Steven M. Wise and the Common Law Case for Animal Rights: Full Steam Ahead

Abstract

This article examines Steven M. Wise’s arguments in favour of rationally extending fundamental rights at common law to other animals, as well as the 2014 and 2017 decisions of the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court, which rejected the possibility of extending common law personhood to a chimpanzee on social contract grounds. The article argues that extending the common law rights to liberty and bodily integrity to animals whose cognitive characteristics indicate an interest in self-determination is both morally correct and legally feasible, since this interest is what said common law rights exist to protect. Moreover, the arguments from reciprocity and community membership adopted by the New York Court fail to provide a philosophically sound basis for denying nonhuman rights, nor does conceptualising rights and duties in terms of social contract necessarily preclude nonhuman emancipation.