“The study in the American Journal of Primatology reinforces the proven claim that animals have feelings and have the right to be protected by the moral code that applies to humans” – Hiranmay Karlekar
According to recent media reports, a study, published in the American Journal of Primatology, attributes five dimensions to chimpanzee personalities with a possible sixth, methodicalness requiring further investigation. A look at the full report by Dr Hani Freeman of the Lester E Fisher Centre for the Study and Conservation of Apes at Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago and her colleagues — Sarah F Brosnan, Lydia M Hopper, Susan P Lambeth, Steven Schapiro and Samuel D Gosling — states, “Strong evidence was found for five of the factors (Reactivity/Undependability, Dominance, Openness, Extraversion [extroversion], and Agreeableness). A sixth factor (Methodical) was offered provisionally until more data are collected.”
According to the study, “Theoretically, knowing the number and nature of dimensions underlying [the] chimpanzee personality is needed to understand the developmental and evolutionary bases of personality traits in all species. Practically, information … can be integrated into management applications for chimpanzee husbandry (improving welfare and aiding in socialization management).” While all this has considerable relevance for scholars and managers of zoos (prisons for animals which should be abolished), most important for all animal lovers is the study’s reaffirmation that chimpanzees have personalities. It helps them in their acrimonious argument with advocates of Speciesism who exclude all non-human living beings from the morality-based protection that apply to humans. They believe that membership of the species Homo sapiens is the criterion that makes the difference.
Historically, the attribution of a special and superior status to humans stems from the belief that unlike all other living beings they alone have reason and emotions. Aristotle held that animals belonged to the category of inanimate objects because they lacked reason. St Augustine said that the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” did not apply to bushes because they had no sensation, “nor to unreasoning animals that fly, walk and crawl, because they are not partners with us in the faculty of reason.”
Humans are potentially—and often are— rational. But they are notoriously vulnerable to unreason and, under the latter’s spell, can commit horrendous crimes like genocide. No animal has ever done that. Besides, if humans have reason, animals are far superior in their possession of faculties like smell, hearing and that intangible thing called sixth sense which alerts them to coming danger. A multiplicity of authors has shown animals feel as intensely as humans.
In an interview to Shubhobroto Ghosh (The Telegraph, January 29, 2007), Jane Goodall, the legendary primatologist, said, “Spoken language would have enabled our ancestors to articulate feelings of awe, feelings that would lead to religious belief, then to organised worship.” Ghosh further quotes her as saying that humans are not the only beings to experience awe and mentions her as citing the instance of “a magnificent waterfall” at Kakombe valley (Tanzania) where, in her words, “often the chimpanzees aggregate” and “exhibit a slow, rhythmic motion, performing a magnificent dance for more than 10 minutes.” Goodall, he adds, believes the chimpanzees might be responding to a feeling of awe and that in a similar fashion discussions among our prehistoric ancestors might have led to the development of organised religion.
The study in the American Journal of Primatology reinforces the proven claim that animals have feelings and have the right to be protected by the moral code that applies to humans. Of course, not all religions have excluded them from it. As Swami Vivekananda said in his seminal speech on Vedantism in Jaffna in January, 1897, “In every man and in every animal, however weak or wicked, great or small, resides the same Omnipresent, Omniscient soul. The difference is not in the soul, but in the manifestation. Between me and the smallest animal, the difference is only in manifestation, but as a principle he is the same as I am, he is my brother, he has the same soul as I have. This is the greatest principle that India has preached. The talk of the brotherhood of man becomes in India the brotherhood of universal life, of animals, and of all life down to the little ants — all these are our bodies.”
But then, how many Indians remember Swamiji, one of their greatest compatriots? – The Pioneer, 20 June 2013
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