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If you have been involved in the animal rights movement for any length of time—indeed, if you have contributed only to one animal organization in your entire life—you probably receive a seemingly endless number of fundraising solicitations. Last week, as I was sorting through all of the many opportunities being offered to me to “help the animals” by writing a check, I noticed one from the New England Anti-Vivisection Society (NEAVS) asking for money to support “Project R&R: Release and Restitution for Chimpanzees in U.S. Laboratories.”

NEAVS tells us that chimpanzees “share 96% of our genes. They live in families, protect their young, form friendships, and express joy, sorrow and anger. They display intelligence, humor and compassion.” The theme of the campaign is that because chimpanzees have cognitive capacities and a genetic profile similar to ours—they are “real individuals, with unique personalities and needs just like you and me.” NEAVS seeks donations to launch an informational and legislative campaign to join those countries that have “banned or severely limited research on chimpanzees and other great apes.”

The NEAVS campaign and similar efforts—there are a number—are not new or original. In 1993, a number of scholars collaborated on a book of essays entitled The Great Ape Project (GAP). The book was accompanied by a document, “A Declaration on Great Apes,” to which the contributors subscribed. The Declaration states that the great apes “are the closest relatives of our species” and that these nonhumans “have mental capacities and an emotional life sufficient to justify inclusion within the community of equals.”

Since 1993, there have been efforts in several countries to limit or stop research on great apes. The idea behind these efforts is that because the nonhuman great apes have characteristics thought to be uniquely human, such as self-awareness, abstract thought, emotions, and the ability to communicate in a symbolic language, they are entitled to certain fundamental rights.

I certainly agree that it is wrong to use nonhuman great apes in research or in circuses, or to confine them in zoos, or to use them for any other purpose. But I reject what I call the “similar minds” position that links the moral status of nonhumans to their possession of humanlike cognitive characteristics. The exploitation of the nonhuman great apes is immoral for the same reason that is immoral to exploit the hundreds of millions of mice and rats who are routinely exploited in laboratories or the billions of nonhumans who we kill and eat: the nonhuman great apes and all of these other nonhumans are, like us, sentient. They are conscious; they are subjectively aware; they have interests; they can suffer. No characteristic other than sentience is required for personhood.

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I admit to being a harsh and relentless critic of animal welfare. For the past 15 years or so, I have argued that because animals are property, animal welfare standards will generally only protect the interests of animals to the extent that the protection facilitates economically efficient exploitation. Animal welfare campaigns, for the most part, involve animal advocates trying to persuade institutionalized exploiters that “better” animal treatment will translate into greater profits and this reinforces the status of animals as economic commodities with nothing more than extrinsic or conditional value. Moreover, animal welfare is counterproductive because it misleads the public into thinking that exploitation is being made more “humane,” and this encourages continued animal use in a variety of ways.

I am frequently criticized by animal welfare advocates as being too negative in my assessment of animal welfare reform. This essay is the first in an occasional series that will examine particular animal welfare campaigns to see if my analysis is fair.

In 2002, animal advocates, led by The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), Farm Sanctuary, and others, succeeded in getting nearly 700,000 signatures to put on the ballot in Florida a proposal to amend the state constitution to ban what are known as “gestation crates.” Voters approved the proposal, and the Florida Constitution makes it a misdemeanor as of 2008 to confine a pregnant pig in “an enclosure,” or to tether a pregnant pig, in “such a way that she is prevented from turning around freely.” Peter Singer claims that the amendment is a “triumph” (New York Review of Books, May 15, 2003, at 26) and as “near the top” of the list of the most important animal welfare victories of the past 30 years.

For at least six reasons, the characterization of the Florida amendment as a “triumph” demonstrates that the bar of progress is ridiculously low where animal welfare improvements are concerned.

First, the campaign against gestation crates, which began in Florida but is now being conducted in other states, and which recently prevailed in Arizona, is based explicitly on making animal exploitation more efficient. Animal advocates promoted the amendment as a way to keep larger, intensive hog operations out of Florida, and thereby protect property values and tourism. They maintain, as a general matter, that alternatives to the gestation crate, such as group housing, will reduce costs and increase productivity.

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