Steven M. Wise
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Steven M. Wise (born 1952) is an American legal scholar who specializes in animal protection issues, primatology, and animal intelligence. He 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. He is a former president of the Animal Legal Defense Fund, and founder and president of the Center for the Expansion of Fundamental Rights.[1] The Yale Law Journal has called him "one of the pistons of the animal rights movement."[2]
Wise is the author of Though the Heavens May Fall (2005), which recounts the 1772 trial in England of James Somersett, a black man rescued from a ship heading for the West Indies slave markets, which set in motion the movement to abolish slavery in Britain and the United States (see also Somersett's Case); Drawing the Line (2002), which describes the relative intelligence of animals and human beings; and Rattling the Cage (2000), in which he argues that legal rights should be extended to chimpanzees and bonobos.[1]
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[edit] Background
Wise was awarded his J.D from Boston University in 1976, and became a personal injury lawyer. He was inspired to move into the area of animal rights after reading Peter Singer's Animal Liberation (1975),[3] often referred to as the bible of the animal liberation movement. He is a partner with the law firm Wise & Slater-Wise in Boston.
[edit] Animal personhood
Wise's position on animal rights is that some animals, particularly primates, meet the criteria of legal personhood, and should therefore be awarded certain rights and protections. His criteria for personhood are that the animal must be able to desire things, to act in an intentional manner to acquire those things, and must have a sense of self i.e. the animals must know that s/he exists. Wise argues that chimpanzees, bonobos, elephants, parrots, dolphins, orangutans, and gorillas meet these criteria.[3]
Wise argues that these animals should have legal personhood bestowed upon them to protect them from "serious infringements upon their bodily integrity and bodily liberty." Without personhood in law, he writes, one is "invisible to civil law" and "might as well be dead."[4]
He writes in "The Problem with Being a Thing" in Rattling the Cage:
| “ | For four thousand years, a thick and impenetrable legal wall has separated all human from all nonhuman animals. On one side, even the most trivial interests of a single species — ours — are jealously guarded. We have assigned ourselves, alone among the million animal species, the status of "legal persons." On the other side of that wall lies the legal refuse of an entire kingdom, not just chimpanzees and bonobos but also gorillas, orangutans, and monkeys, dogs, elephants, and dolphins. They are "legal things." Their most basic and fundamental interests — their pains, their lives, their freedoms — are intentionally ignored, often maliciously trampled, and routinely abused. Ancient philosophers claimed that all nonhuman animals had been designed and placed on this earth just for human beings. Ancient jurists declared that law had been created just for human beings. Although philosophy and science have long since recanted, the law has not.[5] | ” |
In Rattling the Cage, Wise offers examples of primates who he believes have suffered unjustifiably. He writes about Jerom, a chimpanzee who lived alone in a small cage in the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center, with no access to sunlight, after being infected with one strain of HIV when he was three, another at the age of four, and a third at the age of five, before dying in 1996 at the age of 14.
Wise also tells the story of Lucy Temerlin, a six-year-old chimpanzee who learned American Sign Language from Roger Fouts, the primatologist, and was raised by Maurice K. Temerlin and Temerlin Mcclain. Fouts would arrive at Lucy's home at 8:30 every morning, when Lucy would greet him with a hug, go to the stove, take the kettle, fill it with water from the sink, find two cups and tea bags from the cupboard, and brew and serve the tea. When she was 12, the Temerlins were no longer able to care for her. She was sent to a chimpanzee rehabilitation center in Senegal, then flown to Gambia, where she was shot and skinned by a poacher, and her feet and hands hacked off for sale as trophies. [4]
[edit] Seminars
Wise spoke at a legal seminar in Sydney in collaboration with Voiceless: The Fund for Animals discussing the relationship of Animal Law in America and Australia. He Continues to give talks internationally on the topic of animal law.
[edit] Works
- Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals, Perseus Books, Cambridge, MA, 2000.
- Drawing the Line: Science and the Case for Animal Rights, Perseus Publishing, Cambridge, MA, 2002.
- Though the Heavens May Fall, Perseus Books, Cambridge, MA, 2005.
[edit] See also
- Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute
- Stephen R.L. Clark
- Steven Best
- Gary Francione
- Ingrid Newkirk
- Tom Regan
- Richard D. Ryder
- Peter Singer
- Washoe
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b "About the author", Steven Wise's home page.
- ^ Website of the Center for the Expansion of Fundamental Rights.
- ^ a b "Biography - Wise, Steven M.", Contemporary Authors - 2004, Gale Reference Team, Thomson Gale.
- ^ a b Sunstein, Cass R. "The Chimps' Day in Court", New York Times Book Review, February 20, 2000.
- ^ Wise, Steven. "The Problem with Being a Thing", Chapter One of Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals.
[edit] References
- "Biography - Wise, Steven M.", Contemporary Authors - 2004, Gale Reference Team, Thomson Gale.
- "About the author", Steven Wise's home page.
- Website of the Center for the Expansion of Fundamental Rights.
- Sunstein, Cass R. "The Chimps' Day in Court", New York Times Book Review, February 20, 2000.
- Wise, Steven. "The Problem with Being a Thing", Chapter One of Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals.
[edit] Further reading
- Capone, Lisa. "Wise Counsel for Animals", (profile of Wise), Animals, March 2000, p. 30.
- Dougherty, Robin. "The Line That Divides Human from Animal" (interview with Wise), 'Boston Globe, May 26, 2002.
- Kleiner, Kurt. "Review of Drawing the Line," Salon, September 3, 2002.
- Herbert, Roy. New Scientist, September 7, 2002, Roy Herbert, review of Drawing the Line: Science and the Case for Animal Rights, p. 54.
- Marcus, Erik. "Interview with Steven Wise," Vegan, December 6, 2002.
- Masson, Jeffrey. Observer (London, England), June 11, 2000, review of Rattling the Cage, p. 13.
- Mehren, Elizabeth. "Lawyer, Harvard Instructor Is Witness for the Defense of Animals," Los Angeles Times, May 24, 2000, p. A16.
- Neil, Martha. "Animal Rights Professor Is Very Pro Bonobo," Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, August 13, 1999, p. 3.
- Rosen, Ambuja. "All Clients Great and Small: How Strong Are Your Animal Instincts? Take a Lesson from Four Leading Animal-Rights Lawyers," Student Lawyer, December 1998, pp.28-33.
- Schensul, Jill. "Interview with Steven Wise," Animal News Center, December 6, 2002.
- Wu, F. H. Choice, October 2001, review of Rattling the Cage, p. 382.
- "Review of Rattling the Cage," January Magazine, September 2, 2002.
- Animal Rights Agenda, July-August, 2002, "A New Order in the Court" (interview with Wise), pp. 42-43.
- Animal Welfare Institute Quarterly, winter 2001, review of Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals.
- Daytona Beach News-Journal, June 11, 2002, "Activist Says Some Animals Deserve Legal Rights."
- Nature, August 17, 2000, review of Rattling the Cage, pp. 675-676.
- Publishers Weekly, May 20, 2002, review of Drawing the Line, p. 59.
- Animal-Rights Lawyers," Student Lawyer, December 1998, pp. 28-33.
- Time, March 13, 2000, "Standing Up for Rover: A Harvard Lawyer Is a Champion of Humane — Not Just Human — Rights, " p. 6.
- Wall Street Journal, June 12, 2002, "The Law of the Jungle," p. A18.
- Washington Post, June 5, 2002, "Beastly Behavior? A Law Professor Says It's Time to Extend Basic Rights to the Animal Kingdom, " pp. C1-C2.
