Steven M. Wise
Steven M. Wise | |
---|---|
Born | U.S. | December 19, 1950
Died | February 15, 2024 Coral Springs, Florida, U.S. | (aged 73)
Education | College of William & Mary (BA) Boston University (JD) |
Occupation | Animal Rights Attorney |
Known for | Animal rights advocacy, abolitionism |
Spouses | Debra Slater-Wise (div. 2012)[1][2] Gail Price-Wise, MPH |
Steven M. Wise (December 19, 1950 – February 15, 2024) was an American lawyer and legal scholar who specialized in
Wise was the author of
The documentary Unlocking the Cage (2016) follows Wise in parts of his struggle for chimpanzees.
Background
Wise received his undergraduate education in chemistry at the
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 — must know that he or she exists. Wise argues that chimpanzees, bonobos, elephants, parrots, dolphins, orangutans, and gorillas meet these criteria.[6]
Wise argued 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."[8]
Wise wrote 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 treated as "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.[9]
In Rattling the Cage, Wise offers examples of primates who he believed have suffered unjustifiably. He wrote about Jerom, a chimpanzee who lived alone in a small cage in the
Wise also told the story of
Seminars
Wise has been profiled in Who's Who in the World as well as other editions of Who's Who since 2005. He was a frequent guest on a wide variety of television and radio news and talk shows throughout Europe, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and North America.
Wise spoke frequently on topics related to animal rights law at law schools, legal conferences, and universities throughout North and South America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Africa, including Harvard Law School, Monash University Law School, and the University of Stellenbosch among others.
Wise taught
Works
Books
- Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals, Perseus Books, Cambridge, MA, 2000 ISBN 0738200654(called a "seminal work" by the Boston Globe (March 3, 2005); Time magazine observed "[o]nce the domain of activists, animal law has steadily gained respect among law schools and legal scholars since 2000, when … Rattling the Cage provided an academic argument for granting legal rights to animals" (December 13, 2004)) .
- Drawing the Line: Science and the Case for Animal Rights, Perseus Publishing, Cambridge, MA, 2002. ISBN 0738203408
- Though the Heavens May Fall, Da Capo Press, Cambridge, MA, 2005 (cover review for Sunday New York Times Book Review, January 9, 2005). ISBN 0738206954
- An American Trilogy: Death, Slavery, and Dominion Along the Banks of the Cape Fear River, Da Capo Press, 2009. ISBN 9780306814754 (a review[10])
See also
References
- ^ Just don't give them the car keys. Tampa Bay Times, June 10, 2002.
- ^ Clifton M. Nonhuman Rights Project founder & author Steven Wise dies at age 73. Animals 24-7. 02/17/2024
- ^ a b "About the author" Archived 2006-01-09 at the Wayback Machine, Steven Wise's home page.
- ^ "Emeritus Advisory Council". AHM Website. Animal History Museum. Retrieved 3 September 2013.
- ^ Siebert, Charles (April 23, 2014). "Should a Chimp Be Able to Sue Its Owner?". New York Times. Retrieved November 9, 2014.
- ^ a b Gale, "Biography".
- ^ "Nonhuman Rights Project founder & author Steven Wise dies at age 73". Animals 24-7. 17 February 2024. Retrieved 17 February 2024.
- ^ 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.
- ^ "Book Review: An American Trilogy: Death, Slavery, and Dominion on the Banks of the Cape Fear River". Michigan State University College of Law. Retrieved 30 November 2015.