Monkeys should be considered persons

Before I argue the individual premises, I would like to advise you that It would be wise not to discuss any of your premises in terms of "humans", but rather in terms of people, since as far as I can tell, you are arguing that monkeys should be people, not that monkeys should be humans. By inserting all the premises about humans, you are really doing nothing for your case, because technically I could disregard anything that mentions being human. I understand that you are trying to use the words human and person synonymously, however, I do not think this is a good comparison to draw, because I can think of examples where a human is not necessarily a person. Think only of children, and humans in comas, or humans that technically are still alive, but have no brain function. This argument stems from my own perception of how a person is defined, which is lacking in your argument, so I have no way of knowing if my assumption is correct. However, if you were to find a good argument of a person, I think you would be inclined to agree with what I am saying here. What I am defining a person as, is a person who has legal rights, and is able to make legal, rational decisions for themselves, and can be held accountable for their actions in a court of law. 1. I still do not agree with your definition of pain, because although you say that there are different forms of pain, you say it is just an emotion in the second half of the premise""pain is just an emotion"" So are we only inserting emotional pain into the debate, and completely leaving out physical pain. I would have thought that physical pain would have played an important role, but if that is not the case then we will simply leave it out. Also, you never answered the part about whether or not the pain is inflicted or simply just occurs as some sort of natural process. It could be either or, and it is important that this distinction is made. 4. I now agree with your definition of morality as outlined in the added 4 premises. This will help me to better understand your argument. 5/6. I think I could better understand what you are trying to say in premise 5 and premise 6 if you somehow found a way to consolidate them. As I read them now, even after your explanation, I still do not see the difference between them. Is there a way that you can either change the wording of these two premises to clarify what you are trying to say better? Or to combine them into one comprehensive premise? This aside, however, I still do not agree with these premises, because are the rights between animals and humans really equal, even in the examples of the laws you gave? I would find it hard to believe that the rights humans have are equal to the rights that animals currently have. If all animals had the same rights that humans had, we would all be required to be vegetarians, because killing animals would not be allowed. I understand that we can be punished for harming some animals, but I think that you need to clear up whether you are discussing ALL rights with ALL animals, or only certain rights, and some animals. I think it is also important that we know what consideration an animal must have in order to argue that they must be a person. I do not think it even logical to argue that a lizard could be a person, because lizards don"t do anything person-like as far as I can tell. I think that you ought to specify that only a certain group of animals could be considered for personhood, based on some guidelines. 9. How do we determine the independent value of a creature? I will be inclined to have to agree with this premise once I clear up exactly what you entirely mean by it. Also, are u referring to this value in all creatures, or just persons, or humans, or animals? 10. I now understand what you mean that animals are moral object, as well as humans. However, I do not agree that all animals have the same moral rights to life, or lack of harm, because, as stated above, this would prevent us from eating any meat at all, because if every animal had the same rights as we do, we have no right to kill them. I think again you need to narrow your premises to certain types of cognitive animals, so that I do not need to completely dismiss all of your premises. 11. I have no reason to agree with the inherited value of animals and humans being equal, because like I have said above, then we have no right to kill animals, ever.