Non-human Sapients and their rights

[Clonus]

 

 

In response, Congress passed the Android, Artificial Intelligence, and Alien Life-Forms Rights Act of 1979 (usually known as the "Triple-A Act"). The Triple-A Act grants civil rights to most "sentient" beings who can prove that they are independent and free-willed. The law defines "sentience" in various ways, usually relating to the capacity for creative and philosophical thought, not just problem-solving capability. Most states have also enacted laws or passed their own constitutional amendments granting "alternate sentiences" various civil rights. However, this law and all related laws, state and federal, make one exception: the undead do not have civil rights. The legal ramifications of that, particularly the question of who owns the formerly deceased's property, combined with the typically evil or destructive nature of such beings, has kept them outside the ambit of the laws.

 

Which boils down to living entities with recognized humanlike intelligence being accorded pretty much every legal protection that humans have, although since they are laws and not a constitutional amendment, the laws protecting them could be repealed with a simple vote .  

 

However that doubtess doesn't include the right to vote or hold public office. But they can sue in a court of law.  

[Lord Liaden]

As a side-note to that point about the status of the Undead; after that was raised on the discussion forums for the Champions Online MMORPG, there was some pointed protest from players with vampire PCs. Of which there's a significant number. When they're not playing demons.

[Christopher R Taylor]

First thing I thought of when I saw this was H Beam Piper's book Little Fuzzy about trying to determine the intelligence and self awareness of cute little teddy bear aliens.

[massey]

This is a really tough question. You have to have a federal oversight committee created by the government in order to insure that the states don't run around passing crazy laws about what people can and can't do to them. If you're really serious and into deep roleplay moments, create some NPCs and have the PC"s BE the federal oversight committee for a session. Let them decide what kind of rights these creatures should have. 

 

Technically, the American Civil Liberties Union would probably step in at this point on behalf of the Moreaus, and address mistreatment of the creatures. Other Moreaus would flee to other nations with more liberal laws, while still others would rail against "The Humans that Created Us" and seek to punish, destroy, or replace them. 

 

You've got a whole mess of options. That's really the point of this.

 

Your focus should be

 

1) How much do the players want to be involved in dealing with these creatures? If "Hell no", handwave it until you want Moreaus to be supervillains.

 

2) If yes, find out just how much they want to be involved. You have a responsibility to let everyone enjoy themselves without Law and Order: Special Metaanthroplogy Victims Unit taking over the game. 

 

3) What kind of world are you interested in having this turn out to be, and how are things going to be changed? If these creatures are ONLY in California, they'll probably be granted full rights within a year. If they're all over the US, a federal oversight committee will likely be created. 

 

There wouldn't be a federal oversight committee.  That's not how it would work.

 

Currently, in the real world, non-humans have no rights.  There are laws against animal abuse, but an alien who came to Earth, or an intelligent robot, or anything like that would have no rights.  Of course, on real world Earth, we don't have any examples on non-human intelligent life.  You could argue dolphins or chimps, but none of them have been afforded anything like civil rights that humans enjoy.

 

So, what you'd probably see (barring a Champions Universe arrangement where this type of stuff already happened decades ago) is something like what happened with gay marriage.  Your more liberal states begin recognizing android rights, or alien rights, and then eventually it goes before the US Supreme Court, and they make a decision.  At that point, all lower courts fall in line.  But you could still have individual states and counties fighting against the federal decision, just like today.  They'd just lose.  And then there's always the chance that you'd get a federal civil rights bill passed that extended protections to certain groups.

 

A federal oversight committee would have zero authority to prevent state legislatures from passing whatever laws they wanted.  It doesn't work that way.

[assault]

As a side-note to that point about the status of the Undead; after that was raised on the discussion forums for the Champions Online MMORPG, there was some pointed protest from players with vampire PCs. Of which there's a significant number. When they're not playing demons.

 

That's brilliant.

 

I'm torn between "stake 'em all" and supporting the Undead Rights Movement.

 

It would lead to some awesome Zombie Walks.

[Anaximander]

As a side-note to that point about the status of the Undead; after that was raised on the discussion forums for the Champions Online MMORPG, there was some pointed protest from players with vampire PCs. Of which there's a significant number. When they're not playing demons.

I also play the MMORPG and am amazed at the number of players who effectively play villains and monsters as heroes, but that is a bit off topic.

[Cancer]

Since I teach a class that ends up with some modest discussion about extraterrestrial races, I've asked about this and hunted for opinions in terms of the Real Life situation. The Washington judge's quote (and I live in WA) is the operative one for now: in the absence of contradicting precedent or statute, an alien has the same status as human. I have even asked an analogous question of a theology instructor (and we have them, since I work at a Jesuit university), whether aliens have souls, and again, until some other consideration is made relevant, yes, aliens would be considered to have souls. I've got a clip in my files from one priest high up in the ladder in the Vatican saying he would gladly baptize an alien, as long as he was convinced the alien knew what it meant and genuinely wanted it.

 

Now, if/when real aliens show up, exactly what happens will go a long way toward establishing precedent.

[Marcus Impudite]

Here's a tricky one:

 

Let's say there's a popular space pirate themed computer game titled Galaxy Pillager. In a freak accident involving whatever rubber science explanation you care to use, the pirate captain protagonist of the game, his ship, his crew, and a handful of the game's antagonists (some dangerous alien monsters included among them) all got "zapped" into our world. Pending someone finding a way to send them back to the video game realm they belong in, how would they be regarded under the law?

[Cancer]

Until they commit a crime on Earth, they're like any international if terrestrial alien (in the foreigner sense), innocent until yadda yadda.

 

If interstellar cops show up to capture them now you have jurisdictional issues since there are no extradition treaties, etc. Perhaps an interesting scenario, though it puts everyone on the table on the spot having to make a judgment call with no data.

[Clonus]

Since I teach a class that ends up with some modest discussion about extraterrestrial races, I've asked about this and hunted for opinions in terms of the Real Life situation. The Washington judge's quote (and I live in WA) is the operative one for now: in the absence of contradicting precedent or statute, an alien has the same status as human. I have even asked an analogous question of a theology instructor (and we have them, since I work at a Jesuit university), whether aliens have souls, and again, until some other consideration is made relevant, yes, aliens would be considered to have souls. I've got a clip in my files from one priest high up in the ladder in the Vatican saying he would gladly baptize an alien, as long as he was convinced the alien knew what it meant and genuinely wanted it.

 

Now, if/when real aliens show up, exactly what happens will go a long way toward establishing precedent.

 

The assumption there is of course that an "alien" who shows up will be piloting his own flying saucer and will demonstrate an ability to communicate complex concepts and do math.  If an alien shows up who doesn't show any capacity for complex tool use then we'd probably lock it up and try to figure out how to talk to it.  Once we spend enough time drawing a blank there we'd decide that this was an alien animal rather than alien person.  Maybe the flying saucer pilot's pet.  Of course if we lived in a four-colour comic universe it would take a lot less time to make that decision because we could sic telepaths on it.  And we could could also use telepaths to determine that an alien that did use complex technology was something closer to a biological nonsapient robot than a person.  

[massey]

Since I teach a class that ends up with some modest discussion about extraterrestrial races, I've asked about this and hunted for opinions in terms of the Real Life situation. The Washington judge's quote (and I live in WA) is the operative one for now: in the absence of contradicting precedent or statute, an alien has the same status as human. I have even asked an analogous question of a theology instructor (and we have them, since I work at a Jesuit university), whether aliens have souls, and again, until some other consideration is made relevant, yes, aliens would be considered to have souls. I've got a clip in my files from one priest high up in the ladder in the Vatican saying he would gladly baptize an alien, as long as he was convinced the alien knew what it meant and genuinely wanted it.

 

Now, if/when real aliens show up, exactly what happens will go a long way toward establishing precedent.

 

The Washington judge didn't establish any precedent.  What he said is called dicta.  It's basically meaningless commentary by the judge that doesn't have any precedential value.  Since I'm pretty sure the Washington case wasn't decided on the basis of alien rights, his comments about alien rights were not important to the outcome.

 

To establish precedent, you need an appellate court (so not a trial judge) deciding a specific issue, and they have to publish the case.  It only establishes precedent for that specific issue.  So an appeals judge saying "oh yeah I think aliens would be covered by this too" doesn't do anything except maybe give you a hint of how that judge would decide if it came up in the future.

 

My firm had a recent case where the state Supreme Court had ruled in our favor against a government agency.  They said, in an offhanded comment, "the agency could probably get around this problem by doing XYZ".  So the agency promptly went out and did XYZ.  We sued again.  We won again.  The state Supreme Court said "we had previously said that by doing XYZ, the government may be able to get around this.  This statement, however, was dicta.  Upon closer examination, doing XYZ is not sufficient to do what the government is trying to do."  Paraphrased, of course.

 

What it really comes down to is that judges don't want to be held responsible for a throwaway line that they put in their opinions.  They make a decision, and only the bare minimum necessary to make that decision is what establishes precedent.

[megaplayboy]

I think the personhood of aliens would wind up being something handled at the international/UN level. There would be considerable benefits to a uniform policy globally. And considerable risks to a non-uniform approach(e.g., North Korea).

[Weldun]

Which boils down to living entities with recognized humanlike intelligence being accorded pretty much every legal protection that humans have, although since they are laws and not a constitutional amendment, the laws protecting them could be repealed with a simple vote .  

 

However that doubtess doesn't include the right to vote or hold public office. But they can sue in a court of law.  

Pretty much all isn't the same as all, and my problem is the sections in the Champions Universe materials state that some rights have been extended to non-human sapients in the United States and leaves it at that. There's no guidance on what rights they do and don't have, which can be frustrating for a GM (me) who based his campaign in an established setting so that he could focus his attention elsewhere.

 

I'm thinking that it's the basics. They have the right to life, it's most likely illegal to own one (the thirteenth amendment is wonderful in how plain it's language is) and they have the right to own property (if only to keep them involved in the 'white market' economy and therefore be a revenue stream through taxes and tarrifs). But I'm not sure about freedom of travel. I could see the "left" go two directions, the social liberals wanting them to have that freedom but the conservationist crowd (quite fairly) having serious concerns.

[Tasha]

Pretty much all isn't the same as all, and my problem is the sections in the Champions Universe materials state that some rights have been extended to non-human sapients in the United States and leaves it at that. There's no guidance on what rights they do and don't have, which can be frustrating for a GM (me) who based his campaign in an established setting so that he could focus his attention elsewhere.

 

I'm thinking that it's the basics. They have the right to life, it's most likely illegal to own one (the thirteenth amendment is wonderful in how plain it's language is) and they have the right to own property (if only to keep them involved in the 'white market' economy and therefore be a revenue stream through taxes and tarrifs). But I'm not sure about freedom of travel. I could see the "left" go two directions, the social liberals wanting them to have that freedom but the conservationist crowd (quite fairly) having serious concerns.

 

Depends on the kind of campaign you want to run. Also, talk to your players and make sure that they would find a particular storyline fun. There are people who currently don't enjoy equal rights under the law. They might find a Civil rights kind of storyline esp one with Uplifted animals insulting. If the Players are ok with it, you could start them off as having nebulous rights. They are expected to follow the laws of state and country, but the laws are applied unevenly to them. With some Moreau experiencing heavy discrimination and unjust treatment by law enforcement, others doing better. Because some animals are looked at as being more "noble" more trustworthy. Work with the PC's to have them change public perceptions of their kind and then perhaps to eventually give them full rights under the law.

[Lord Liaden]

I think the personhood of aliens would wind up being something handled at the international/UN level. There would be considerable benefits to a uniform policy globally. And considerable risks to a non-uniform approach(e.g., North Korea).

 

United Nations resolutions are often ignored by countries, unless the UN or one of its member states can organize sufficient international cooperation in leveling punitive measures against an offending nation. Even then, if said state has powerful allies, or just pressing domestic reasons to take a stand, they may defy those measures anyway. North Korea does it; so does Russia over Crimea and Ukraine. Israel has snubbed the UN resolution condemning its occupation of former Palestinian lands for decades.

[Lord Liaden]

Pretty much all isn't the same as all, and my problem is the sections in the Champions Universe materials state that some rights have been extended to non-human sapients in the United States and leaves it at that. There's no guidance on what rights they do and don't have, which can be frustrating for a GM (me) who based his campaign in an established setting so that he could focus his attention elsewhere.

 

 

I empathize with your concerns, but IMO that's not a fault for the CU material. The importance of those details will vary from campaign to campaign, and I can appreciate Steve Long not wanting to impose too much of a straight jacket on individual GMs. As I mentioned, just the exclusion of undead from the Triple-A Act caused friction Steve likely didn't anticipate.

 

The only reason to deny any particular civil right to Moreaus (in this case) is if doing so would forward a story you and your game group want to run. If there's no story-based reason to deal with it, there's no need to define it. OTOH if would make for an interesting story, the very vagueness of Triple-A allows you to say, that's how it is.

[Clonus]

Pretty much all isn't the same as all, and my problem is the sections in the Champions Universe materials state that some rights have been extended to non-human sapients in the United States and leaves it at that. There's no guidance on what rights they do and don't have, which can be frustrating for a GM (me) who based his campaign in an established setting so that he could focus his attention elsewhere.

 

I'm thinking that it's the basics. They have the right to life, it's most likely illegal to own one (the thirteenth amendment is wonderful in how plain it's language is) and they have the right to own property (if only to keep them involved in the 'white market' economy and therefore be a revenue stream through taxes and tarrifs). But I'm not sure about freedom of travel. I could see the "left" go two directions, the social liberals wanting them to have that freedom but the conservationist crowd (quite fairly) having serious concerns.

 

What would they have concerns about?  There's no way the default Champions Universe would have travel restrictions on nonhumans unless there were actually some kind of security concerns.  For example the remnants of a invading alien army or nonhumans who carry exotic diseases.    

[Weldun]

What would they have concerns about?  There's no way the default Champions Universe would have travel restrictions on nonhumans unless there were actually some kind of security concerns.  For example the remnants of a invading alien army or nonhumans who carry exotic diseases.    

With regards to the Moreaus in my campaign, they could have a devastating effect on conservation efforts. Moreaus can (although usually don't) interbreed with their originating species, with the Moreau traits (intelligence, hands with opposable thumbs, etc...) being dominant to an extreme. Moreaus could conceivably breed with and then out compete several endangered species. Additionally, imagine the potential ecological impact of, as an example, the Canadian Beaver population tripling in the next 20 years and then further modify that with advanced intelligence and tool use. Beaver dams drastically impact the local ecosystem but they eventually burst. The local ecosystems have evolved to handle this phenomenon, but at a particular scale. Now imagine if Beavers started building larger dams that were designed for longer use and occupations. Of course, the advantage to a Moreau Beaver doing this is that they could likely include sluices to allow for proper management of water levels and to simulate the natural dam bursting.

 

(I just deleted two more paragraphs because I was rambling and the main point was made. )

[Lord Liaden]

Would it not simplify some of these issues just to decree that Moreaus can't reproduce with normal animals? It seems like the potential complications are causing you angst; but while the points you raise do have story possibilities, they don't seem like the kind of stories that would work well in the superhero action-adventure genre.

 

EDIT: No disrespect intended, Weldun. If these are the kinds of stories you and your group prefer, more power to you.

[Anaximander]

As an alternative to Lord Liaden's idea, just because Moreaus can breed with normal animals doesn't mean they necessarily would want to.  If Moreaus have human level intelligence, wouldn't they prefer mates capable of human level conversation?

[Balabanto]

There wouldn't be a federal oversight committee.  That's not how it would work.

 

Currently, in the real world, non-humans have no rights.  There are laws against animal abuse, but an alien who came to Earth, or an intelligent robot, or anything like that would have no rights.  Of course, on real world Earth, we don't have any examples on non-human intelligent life.  You could argue dolphins or chimps, but none of them have been afforded anything like civil rights that humans enjoy.

 

So, what you'd probably see (barring a Champions Universe arrangement where this type of stuff already happened decades ago) is something like what happened with gay marriage.  Your more liberal states begin recognizing android rights, or alien rights, and then eventually it goes before the US Supreme Court, and they make a decision.  At that point, all lower courts fall in line.  But you could still have individual states and counties fighting against the federal decision, just like today.  They'd just lose.  And then there's always the chance that you'd get a federal civil rights bill passed that extended protections to certain groups.

 

A federal oversight committee would have zero authority to prevent state legislatures from passing whatever laws they wanted.  It doesn't work that way.

 

Emphasis here. Genetically manipulating creatures and releasing them into the world, for whatever reason, is a federal offense, not a state one. So yes, you can have a federal oversight committee.

[Tasha]

With regards to the Moreaus in my campaign, they could have a devastating effect on conservation efforts. Moreaus can (although usually don't) interbreed with their originating species, with the Moreau traits (intelligence, hands with opposable thumbs, etc...) being dominant to an extreme. Moreaus could conceivably breed with and then out compete several endangered species. Additionally, imagine the potential ecological impact of, as an example, the Canadian Beaver population tripling in the next 20 years and then further modify that with advanced intelligence and tool use. Beaver dams drastically impact the local ecosystem but they eventually burst. The local ecosystems have evolved to handle this phenomenon, but at a particular scale. Now imagine if Beavers started building larger dams that were designed for longer use and occupations. Of course, the advantage to a Moreau Beaver doing this is that they could likely include sluices to allow for proper management of water levels and to simulate the natural dam bursting.

 

(I just deleted two more paragraphs because I was rambling and the main point was made. )

 

You already said that Moreaus find it distasteful to breed with their Non-Sentient cousins. Also, they are sentient people. Why would they want to leave the world of other sophonts to pursue a lifestyle that animals do. They are also larger in many cases than their animal cousins, so breeding with them might be really non viable (think little dog bearing the puppies of a Large dog). 

[Tasha]

Emphasis here. Genetically manipulating creatures and releasing them into the world, for whatever reason, is a federal offense, not a state one. So yes, you can have a federal oversight committee.

 

An offense that their creators might have to face. It's muddied by the fact that the Moreaus are Sentient creatures. There will be people who are interested in helping them gain equal rights.

[massey]

Emphasis here. Genetically manipulating creatures and releasing them into the world, for whatever reason, is a federal offense, not a state one. So yes, you can have a federal oversight committee.

 

No, that's not how it works.  You were talking about a committee preventing state legislatures from passing laws regarding the civil rights of these beings.  That would not happen at all.  A federal law passed by the US Congress would trump state laws, yes.  But that wouldn't happen by setting up an oversight committee that would watch over the states.  Our laws don't work that way.

 

You can form a committee if you want, but they aren't going to operate how you described them.

[DShomshak]

Since I teach a class that ends up with some modest discussion about extraterrestrial races, I've asked about this and hunted for opinions in terms of the Real Life situation. The Washington judge's quote (and I live in WA) is the operative one for now: in the absence of contradicting precedent or statute, an alien has the same status as human. I have even asked an analogous question of a theology instructor (and we have them, since I work at a Jesuit university), whether aliens have souls, and again, until some other consideration is made relevant, yes, aliens would be considered to have souls. I've got a clip in my files from one priest high up in the ladder in the Vatican saying he would gladly baptize an alien, as long as he was convinced the alien knew what it meant and genuinely wanted it.

 

Now, if/when real aliens show up, exactly what happens will go a long way toward establishing precedent.

This actually is not an entirely new question for the Roman Catholic Church. Way back when, I researched the "monstrous races" (blemmyes, sciapods, dog-headed men, etc.) for my Fantasy Europa alternate-history campaign, and found that St. Augustine of Hippo had something to say about them. At the time, there was theological debate over whether such creatures were 1) descended from Adam, and 2) had souls and were capable of salvation. A related issue was whether people born with birth defects such as no arms, extra fingers, etc. were still "in the image of God" and had souls. In City of God, Augustine argued (IIRC) that Christians should assume ensoulment on the grounds that baptism of an apparently intelligent creature that lacked a soul was no loss, but refusal to baptize a creature that *did* have a soul was an infinite loss for that creature.

 

Islam also accepts the notion of nonhuman but ensouled intelligences, in that the Koran explicitly states that it is a revelation for both humans and jinn. This doesn't specifically cover potential extraterrestrials, but at least opens a crack for their consideration.

 

Dean Shomshak