Planet of the Apes and Philosophy

by Huss, John

  I suspect therefore that the Planet of the Apes scenario may repeat itself again and again. In the universe as a whole, humanoids with the intelligence to find weapons of mass destruction may well appear on a regular basis. (I myself am not sure how often this would happen, but let’s assume that in a universe big enough it does occur repeatedly.) But that is a threshold, and the social nature of these humanoids will only keep things in the air for so long. Today, tomorrow, sometime in the future, someone will use the knowledge to destroy the humanoid civilization and resting place. This will happen before there has been much more rise in the humanoid intelligence.

  You think I exaggerate? In real life we have had nuclear knowledge for less than a hundred years. Already the most civilized of us all have been prepared to use it against others. Does anyone truly think that in the next twenty thousand years—a blink in the evolutionary timescale—in a world that already contains North Korea, the knowledge will never be used again? If you honestly think that within the next million years we shall not have destroyed ourselves, then let me tell you that I have a bridge for sale that might interest you.

  So I see the chief message of Planet of the Apes as being that human civilization as we know it is not likely to survive. With great knowledge comes great responsibility and frankly we are probably not up to the task. Beneath the surface of a stirring adventure story, laced with humor—who can forget the response of Zira when she’s expected to kiss Taylor: “Alright, but you’re so damned ugly!”—is a grim explication of the awful human situation.

  VI

  Ape Ethics

  13

  Captive Kin

  LORI GRUEN

  In fourth grade, I pretended to get sick the day my class went on a field trip to the zoo. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been drawn to other animals, but zoos made me sad. The animals seemed bored or silly or uncomfortable. They seemed to me to be misunderstood and as a child I too felt misunderstood. Sometimes I identified more with animals than with humans.

  I hadn’t seen Planet of the Apes yet when I was in grade school, I had to wait until I was a bit older. When I first saw it I was terrified by it—all of the apes, the humans, the gorillas, the chimpanzees, and the orangutans were behaving in ways that were so frightening. But I also like being scared so I saw the movie as often as I could.

  Looking back, I think what scared me the most about that original movie (and also what thrilled me so much about Rise of Planet of the Apes, but more about that in a bit) was thinking about being locked in a cage, unable to communicate with the captors. When I imagine myself in the position of Taylor, who had been shot in the throat before he was captured and now could not communicate his desires, I feel frustrated, angry, and also really scared.

  In the movie, the ape captors thought he was just a dumb animal and he had to struggle, often futilely, to try to communicate that he was somebody—with likes and dislikes, fears and hopes and plans. He had a personality and thoughts and he could suffer. Yet he was treated as if none of this was even possible, his captors seemed unable to imagine that he was anything other than a struggling specimen, sort of like a bug captured in a jar. He had to suffer all sorts of physical assaults without being able to express his pain verbally, although he obvious expressed his displeasure in other ways. He also was subject to humiliations and other indignities. But then his voice came back and through language he was able to escape his captivity.

  The Harm of Imprisonment

  What Taylor experienced as a captive is similar to what some chimpanzees and other apes, including humans, actually experience in captivity today—although most captives are now kept in sterile, cement and steel enclosures, not the dirt and wood enclosures from Planet of the Apes. To hold someone captive is to deny him a variety of goods and to frustrate his interests in a variety of ways. Though captive situations usually vary, one thing about captivity is that it confines and controls those who are captive and makes captives reliant on those in control to satisfy their basic needs.

  We tend to think that being held captive constitutes a harm. We justify holding humans captive when they have done something that warrants our depriving them of their freedom. Of course, imprisoning people harms them, but it may not be wrong to do so. Some of the incarcerated people I work with understand that they are being held captive because of what they did—they committed crimes and violated the social contract so are now being punished for their transgressions. But not everything they experience in captivity constitutes rightful punishment (for example, being denied contact with their children and families or being humiliated and degraded by prison guards) particularly in those cases, and there are many, in which the people who are incarcerated didn’t really have genuine options when they committed their crimes.

  While denying someone their freedom harms them, certain forms of captivity can sometimes be justified. But denying freedom to one who is innocent, who does nothing to deserve the deprivation, is much harder to justify. Taylor in Planet of the Apes and Caesar in Rise of Planet of the Apes did nothing to deserve being held captive. They were confined and controlled simply for who they were.

  I couldn’t help but be reminded of the actual harms that captivity causes chimpanzees while watching Rise of the Planet of the Apes. There are currently four research laboratories experimenting on chimpanzees (they may be the only four in the world, as the US and Gabon are the only countries that still experiment on chimpanzees). In these labs, chimpanzees may be shot with tranquilizer darts from close range, causing them to then fall from their perches onto the hard floor as they start to lose consciousness, some chimpanzees experience multiple surgeries and do not have adequate pain relief after they are revived. Often chimpanzees are left with untreated serious injuries (even when self-inflicted). Sometimes some of them are housed individually and are not allowed to interact with other chimps. These chimpanzees have been in labs for decades, in fact, of the roughly 940 chimpanzees currently in labs, 180 individuals have been there for thirty or more years.

  The situation Caesar and the others were in at the holding facility is not that different from conditions at some places where captive apes are held, where they don’t get fresh fruit or vegetables, aren’t provided with intellectual stimulation, comfort, or even fresh air and sunshine. Clearly this is harmful. But while these harms result from being in captivity, it might not be a necessary feature of captivity. The harm consists in our causing the chimpanzee to suffer, not that we are denying them freedom. Which raises the question—is there something beyond physical and psychological suffering that is wrong with captivity?

  Love Across Species and Between Bars

  I first began asking this question after I met a pair of captive young chimpanzees. Like Caesar they were born in research labs and then raised in a scientist’s home as if they were human children. Harper and Emma are “enculturated” chimpanzees. They were working in a cognition research center in Ohio, where they were learning to use computers to match words with pictures. They also performed a variety of tool tasks.

  These youngsters, also like Caesar in the beginning of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, were irresistibly cute and rambunctious. Unlike Caesar, fortunately, they were not given experimental drugs to boost their intelligence. They were smart, though, and they regularly gestured that they wanted to get out of their enclosures and play on the trampoline or go for a walk in the woods. They would point to the keys hanging outside of their enclosure and then would point to the lock. When they were allowed outside, Harper would run around looking for trouble. On one occasion, he opened a car door that wasn’t locked, rummaged around inside, found a plastic bottle of Dr. Pepper, drank it down, and then held on to the bottle while he ran off to climb a tree in the woods. Both of the chimpanzees would do somersaults and ask to play chase or be tickled.

  Sometimes little Emma would hold my hand as we walked. Once she jumped into my arms and had me carry her through the woods. Feeling her heart beating next to mine as she hugg
ed me was an unforgettable experience. We kissed too (it wasn’t anything like what happened between Taylor and Zira, but it created a bond). Spending time with the chimpanzees captivated me.

  As chimpanzees grow older and reach puberty it is extremely dangerous to interact with them and they have to be confined. This was true for Emma and Harper too. They now live in a beautiful sanctuary called Chimp Haven. (The sound editors for Rise of the Planet of the Apes went to Chimp Haven and recorded the actual chimpanzee calls you hear in the movie.) I visit with Emma when I can. I think it’s hard for both of us not to be able to touch each other. Nonetheless, we still express our affection. I bring lots of treats (nuts, seeds, dried fruit) that I tie up in socks or wrap in paper towel tubes that I can pass to her through her enclosure. Last time I saw her she picked a bouquet of weeds from inside her enclosure and handed them to me through the bars. We can exchange objects to show that we care about each other, but she will always be in an enclosure and I will always be outside of that enclosure.

  That bars will always separate us led me to wonder whether there is something wrong with captivity even when Emma and Harper and the others are having a great time. They are well fed and well cared for and get all sorts of enrichment. They have room to play with other chimpanzees as well as room to get away if they need some quiet time. They engage in complicated social interactions and they are intellectually and emotionally stimulated by all sorts of interesting activities that go on at the sanctuary. But they can never be free.

  Freedom

  Depriving someone of her freedom, which is what captivity does, is one of the things that can make a life go badly for that individual. Captivity prevents someone from doing what they want; it interferes with their opportunities to make their own choices and to act on them. Not being interfered with in the pursuit of one’s desires is important to leading a good life.

  Of course, having the freedom to follow one’s desires may not always, in fact, be what is best. Sometimes an individual might have desires that, if satisfied, do not actually enhance her well-being at all. Conversely, well-being might be experienced even though one is not actually free. I may think that my well-being is being promoted because I have altered my desires to fit my unfree conditions. Living a free life may contain all sorts of hardships, and being kept safe, well fed, and protected from danger may promote well-being, even while freedom is denied.

  Even though keeping apes in captivity often causes them to suffer physically and certainly causes stress and other psychological harms, it is at least conceivable, that we might be able to provide an idealized captive environment for them. Chimp Haven is the closest thing to that. Since chimpanzees care about being free from physical and emotional pain, they want good food, comfort, healthcare, entertainment, stimulation and companionship. If we were to provide all these things, giving them the freedom to avoid stress and satisfy their interests, would denying them their freedom by keeping them in captivity still be a bad thing? If a chimpanzee doesn’t know any better then maybe keeping him captive isn’t so bad.

  Am I a Pet?

  Caesar knew that captivity wasn’t for him, even though he had never experienced anything else. When he saw a dog on a leash in a park he signed to Will asking if he was a pet and it was clear that he didn’t want to be thought of that way, he didn’t want to be confined and controlled. When he realized he was a captive in the holding facility, he erased the chalk picture he had drawn on his cell wall of the window in his childhood home and began imagining a real home, free in the forests. He wanted to be in control of himself and he planned the great escape.

  Caesar’s escaping from the holding facility was an exercise in autonomy. Autonomous action is not just doing what you want to do, but it also involves making choices about your actions, planning and then deciding to endorse the action you engage in. Since most captive animals are not thought to be autonomous in this way, the question of whether pain-free captivity is a problem rarely gets asked.

  This is a conception of autonomy that requires advanced cognitive capacities, to be sure, and it isn’t clear that any nonhuman non-linguistic animals have precisely these capacities. Because Caesar had language abilities and was chemically altered so he could develop advanced cognitive capacities it makes sense to say that he acted autonomously, but it may be a stretch to think of regular old apes as being autonomous.

  But maybe there’s another way to think about what autonomous action is. All sorts of animals make choices about what to do, when to do it, and who to do it with. Many animals make plans, by making and saving tools for future use or by caching food to collect at a later time. Social animals often engage in manipulation or deception to try to get what they want and to prevent others from getting it.

  One of my favorite examples of this sort of deception comes from observations of vervet monkeys in Africa. Tristan, an overly amorous male tried to “do it” with Borgia who apparently didn’t have the same desires so she let out a scream. Following her scream, her family started to aggressively chase Tristan. After a short while running from Borgia’s indignant family, Tristan suddenly stopped and started making alarm calls. Vervet monkeys give different sorts of alarm calls to indicate what sort of predator is in the area. Tristan must have given a call that indicated a ground predator was near because Borgia’s pursuing relatives scattered into the trees. What is so interesting about this is that Tristan stayed where he was and eventually walked away unharmed as he diverted the chase.

  It seems like these sorts of behaviors could be considered autonomous in the sense that animals are controlling what they do and are cleverly trying to influence the behavior of others. They certainly aren’t being controlled.

  It’s a mistake to believe that being human or being genetically enhanced like Caesar is necessary for autonomy. Many animals, including primates, follow their own wants and desires, interests and dreams, and not simply those that are imposed from the outside or are “hard-wired” by instinct. They have distinct personalities and they express those personalities in different ways. They are self-directed, can adapt to changing circumstances, make choices and resist changes if that is what they decide, and improve their environments, often through collective action. Other animals learn from their peers and modify what they learn to suit themselves and their needs. They pursue activities that presumably they find rewarding. Not all animals in a social group do exactly the same things, eat exactly the same things, or spend time with the same individuals. They are making independent choices within the context of their biological and physical capabilities.

  In Escape from the Planet of the Apes, there’s an amusing montage in which Zira and Cornelius go shopping at pricey boutiques in Los Angeles, but elaborate grooming behaviors are not exclusively human activities. Real chimpanzees groom each other; grooming involves one chimpanzee using his or her hands to look through another chimpanzee’s coat, picking out nits, inspecting for injuries, but mostly the behavior seems to provide enjoyment for the one being groomed and the one grooming.

  Who gets groomed, when, and under what conditions is something that an individual chimpanzee will autonomously choose. Some species-typical behaviors involve lengthy migrations, but who leads the migration, when the migration begins, and where the group is heading will vary. Some species-typical behaviors involve remaining with the group you were born into for life and some involve leaving as soon as you’re able, but the exact time you leave, where you go and with whom, are choices that an individual makes, influenced by the community.

  Chimpanzees also follow social norms, in the wild and in captivity. They play important social roles, much as the various apes did in their revolution in Rise. And these roles will change over time. In Africa, chimpanzees are occasionally observed crossing roads that intersect with their territories. There’s a video recording of chimpanzee behavior at the crossings where adult males took up forward and rear positions, with adult females and young chimpanzees occupying the more protected middle positio
ns. The positioning of dominant and bolder individuals, in particular the alpha male changed depending on the degree of risk and number of other adult males present.

  I witnessed a surprising interaction between some of my captive chimpanzee friends. Sarah likes to look at books, so when I visit I occasionally bring her children’s books that can withstand chimpanzee handling for at least a few minutes. I gave Sarah her book and before she could really start “reading” it, Harper, who at this point in time was older but still mischievous, came over and took it away. Sarah didn’t struggle with Harper when he took it. Then moments later, Sheba, a very smart female chimpanzee, who didn’t appear to me to have noticed Harper’s behavior because she was happily eating her dried mangos, went over to Harper and took the book from him. This in itself wouldn’t be surprising as taking things that others have is typical among members of a group that aren’t clearly dominant. What was surprising was that rather than keeping it herself, she promptly gave it back to Sarah. There were no vocalizations that I was aware of that might indicate Sarah was distressed by Harper’s thievery nor that Sheba was trying to appease any distress. It just looked to me as though Sheba was setting things right. No one told her what to do—she just autonomously determined that the book belonged to Sarah.