The replies to the arguments opposing chimp testing haven’t tried to show why the defense of such testing is right from a nonspeciesist viewpoint. Rather, they’ve assumed that viewpoint.
Explaining all the arguments against the idea that speciesism is wrong would require lots of space. So I’ll just say here that if we are concerned with wellbeing it is arbitrary to take into account only some of them simply because they are possessed by certain individuals, rather than other ones. Of course many people are arbitrary, and found their moral views on such arbitrariness. But that isn’t really the approach that someone who’s aiming at getting rid of bias should accept.
The main argument that has been provided here in favour for this arbitrariness seems to be: “Don’t you eat animals too?”
I don’t eat animals, and I certainly agree that promoting vegetarianism is a crucial way to question speciesism. But asking whether one is vegetarian or not is not a reply to the problem we’re dealing here. I’ve met people who just didn’t have the willpower to change their food habits even though they agreed speciesism is wrong. I think it’s obvious that those who oppose speciesism should encourage those people to do things that reduce the impact speciesism has (such as writing a letter to Scientific American).
There are many people who do things I don’t consider right, that’s not a reason for me to say they aren’t entitled to do good things because that would contradict their previous wrong doing.
Regarding what MinibearRex pointed out, I think some humans, because of their cognitive abilities, are more capable of making the universe a better place than either chimpanzees or other humans are. Many humans lack those cognitive capacities, others will use them in ways that will do more harm than good.
But an important question here is: What makes the universe a better place? In my view, to put it briefly, the universe becomes a better place if there is less suffering of sentient beings in it, and, additionally, more enjoyment of sentient beings in it.
So, given this, Emile, I have reasons to reject arbitrariness. I care for sentient beings. That’s not an arbitrary criterion, since they are the ones who can suffer and enjoy.
This is the key issue, in my view, underlying this debate. I have presented some reasons to reject the idea that promoting chimp testing will make the world a better place. The arguments I’ve been presented have opposed my view by implicitly or explicitly pointing out that what makes the world a better place is what makes it a better place for humans. But in my view, if in a universe A there is more suffering and less enjoyment of sentient beings than in universe B, A is worse than B. It is so even if some of those beings are better in A than in B. I don’t need to know who are those beings. They may be humans or cats, it doesn’t matter for me, I’d still consider A to be worse than B.