The Great Ape Project: Towards a New Equality by Peter Singer
The Great Ape Project advances a radical and controversial idea. It calls for the immediate extension of the moral community to include the other great apes - chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans. The Great Ape Project defines a new community of equals which would accept certain basic moral principles or rights as governing our relations with each other, and enforceable by law. The rights would include: the right to life, the protection of individual liberty and the prohibition of torture. Until now, this community has only contained human beings: this book argues for the inclusion of the other great apes. The Great Ape Project is a series of passionately argued but rigorous think-pieces. The distinguished group of contributors includes: Jane Goodall and Douglas Adams (who write about meeting or living with great apes), Richard Dawkins (who writes about the genetic similarities between humans and apes), Richard Ryder, David Cantor, Jared Diamond (author of the best-selling The Third Chimpanzee) and Peter Singer.