and environmental ethics, and topics such as food, animals, and the environment; agency, well-being, and moral status; and the ethics of activism, advocacy, and philanthropy. He has co-authored two books, Chimpanzee Rights, and Food, Animals, and the Environment.
This is a return visit to Interchange for Jeff Sebo who joined us in January of 2020 for our show Beast’s Burdens: On Climate Change and Nonhuman Animals. In that show it was made plain how the human animal, homo sapiens, is simply a catastrophe considered from the perspective of the nonhuman animal. We breed and kill at least 100 billion animals per year for food and at least 115 million per year for research. Fishing kills 1-3 trillion animals per year. Deforestation destroys animal habitats and on and on it goes.
Segment One – the case of Happy the Elephant and the Nonhuman Rights Project.
Segment Two – how does the law define “person” – and how does it exclude beings that fit those definitions?
Segment Three – Autonomy, Speciesism, Capacities…
Segment Four – The ugly truth – the industrial food system makes “persons” to be fed to humans. What can we expect of this reality when it comes to recognizing nonhuman animal rights?
RELATED
Should Chimpanzees Be Considered ‘Persons’? by Jeff Sebo
First elephant to pass mirror self-recognition test; held alone at the Bronx Zoo
The Need for Chimpanzee Rights
MUSIC
Open – “Anonanimal” – Andrew Bird
Break 1: “Nellie the Elephant” – Mandy Miller (1956)
Break 2 – “Monkey to the Moon” – The Coral
Break 3 – “A Reflection” – The Thermals
Close – “Caribou” – the Pixies
ID bed – “Hunting Bears” – Radiohead
CREDITS
Producer & Host: Doug Storm
Executive Producer: Kade Young
