Book Review

I read the book, Rattling the Cage, by Steven M. Wise written in 2000, and published by Perseus Books. Wise began his book by telling a heart-wrenching story about a group of chimpanzees that were used for HIV testing. Wise used the story to grasp the reader’s attention and emotions in an attempt to help make his animal rights argument stronger. The book walked through the history of animal rights and talked about the evolution of legal rights of nonhumans. Wise argues that, “the problem for nonhuman animals is that they can neither fight nor write.” (page 13) Animals will never be able to have rights unless humans are willing to fight and write for them, which is what Wise encourages his readers to do.

Ancient philosophers believed that animals were put on this earth solely for human use. Wise discusses slavery and the evolution of women’s rights throughout the world. He goes on to explain that currently animals are treated much like slaves and women were treated before equal rights and that animals are in need of our help to gain these same legal rights. However because humans as a whole view nonhuman animals as property, they will still be bought, sold, and traded like any other piece of property.

I enjoyed reading about the similarities between chimpanzees and humans. The section that discussed our similarities of DNA was very interesting. I knew that we shared similarities with chimpanzees but I did not realize how many traits we actually shared. I found this book to be an enjoyable read, but I did find a few flaws in Wise’s arguments. I would have liked to have seen more depth on a solution for animals. Wise argues that chimpanzees share the mental capacity as well as consciousness to that of a five year old human. I agree that chimpanzees have a very high consciousness and intelligence, but I do not believe that they should have the same rights as humans. Wise suggested that because chimpanzees are comparable to children, that they should also have the same rights as children. The only difference would have to be that chimpanzee’s rights would not be able to grow like children’s rights do throughout their lives.

This was a very thought provoking book, and I would recommend it to anyone that is looking for an interesting perspective about animals and their rights. The author focused his arguments and attention mostly on chimpanzees since their DNA is closest to humans. I would have liked to have seen more coverage on other animals and species’ rights. Wise wrote about different levels of consciousness in rabbits and how there are two different tests for memory, delay conditioning and trace conditioning. (page 140) He concluded that rabbits have consciousness, but I believe that animal rights should have limits. I think it is difficult to measure a creature’s level of consciousness, and because of this there should also be other requirements that should be met before legal rights are given out to every creature. Wise suggests that we were born with god given rights as well as inalienable rights, and that in history one group gives other groups rights. In order for animals to have a chance, humans as a group must identify an appropriate level of animal rights and then work to help animals obtain these deserving rights.