The Great Ape Project: Equality Beyond Humanity

Jacket Description/Back: This collection of thirty-one essays by the world's most distinguished observers of free-living apes make up a uniquely satisfying whole, blending observation and interpretation in a highly persuasive case for a complete reassessment of the moral status of our closest kin. Marc Notes: Originally published: London: Fourth Estate Limited, c1993.; Includes bibliographical references. Biographical Note: Paola Cavalieri is the editor of the Milan-based quarterly review "Etica e Animali." Peter Singer, the renowned philosopher and bioethicist, is the author of "Animal Liberation, "the classic work that helped launch the modern Animal Rights movement. He teaches at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. Table of Contents: Preface A Declaration on Great Apes I Encounters with Free-living Apes "Chimpanzees--Bridging the Gap" by Jane Goodall "Meeting a Gorilla" by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine "Chimpanzees Are Always New to Me" by Toshisada Nishida II Conversations with Apes "Chimpanzees' Use of Sign Language" by Roger S. Fouts and Deborah H. Fouts "Language and the Orang-utan: The Old 'Person' of the Forest" by H. Lyn White Miles "The Case for the Personhood of Gorillas" by Francine Patterson and Wendy Gordon III Similarity and Difference "Gaps in the Mind" by Richard Dawkins "The Third Chimpanzee" by Jared Diamond "Common Sense, Cognitive Ethology and Evolution" by Marc Bekoff "What's in a Classification?" by R. I. M. Dunbar "Apes and the Idea of Kindrid" by Stephen R. L. Clark "Ambiguous Apes" by Raymond Corbey "Spirits Dressed in Furs?" by Adriaan Kortlandt IV Ethics "Apes, Humans, Aliens, Vampires and Robots" by Colin McGinn "Why Darwinians Should Support Equal Treatment for Other Apes" by James Rachels "Profoudly Intellectually Disabled Humans and the Great Apes: A Comparison" by Christoph Anstotz "Who's Like Us?" by Heta Hayry and Matti Hayry "A Basis for (Interspecies) Equality" by Ingmar Persson "Ill-gotten Gains" by Tom Regan "The Ascent of Apes--Broadening the Moral Community" by Bernard E. Rollin "Sentientism" by Richard D. Ryder "Great Apes and the Human Resistance to Equality" by Dale Jamison V Apes as Persons "The Wahokies" by Harlan B. Miller "Humans, Nonhumans and Personhood" by Robert W. Mitchell "Personhood, Property and Legal Competence" by Gary L. Francione "Great Apes as Anthropological Subjects--Deconstructing Anthropocentrism" by Barbara Noske "Aping Persons--Pro and Con" by Steve F. Sapontzis VI Reality "Items of Property" by David Cantor "The Chimp Farm" by Betsy Swart "They Are Us" by Geza Teleki VII Epilogue "The Great Ape Project--and Beyond" by Paola Cavalieri and Peter SingerReview Quotes: "We share over 99% of our active genes with chimpanzees and gorillas. "The Great Ape Project "casts a disturbing light on how we have treated our closest relative. It challenges us to reassess many of our ethical assumptions." --"Carl Sagan, coauthor of Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors" "A powerful work of moral vision that manages to maintain a balance between logic and passion." --"The Washington Post Book World (front page)" "A thoroughly engaging collection of polemics and reflections." --"San Francisco Chronicle" "This book may prove to be one of the most subversive published in English this year." --"The Independent" "What the contributors to "The Great Ape Project "remind us that our nearest cousins on the evolutionary tree...can suffer in ways very much like the ways in which we suffer... We can damage them in the way we damage human beings." --"Alan Ryan, Professor of Politics, Princeton University"

Contributor Bio:  Cavalieri, Paola Paola Cavalieri is editor of the international philosophy journal Etica & Animali, and has published widely in the area of applied ethics. She co-edited, with Peter Singer, the award-winning 1993 book The Great Ape Project: Equality Beyond Humanity. Contributor Bio:  Singer, Peter Peter Singer is currently Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne. He is the author or editor of more than forty books, including Animal Liberation (1975), Rethinking Life and Death (1996) and, most recently, The Life You Can Save (2009). In 2005, he was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine. Contributor Bio:  Dawkins, Richard Richard Dawkins, voted Prospect magazine's #1 World Thinker, is the author of the blockbuster bestseller The God Delusion. He was first catapulted to fame with The Selfish Gene, which he followed with The Extended Phenotype, The Blind Watchmaker, River Out of Eden, Climbing Mount Improbable, Unweaving the Rainbow, The Ancestor's Tale, A Devil's Chaplain, The Greatest Show on Earth, and The Magic of Reality (with Dave McKean). Dawkins is a fellow of the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Literature. He was the inaugural holder of the Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University and is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the Royal Society of Literature Award, the Michael Faraday Award of the Royal Society, the Kistler Prize, the Shakespeare Prize, the Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing About Science, the Galaxy British Book Awards Author of the Year Award, and the International Cosmos Prize of Japan. Contributor Bio:  Adams, Douglas Douglas Adams (1952 2001) was the much-loved author of the Hitchhiker s trilogy, including The Hitchhiker s Guide to the Galaxy, which was later adapted as a feature film. Best known for his imaginative and comedy-rich science fiction series which sold more than 15 million copies worldwide, Adams also wrote extensively for television, stage, print media, and computer games, as well as working in acting and radio comedy. Contributor Bio:  Goodall, Jane Jane Goodall is one of the world's leading conservationists. The author of many books, including the New York Times bestseller, Reason for Hope, she is renowned for her work with the chimpanzees of Gombe National Park in Tanzania, as well as for her extensive worldwide lecturing on conservation and preservation of all species.