Dolphins Should Be Treated As "Non-Human Persons"

Happy New Year everyone. I kick off with a somewhat potty story about a bevy of recent psychological research work on dolphins which appears to have led several scientists to claim that dolphins should be treated as "non-human persons". The research shows dolphins are capable of inspecting their bodies using mirrors, are capable of rudimentary symbolic communication, can learn novel behaviours and learn them from each other, and have advanced brain structure comparable with our own. So far - totally respectable - and an overdue outlier comparison with chimpanzees. Unfortunately, pace chimps, it has led to the ridiculous notion that they are "persons". The concept of person-hood is specific to humans and, as I have argued in NOT A CHIMP and elsewhere, is at best a diversion from effective attempts to conserve dolphins and accord them humane treatment. Dolphins, like chimps, are very intelligent social animals but they are NOT human and it helps them not one iota to pretend that, because of their comparative cognition, they are some form of watered-down or nearly-human and therefore deserve some form of human rights.