We've just done the reading and most exercises that make up Part 1 of chapter 2 of
Quest 3 (Hartmann & Blass, 2014, pp. 46 - 50). In the their final exercise in this part of "Physical Anthropology", Hartmann and Blass ask us to share our own ideas on three more general questions arising from the reading. We are going to do this as a series of short response writings.
- In your opinion, are humans doing enough to take care of non-human primates? What kind of legal protection should non-human primates have? (p. 50, D., 3)
Think about this question for perhaps 30 seconds and then write down your responses in a comment below. You have five minutes.
Hartmann, P. & Blass, L. (2007).
Quest 3 Reading and Writing. New York: McGraw-Hill.
There are some 183 species of primates. They are better than other animals; have a better sense of touch and a larger brain, compared to body size. Plus primates have body structure similar to humans so they are been medical experimentation or human activities is cause of destroying forest that is the primate living. So I think we don't take care of primate well enough, We should protect primates against hurt because they have feelings to preventing this problem government should divide establish the protecting animal law including primate as a one of specific law because today we have the law to protect the animal, it include in criminal law and has the same criteria as protecting human from harassment. that criteria has made the law cannot enforce.
ReplyDeleteHow can I possibly answer such a question in a few minutes of response writing or in a short class discussion?
ReplyDeleteFirst, why should humans take care of non-human primates at all? We might have a biological relationship through them, and share some 98% or more of genes, but does that give us obligations? We also share a lot of genes with rats, and we share some of our genes with carrots. Do we have an obligation to take care of carrots? And as I briefly outlined yesterday, evolutionary biology argues that since life evolved only once on this planet, every single living thing is related, however distantly, to every other: we all share a single common ancestor. In the case of human beings, our common female ancestor, from whom every human being now living is a direct matrilineal descendant and whom scientists call mitochondrial Eve, is estimated to have lived between 100,000 and 200,000 thousand years ago. Y-chromosome Adam, the direct patrilineal ancestor of all of us, might be a little younger. Before we find the common ancestor we share with carrots, it might be necessary to go back through the generations a billion years or so, when animals and plants split apart on the tree of life on Earth.
And there goes my five minutes!
I broke Hartmann and Blass's response writing rules by stopping to get the Wikipedia links that I already knew existed. I thought it would be useful to include them and that gobbled up at least 30 seconds each time I did it.
DeleteSo I'm having another five minutes in a reply to my own comment.
What I had had in mind when I asked why we should take care of primates at all was to expand that question into a more general one: why should we take care of any living thing? And in this question, the phrase any living thing includes human beings, both our own children and Rohingya boat refugees from the evil Buddhist monks of Myanmar.
I don't think that there being some genetic relationship is a good enough reason. If it were, on what basis do we decide it's necessary to care for a living thing within three levels of family connection, but that it's OK to ignore the pain of things between four and 11 levels of family distance, and that it's OK to kill everything else, as humans tend to do for such reasons as to eat them?
In other words, I think we need to look at the deeper reasons as to why we should treat anything, humans included (or only some humans?), with care whilst not so treating other living things.
This reminds me of the important point that Katie brought up in our discussion yesterday: before going very far in our discussion of Hartmann and Blass's third question on page 45, the opening page of chapter 2, we would have to spend some time clarifying exactly what the verb " be related" might mean.
I think that's a bit more than five minutes. And I still haven't really answered the question. But that's OK - it's a response writing, and I can't get an F. grade as long I communicate ideas in sentences.
I don't know the difference of preotection for non-human primates and other animals. Is there any possibility which we can see in the movie "Planet of the Apes"? So, do we have to take care of non-human primates specially?
ReplyDeleteHumans have to take a responsibility for exploiting nature including animals. Our caring for non human primates is not enough until we quit any kind of inteference to them, which seems to be impossible because we cannot give up a privilige as humans. At least, we should have a legal protection not to give them sufferings as loong as we coexist with them. I think more ideal states are leave them in the wilds without any artifical things.
I like Katie's concluding idea.
DeleteI hope that as we progress technologically over the next few decades, we might reach a point where we can start to reverse some of domination of all all parts of the planet - when we no longer need to exploit so intensively for energy and resources, I'm hoping we will move out and turn ever larger areas back into natural wilderness. Maybe this is just a fantasy, but it seems to me that as nations become more wealthy, their citizens do want to do these sorts of things.
I also like Katie's idea. It sounds quite difficult to realize such a world, but it might be an ideal future for humans.
DeleteThese days, I often hear the news of abusing pets or even abandoning them. As the life gets better, humans are becoming egoist and are more impatient. Since both humans and non-humans are the living creatures, there shouldn't be any border.
ReplyDeleteWe have to think more seriously what is being moral and what is a right thing to do before depending on the law. There are always certain people who sneak from the law. It is a resposability for parents or teacher to teach younger poeple what is a right thing to do since they are small.