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PersonFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A person (pronounced /ˈpɜːrsən/, from the Latin persona "mask"[1] ) is any individual human being.[2][3][4] The direct plural term is "persons." The term people is the general plural of "person," and is used to refer to person plurally in a range from 'a few persons' up to 'all people' (cf. humanism). "People" is often used to refer to an entire nation or ethnic group, and in this context "people" can be used as a singular to refer to specific ethnic or national groups (ie. "a people"). The term personhood refers to the state or condition of being an individual person and conceptualizes the essential meaning and constituent properties of "person" — i.e. what does it mean to be "a person," or a being within human society? Boethius gives the definition of "person" as "an individual substance of a rational nature" ("Naturæ rationalis individua substantia").[1] With respect to abortion, the term Personhood is a term used to describe the status of a human being vis-a-vis his or her individual human rights. The term was used by Justice Blackmun in Roe v. Wade to create a class of human beings without the constitutional right to life: the preborn child. In philosophy, "person" may apply to any human or non-human actor who is regarded as self-conscious and capable of certain kinds of higher-level thought; for example, individuals who have the power to reflect upon and choose their actions.[5] This could also extend to late fetuses and neonates, dependent on what level of thought is required. In the fields of law, philosophy, medicine, and others, the term has specialised context-specific meanings. In many jurisdictions, for example, a corporation is considered a legal person with standing to sue or be sued in court. In sociology, "person" is an abstract concept, to study individuals as they exist as functioning or non-functioning components within a society. In a legal context, a "person" is designated either a "citizen" or "non-citizen" and as such the individual person has certain designated rights and responsibilities under the law.
What is a person?Personhood by domain
Personhood MovementThe Personhood Movement (Personhood USA) is a national organization (USA) that supports the "rights of the unborn child". They actively fight abortion and have proposed bills in a number of US states which would prohibit abortions. Their underlying beliefs are that the definition of a child is that it is, "a person at the beginning of its biological development. When the term “Person” is granted to a human being, it refers to the presence of a particular set of characteristics that grant that individual certain rights such as the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Thus, the State Amendments they are proposing would ban abortion. In Colorado, on March 18th 2010, Personhood Colorado (a state segment of the Personhood Movement), reached the largest milestone for their cause. With roughly 700 volunteers and sponsors of the proposed 2010 Personhood Amendment (known as Amendment 62), they submitted 46,671 signatures of support to the Colorado Secretary of States office in a matter of two weeks. This was better than 25 thousand more signatures than were required to get the proposed Amendment on the 2010 ballot for Colorado. Personhood Colorado is led by Kieth Mason. Some other notable supporters include: Bob Enyart of the Bob Enyart Live Radio Show, Ken and Jo Scott (Planned Parenthood activists), author Trey Smith of the God in a Nutshell series and, Scott and Debbie Evans Philosophy
The idea of extending personhood to all animals has the support of legal scholars such as Alan Dershowitz[6] and Laurence Tribe of Harvard Law School,[7] and animal law courses are now taught in 92 out of 180 law schools in the United States.[8] On May 9, 2008, Columbia University Press published Animals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation by Professor Gary L. Francione of Rutgers University School of Law, a collection of writings that summarizes his work to date and makes the case for non-human animals as persons. There are also hypothetical persons, sentient non-human persons such as sentient extraterrestrial life and self-aware machines. The novel and animated series Ghost in the Shell touch on the potential of inorganic sentience, while classical works of fiction and fantasy regarding extraterrestrials have challenged people to reconsider long held traditional definitions. Peter Singer defines “person” simply as being a conscious thinking being. He also notes that a person must know that they are a person (Self-awareness). Philosopher Thomas I. White argues that the criteria for a person are as follows:(1) is alive, (2) is aware, (3) feels positive and negative sensations, (4) has emotions, (5) has a sense of self, (6) controls its own behaviour, (7) recognises other persons and treats them appropriately, and (8) has a variety of sophisticated cognitive abilities. While many of White's criteria are somewhat anthropocentric, some animals such as dolphins would still be considered persons.[9] Identity and personhoodSpeculatively, there are several other likely categories of beings where personhood might be at issue:
Such questions are used by philosophers to clarify thinking concerning what it means to be human, or living, or a person, or an individual. Implications of the person/non-person debateThe personhood theory has become a pivotal issue in the interdisciplinary field of bioethics. While historically most humans did not enjoy full legal protection as persons (women, children, non-landowners, minorities, slaves, etc.), from the late 18th through the late 20th century, being born as a member of the human species gradually became secular grounds for the basic rights of liberty, freedom from persecution, and humanitarian care. Since modern movements emerged to oppose animal cruelty (and advocate vegan philosophy) and theorists like Turing have recognized the possibility of artificial minds with human-level competence, the identification of personhood protections exclusively with human species membership has been challenged. On the other hand, some proponents of human exceptionalism (also referred to by its critics as speciesism) have countered that we must institute a strict demarcation of personhood based on species membership in order to avoid the horrors of genocide (based on propaganda dehumanizing one or more ethnicities) or the injustices of forced sterilization (as occurred in many countries to people with low I.Q. scores and prisoners). While the former advocates tend to be comfortable constraining personhood status within the human species based on basic capacities (e.g. excluding human stem cells, fetuses, and bodies that cannot recover awareness), the latter often wish to include all these forms of human bodies even if they have never had awareness (which some would call pre-people) or had awareness, but could never have awareness again due to massive and irrecoverable brain damage (some would call these post-people). The Vatican has recently been advancing a human exceptionalist understanding of personhood theory, while other communities, such as Christian Evangelicals in the U.S. have sometimes rejected the personhood theory as biased against human exceptionalism. Of course, many religious communities (of many traditions) view the other versions of the personhood theory perfectly compatible with their faith, as do the majority of modern Humanists (especially Personists). The theoretical landscape of the personhood theory has been altered recently by controversy in the bioethics community concerning an emerging community of scholars, researchers, and activists identifying with an explicitly Transhumanist position, which supports morphological freedom, even if a person changed so much as to no longer be considered a member of the human species (by whatever standard is used to determine that). Scientific approachAs an application of social psychology and other disciplines, phenomena such as the perception and attribution of personhood have been scientifically studied.[10][11] Typical questions addressed in social psychology are the accuracy of attribution, processes of perception and the formation of bias. Various other scientific/medical disciplines address the myriad of issues in the development of personality. See alsoNotes
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