Ape language & the Ethics of Experimentation

The issue of whether apes can be taught human languages interlinks in complex ways with issues about the ethical treatment of animals in research. The philosopher descartes believed that language was what separated humans from animals. according to this view, if apes could be shown capable of acquiring a language, they would have human status and should be given the same rights as humans in experimentation. one might even ask that they give informed consent before participat- ing in an experiment. Certainly, any procedure that involved injury would not be acceptable. There has been a fair amount of research involving invasive brain procedures with pri- mates, but most of this has involved monkeys, not the great apes. Inter- estingly, it has been reported that studies with linguistic apes found that they categorized themselves with humans and separate from other animals (Linden, 1974). It has been argued that it is in the best interests of apes to teach them a language because this would confer on them the rights of humans. How- ever, others have argued that teach- ing apes a human language deadens their basic nature and that the  Kanzi, a bonobo, listening to english. a number of videos of Kanzi can be found on youTube by searching with his name.
issue is that humans have lost the ability to understand apes.
The very similarity of primates to humans is what makes them such attractive subjects for research. There are severe restrictions on research on apes in many countries, and in 2008 the great ape protection act, which would have prohibited any in- vasive research involving great apes, was introduced in the u.S. Congress. Much of the concern is with use of apes to study human disease, where the potential benefits are great but the moral issues of infecting an animal are also severe. From this perspective, most cognitive research with apes, such as that on language acquisition, is quite benign. From a cognitive perspective, they are the only creatures that have thought processes close to that of humans, and they offer potential insights we cannot get from other species. nonetheless, many have argued that all research that removes them from their natural setting, including lan- guage acquisition research, should ▲ be banned.