Planet of the Apes and Philosophy (12 page)

Planet of the Apes
could have been a much shorter film. After recognizing that Taylor is as intelligent as most (or all) apes, Zira could have simply responded with “Wow! That's strange. Oh well, he is still a
human
after all. Let's dissect his brain.” But she didn't react in this way and for good reason. For one thing, we movie-goers expect a little more dramatic tension and the playing out of plot-lines before a sympathetic character can be summarily executed. More than that, though, most of us would probably agree that it seems
wrong
for Dr. Zira to respond like that. The viewer is supposed to approve of Zira's choice to save Taylor, partly because he's the star of the
film and its hero, but partly because it
feels like
the right thing to do.

We expect Zira, as a rational being, to recognize what we recognize intuitively: that it would be morally wrong to sacrifice Taylor to satisfy less important ape interests, such as having human slave labor. After all, Taylor's well-being depends on things like freedom, autonomy, avoiding pain, and, let's be honest, getting a role in the sequels. None of these ends would be realized if the apes used Taylor in the same way they used other humans.

All of this should be uncontroversial, but the best explanation of
why
the audience has (or
should
have) this reaction to Dr. Zira's actions will be anything but. In this scene, and in numerous others, the audience has the intuition that Zira and George Taylor are moral equals
because
they are approximately equally intelligent beings with similar interests. The fact that they are from different species is morally irrelevant. The same goes for Caesar's moral importance compared to that of humans in
Conquest of the Planet of the Apes
, and most recently,
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
.

If the
Planet of the Apes
movie series successfully motivates the idea that species membership is not a morally relevant factor and we are to act in accordance with our moral views, then most people will need to radically alter the way they think of and treat non-human animals. Doing this will require abolishing an attitude that permeates our culture, which goes by the clumsy term
speciesism
, namely, being prejudiced against some animal (human or non-human)
because
of its species membership.

Richard Ryder coined the term
speciesism
and Peter Singer raised the public's consciousness about it with his seminal 1975 book
Animal Liberation
. Speciesists are those who allow “the interests of their own species to override the
greater
interests of members of other species.” For instance, people are speciesist when they discount (or completely ignore) the interests of an animal
simply because
it is
not human
.

Most humans are speciesist, as most believe that all humans have greater moral worth than other animals. Not only do they have this belief, they also act in accordance with this belief. The vast majority of people eat non-human animals and many hunt them for sport, wear their skin, perform painful
experiments on them or purchase products that have been tested on them. Some people still sacrifice them in religious ceremonies. The list goes on. Philosophers on all sides of the debate agree that most people are speciesists. But they disagree about whether there is something
irrational
or
morally wrong
with having speciesist attitudes. Contemporary philosophers such as Peter Singer and Tom Regan think speciesism is irrational and morally wrong. Others, such as Jonas Beaudry in
Chapter 7
of this volume, disagree. No consensus about this complex issue has been reached, but perhaps the science fiction series that Pierre Boulle's novel spawned will allow us to make some progress in that direction.

In spite of his five-dollar haircut and orange-or-tan suit, Dr. Zaius is the perfect antagonist. He is an intelligent, complex and almost sympathetic villain. He's also an unapologetic speciesist.

Recall that Dr. Zaius was the only ape who seemed to be aware even
before
Taylor and his crew landed, that humans had once been intelligent and, despite knowing this, he covered it up. When Taylor wrote in the dirt, Dr. Zaius erased it before anyone else noticed. He also lobotomized Landon and threatened to do the same to Taylor. Dr. Zaius reveals at the end of the film that the humans who used to live in the Forbidden Zone turned it from a “paradise” to a “desert,” which might be at the root of his speciesist attitudes against humans. Egregiously, Dr. Zaius even orders that all of the human artifacts discovered by Dr. Zira and Dr. Cornelius be destroyed, then notifies them that they will be charged with heresy.

The humans (especially Taylor) have a strong moral interest in being able to avoid all of the harms that befall them as a result of the current “ape” culture. At the same time, Dr. Zaius has an interest in preserving religious myths to keep the status quo, allowing him and others to use humans for slave labor and scientific research. But to me, it's obvious that humans' moral interest (especially Taylor's) in living a good life free from suffering far outweighs the ape interest in maintaining myths about their history or treating humans inhumanely.

You might think that preserving the false, presumably comforting view of ape history outweighs the allegedly less intelligent humans' interests. But there are three responses to that.

First, Taylor and his crew might have been the most intelligent humans on Earth, but other humans were likely more intelligent than most apes thought. Once the audience gets to know Nova, she seems rather smart and consequently, has more complex interests than most apes presumably believed.

Second, when Zira, Cornelius, and Lucius discover the truth in the Forbidden Zone they find they were lied to about ape origins and wish they had known the truth all along. Wouldn't you prefer to know the truth if you were one of those apes?

Third, as the antagonist in the story, Dr. Zaius is designed to make choices that are intended to be met with strong disapproval by the audience. He appears to be intentionally sacrificing greater human interests to serve the less important interests of apes. His rationale? A prejudiced favoring of apes and distaste for humans. Pure speciesism.

I do not expect you to just take my word for it, of course. No, we need to ask “What is moral considerability?” and “What determines a being's moral status?” The answer, according to the movie series, is the “interests” that a being has. “Interests” are tied up with what is good for some being, or what contributes to their well-being. Every sentient being—every creature that can feel pleasure or pain—is
morally considerable
and at least has an interest in not suffering. Now, every sentient being has interests, and these interests vary depending on its intellectual capacities and abilities.

For example, you might have an interest in reading this book because it would be fun and you may learn something about philosophy. A present-day ape of normal cognitive capacity does not have an interest in reading this book simply because it cannot read. Interests depend on capabilities. Thus, Zira and Cornelius, even though they are apes,
would
have an interest in reading this book because their cognitive capacities allow them to understand it and benefit from it. Zira, if you're reading this, let me say, ”Don't leave your stuff behind while you're on the run. Hasslein will find it and be able to track you
down, killing you and Cornelius and the baby ape. Don't do it!” But I digress.

Beyond moral considerability, there's a related concept known as
moral status
, which comes in degrees. It is commonly accepted that all sentient beings have moral status and all non-sentient things lack it. Different moral statuses exist within a range and depend on the intensity, type and number of interests a being has. Dr. Zira and Taylor have a higher moral status than, say, a normal present-day ape, since they have a greater number of interests than this ape, qualitatively superior interests and perhaps even more intense ones. These may include: setting long term goals for the future, doing science, forming friendships with deep emotional bonds, appreciating subtle ironies, and so on.

What about when the interests of different creatures conflict? For instance, if we have to choose between relieving a human from pain or an ape from pain, how do we compare the importance of preventing each of these animals from suffering? On this point, Singer, in
Animal Liberation
, echoes the position of Jeremy Bentham, who wrote in 1789:

           
The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been witholden from them but by the hand of tyranny. . . . The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?

Singer argues for a principle of equality that he calls
equal consideration of interests. Equal consideration of interests
requires that whenever two or more different morally considerable beings, regardless of their moral status, have the same interest in something, we ought to count each of their interests equally in our deliberation.

Suppose that Dr. Zaius has to perform an emergency operation on both Dr. Zira and Dr. Cornelius, but only has enough anesthesia for one of them. Both Zira and Cornelius have an interest in avoiding pain and the strength of that interest is the same. Dr. Zaius should count both of these interests equally when deciding who to give the anesthesia to. But the same rule applies even in cases where the cognitive capacities of individuals vary greatly. If Dr. Zaius had to perform surgery on either Nova (the “primitive” companion of Taylor) or Taylor, it's not at
all obvious who should get the anesthesia. Although Taylor is much more intelligent than Nova, both have an interest in avoiding pain. If the surgery would be equally painful for both of them, the pain that Taylor would feel should count for as much in our deliberation as the pain that Nova would feel.

Applying this rule consistently means giving equal consideration to the pain that Taylor would feel compared to the pain that any present-day, non-human animal would feel. If we had to perform surgery on Mark Wahlberg's character Leo Davidson from the 2001
Planet of the Apes
or the normal chimpanzee Pericles, the pain that Pericles would feel should count for just as much as the pain that Davidson would feel (assuming that it would be the same amount of pain).

Other considerations could also apply. For example, if Leo Davidson had to undergo an operation without anesthesia, he would be intelligent enough to understand
why
he was in pain and would know that the pain would come to an end relatively soon. On the other hand, Pericles would not be able to understand this, perhaps causing extra anxiety that would not be felt by Davidson. This extra consideration could actually count in favor of giving Pericles the anesthesia over Davidson, even though the pain that each feels would count equally.

At this point, you might be asking “Doesn't human intelligence make human interests matter more than non-human interests?” Or maybe you're just wondering how awkward it was for Nova and Taylor when they rode off into the sunset together immediately after Taylor has kissed Zira on the lips. Both are excellent questions, though I can only address the first.

Even if it were true that all humans were smarter than other animals, and that human interests should be given greater moral weight than non-human interests, this argument would not give priority to human interests
because
of their species membership. Instead, it would seek to find a morally relevant property, such as intelligence, that all humans happen to have (and all non-humans happen to lack). But this property can be possessed by non-humans in imaginary worlds like
Planet of the Apes
, and some imaginary non-humans (such as Dr. Zira and Dr. Cornelius) would (if they
actually existed) be just as morally important as humans according to this view, despite the fact that they are members of a different species. So even if this argument worked, it would not justify the strong sense of speciesism that many people accept.

In reality, the thinking capacities of humans vary greatly. All severely cognitively disabled humans lack the rational capacities that one would appeal to in order to try to justify giving precedence to human interests. This line of argument would entail that normal human interests are more important than the interests of any severely cognitively disabled person, even when the conflicting interests are the same, as in the case of avoiding pain. That sounds morally repugnant. For these reasons, we should reject the crude version of this argument outright.

What's that? You think that all cognitively disabled humans have the same moral status as humans of normal intelligence? If so, then you're not alone. You might accept the more sophisticated version of the argument. In order to accommodate the moral importance of severely cognitively disabled humans, some philosophers, such as Martha Nussbaum, argue that the moral weight of a group's interests depends upon what the
normal capabilities
are for that group. This often translates into the more specific idea that, as Singer puts it, “we should treat beings according to what is ‘normal for the species' rather than according to their actual characteristics.”

The movie series appears to expect the viewer to reject this. Consider how Dr. Zira and Dr. Cornelius were treated by humans in
Escape from the Planet of the Apes
. As soon as Dr. Branton and Dr. Dixon, the human scientists watching over them in the San Diego zoo, realize that Zira and Cornelius possess the ability to use language and are more intelligent than most humans, they immediately treat them differently. Dr. Zira and Dr. Cornelius are brought in front of the Presidential Commission, and upon the hearing of their case, are awarded their freedom. They become instant celebrities, get interviewed, go on expensive shopping sprees, eat at fancy restaurants, stay in a lavish hotel and the list goes on. Remember the extensive 1970s montage of Dr. Zira and Dr. Cornelius's newfound fame and lifestyle? Any movie with apes dressed in 1970s-style clothing is an instant classic in my book.