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The Difficult Questions of ‘Personhood’
Mike Treder |
Every human is a person, right? And anyone we call a person must be a human, correct? Well, no, not necessarily.
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Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/02 at 07:36 PM
Nicely done. While I'm sure that your graph was not intended to be in scale, it's worth noting that the space of all possible non-human persons is considerably larger than what you've displayed. In particular the 'cyborgs' section, which you indicated would also include AIs, should actually dwarf the human sphere by a significant margin.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/04 at 04:40 AM
I'm with you up as far as corporations. I can't see how they are supposed to fit into this scheme. I understand that legally they may be treated as persons but they aren't self aware. Individuals within them, yes, but the corporations themselves, no.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/05 at 09:48 PM
So some handicapped are not persons but (some)whales are? I have to admit this is some creepy eugenics going on when you extend this out to where it logically leads. I hope I get to be in the group that determines which humans are not persons, I have a few scores to settle.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/06 at 02:58 AM
"But many ethicists, particularly progressive bioethicists, say that for both legal and ethical reasons it is advisable that we sharpen our common definitions of ‘person’ and ‘human’ so that they do not entirely overlap. " ... "Fouts is one of a growing number of scientists and ethicists who believe that chimpanzees — as well as orangutans, bonobos and gorillas, a group colloquially known as great apes — ought to be considered people."
Any percentages available of such ethicists? If the answer is, say, three percent, then the word "many" and "growing number" is hardly meaningful.
"If an alien came down anytime prior to about 1.5 million years ago to communicate with the ‘brainiest’ animals on Earth, they would have tripped over our own ancestors and headed straight for the oceans to converse with the dolphins,” said Lori Marino, an evolutionary neurobiologist at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center."
Miss Marino claims to know the communicative ability of dolphins 1.5 million years ago? Seriously now.
"If being a person requires being human, then chimpanzees, our closest primate relative, are still only 98 percent complete."
According to the Journal of Biogeography, orangutans are closer:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-06/uop-hrt061709.php
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/06 at 11:19 AM
Nice, to know you have such a solid line between a person and some that is merely human. Personally, I think anyone without my beautiful shade of blond hair and green eyes is "severely disabled", while were at it, all with an IQ less than 100 are also disabled. Hey, it might be easier to just cut out anyone making less than 100K per year, think of all the effort we spend taking care of those leeches on society! Besides, their suffering is legion and they should be put out of their misery, or at least prevented from reproducing more non-persons like themselves.
Oh, and since we've now eliminated all the non-person humans, I think I'll move on to declare my cat a person, he has green eyes after all.
[end sarcasm]
This article would be a great satire piece, if it didn't hit way too close to home.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/06 at 01:20 PM
What is the difference between "a person who is not human" and a "subhuman" (or untermensch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untermensch)? All I know is that there was one group of people in the 1930's and 40's who went ahead and applied a policy based largely on that term.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/06 at 01:32 PM
@ Veronica, Christina, Frank, and Mike - you each ask some tough and interesting questions. Isn't it healthy that we have this discussion instead of averting our eyes and pretending that such challenging quandaries do not exist?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/06 at 01:46 PM
"Isn't it healthy that we have this discussion instead of averting our eyes and pretending that such challenging quandaries do not exist?"
A discussion is healthy only in as much as the participants accept what is true and reject what is false; otherwise it's useless and a waste of time. Are you prepared to reject a false, if not dangerous idea?
Yes, we did present "some tough questions", namely, what keeps that line of "severely disabled" from moving? What's to stop that line from including my friends, family, or even myself?
Once you say that some humans are not people, then any human can be declared a non-person based on the preferences of those with power. What in this theory would stop that from happening?
Posted by jhughes on 07/06 at 02:52 PM
Christina et al.
Mike is not promoting eugenicism, and the distinctions of "person" and "human" has no nefarious content. He is simply addressing an old philosophical question: what characteristics make a thing or being "rights-bearing"? If you believe that all things with "humanness" bear rights, and no non-humans should have rights, then you have one common position, the position we call "human-racist." That all humans and only humans should have rights, simply because, is as defensible as saying that all white people and only white people should have rights, which is to say it is not defensible.
What we are challenging is what it is about humanness that makes a being "rights-bearing"? If you tell us it is human DNA, then we ask why? If you tell us something more plausible, such as the capacity for thought and self-awareness, then we are obliged to point out that embryos and the brain dead don't have those capacities, while apes do.
In regards to the Nazis, BTW, it is simply false to say that they had some theory of personhood which led to their genocidal policies. They didn't deny that Jews were human beings (racist rhetoric aside) they simply saw them as a threat to Volk purity and building the Reich. Similarly they made no elaborate arguments about whether people with physical or cognitive disabilities had lost essential rights-bearing, they simply said they were a threat to the health of the State. The argument about personhood and rights is entirely different.
If you want to complain about the attribution of rights-bearing to something other than mystical humanness, you need to take your complaint to Locke and Kant. We are simply restating the contemporary conclusions of the last three hundred years of Enlightenment thought.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/06 at 02:54 PM
Christina, nothing in the *theory* I've described would stop what you fear from happening; but we already have other theories that could allow the same potential result, and what prevents an unethical outcome is the application of human wisdom.
Consider the modern theory of death. It used to be that when the heart stopped beating, a person was considered dead. In earlier times, even the cessation of breathing could be regarded as death. Today, most societies use a more nuanced definition of death, usually involving brain activity. What this means is that sometimes humans who are "alive" in a technical sense -- that is, their hearts are beating -- are ruled as "dead" persons for the purposes either of removing artificial life support and/or harvesting organs that might benefit others.
Abortion is another obvious example. Is a seconds-old blastocyst a person? Certainly some Christians would say so, while many secular humanists would disagree. How about a severely deformed third-trimester fetus that can survive only a few minutes outside the womb? Is that fetus a person? The point is that these questions are not necessarily easy to answer, but all are mandatory for us to debate and decide.
So too are the questions I've raised about great apes, cetaceans, cyborgs, etc. -- there may be no simple answers, but that does not relieve us from the obligation to think carefully about the issues.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/06 at 03:28 PM
jhughes & Mike,
"Mike is not promoting eugenicism, and the distinctions of "person" and "human" has no nefarious content."
When you say some humans don't have the rights of a person it's a small jump to applying that theory and removing those non-person humans. If they are not persons then they can be treated as cattle (and I doubt PETA would protect them). This "racist rhetoric" is the first step to eugenics.
"If you tell us it is human DNA, then we ask why?"
Humans, unlike animals, have an eternal soul, and thereby have rights not accorded to animals. Biology tells us clearly what makes something a human, it's DNA. Philosophy tells us that creature with human DNA has an eternal soul and has the rights of a person. This applies to everyone, from the seconds-old blastocyst to the brain-dead 90 year old. Each is a person with rights. Taking away their rights is easy, we already have, but remember your rights could be next.
Yes, we are obligated to think carefully about these issues, especially since so many are mislead and are very willing to grab onto the latest theory to justify evil actions. We must discern what is true from what is false. There may not be "simple answers" but there are answers.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/06 at 03:39 PM
"Philosophy tells us that creature with human DNA has an eternal soul and has the rights of a person."
No, sorry, philosophy tells us nothing of the kind, unless by 'philosophy' you mean 'Christian doctrine'. And if that's where you're coming from, then this forum is probably not the right place for you. We're focused on reason-based discussion, not faith-based.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/06 at 03:45 PM
"We're focused on reason-based discussion, not faith-based. "
Faith and reason go hand in hand and enlighten each other, but I'll let that pass for a bit.
In the spirit of a reason-based discussion, what non-religious basis does the concept of "rights" have? What is a right and who decides who gets one?
Posted by jhughes on 07/06 at 04:10 PM
The basis for rights in the Enlightenment tradition is (broadly) the capacity for self-awareness and moral responsibility.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/h/hum-rts.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights
Rights are an agreement between human beings about the kind of society we would like to have, and how we would like to relate to one another. They aren't given by God or Allah.
You certainly can't find anything close to a concept of human rights in the Bible. What you can find in the Bible is God commanding the Israelites to commit genocide against their neighbors, God committing genocide on the human race, the tacit approval of slavery and torture, etc.
The invention of human rights in the 16th and 17th centuries came despite Christendom, not because of it. And since they are secular agreements, instead of assertions about our immortal souls, they may appear more arbitrary to you, even though Christian's concepts of souls and who has 'em is equally arbitrary.
In the Western Enlightenment tradition we have generally followed Locke's suggestion that the capacity for thought was the basis for being a "person" with "rights." Locke assumed that only humans had the capacity for thought, and understandably gave little consideration to the status of embryos and the brain dead, not to mention robots. We, his descendents, have had to work out the application of the theory now that we face the facts about embryos, brain dead and apes, and a future with enhanced animals and thinking machines.
If you think that it is perfectly obvious that a genetically enhanced chimp with the capacity for human-level thought and communication should not have rights because it doesn't have a soul, so be it. But that is an argument appropriate for the 15th century not the 21st.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/06 at 08:32 PM
jhughes,
Rights are agreements between humans beings about the kind of society they would like to have -- OK. Who decides when that agreement is reached? Since groups of humans rarely come to a unanimous agreement - it would seem that the ones in power control that decision. Is it a democratic vote, and the majority wins? Or does the minority get to choose if they control the military?
Lets say, as a hypothetical situation, that a religious institution takes over tomorrow and declares that all non-theists will be killed (you can even pretend these are Christians - since you hold them in such little esteem as it is). Since atheists are the minority, they lose the vote. Since theists control the military, atheists still loose the vote.
In an instant everyone who doesn't believe in God is declared defective (after all - religion is just a construct of a gene or some electrodes firing in the brain). Since 90% of humanity believes in at least one deity those who don't must be "severely disabled". All atheists are declared non-persons and have their rights to live, breed, speak, and practice atheism removed.
This, however, is completely ethical since the humans beings (remember - atheists aren't persons anymore) have come to an agreement that they would prefer to live in a theistic society. Not even future generations could complain - it was an agreement!
That has some mighty interesting applications for what you can complain about in real history (biblical or secular).
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/07 at 07:15 AM
JHughes wrote: "In regards to the Nazis, BTW, it is simply false to say that they had some theory of personhood which led to their genocidal policies. They didn't deny that Jews were human beings (racist rhetoric aside) they simply saw them as a threat to Volk purity and building the Reich."
It's not that their theory of personhood led to their genocidal POLICIES, but that their theory of personhood led to their EASE of killing innocent people, or should I say untermenschen.
I don't think you can cast "racist rhetoric aside" like you did.
Posted by jhughes on 07/07 at 09:57 AM
Christina
What you've described is simply reality. There is no alternative but to make agreements about who has rights, what kinds, and then create political institutions to defend them.
The "soul-based" view of rights was used by white supremacists to rationalize why white people should own black people, while other Christians argued for abolition on the grounds that both whites and blacks had souls and rights. In the end, basing rights on souls got us less clarity, progress and equality than arguing about whether blacks and women possessed the same capacities for rational thought as white men.
As I've also noted, the Nazis very clearly were not advancing an argument that their policies were permitted because Jews did not possess the capacity for rational thought - if anything, they were feared for being too rational. What Jews did not possess was something just as squishy and indefinable as a "soul," i.e. Aryan Volk purity. Its in the eye of the beholder.
At any rate, I'm glad you are concerned about advancing and protecting human rights. So are we, although we frame them as "rights of the person." But attempting to tie rights to (human) "souls" is a bad way to accomplish that end. Grounding rights in observable, testable faculties of mind that are necessary for creatures to be morally responsible citizens, and to suffer the pain of seeing their life goals thwarted, that is a far more secure way to proceed.
J. Hughes
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/08 at 07:39 AM
I'm no philosopher or theologian, my degree is in science and I've never taken an official class on either topic. I'm not the one to argue for granting rights based on natural law. But there are those who have and I would suggest reading someone other than Locke, I'll ask around to see if I can find you a good author.
My suggestion for a non-arbitrary, observable and testable source of personhood would be human DNA. If you want to expand it to other species then clear evidence and reasoning for that decision would be necessary. I'm not "species racist" or whatever that stupid term was, I believe in a God of three persons as well as angels. However, once you expand personhood to include another species it must include all creatures of that species. For to take it away from one opens it up to be taken from any. Color of one's skin is about as arbitrary as the line between an IQ of 59 and 60.
"What you've described is simply reality. There is no alternative but to make agreements about who has rights, what kinds, and then create political institutions to defend them."
...but then you can't say that the slave owners were wrong, nor any other society that oppressed some segment of humanity. If rights are no more than agreements, only dependent upon the society, then they are relative, not universally true.
Furthermore, if it's not a universal truth you are seeking then your just doing a cost/benefit analysis. No, that analysis has already been done; you've already decided that you want to exclude pre-born children and the very sick, but want to include monkeys. Thus the entire purpose is to find a definition of a person that fits your predetermined preferences.
If you've already decided that some humans aren't worth it, you are only moving the line to fit this decision (or resizing the box in this case). This whole "discussion" is a charade, merely something to make it appear like you've tried to find the truth. Why bother?
Posted by jhughes on 07/08 at 09:13 AM
Christina
The burden of logic clearly is heavier on those who would argue that rights are based on human DNA? Why? What natural law philosopher knew anything about DNA? And if so, do angels - which you say you believe in - have souls? Do they also have human DNA?
As to the uncomfortable search for right and wrong in the absence of God and universal absolutes, welcome to the modern condition. That's the way things are. For me, as a Buddhist, its not really problematic at all. But I understand how disorienting taking responsibility for making up your own mind about purpose and meaning is for those of you in the Abrahamic faiths.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/08 at 12:15 PM
"That's the way things are. For me, as a Buddhist, its not really problematic at all."
Interesting, but I doubt you speak authoritatively for all forms of Buddhism. On a related note, are Buddhists with opposing views permitted here, or should they find somewhere else to chime in if they are unable to check their ethics at the door?
Actually, the fact that Mr. Treder says that those motivated by religious impulses have nothing to offer in the discussion effectively loads the dice, as someone else noted above.
"But I understand how disorienting taking responsibility for making up your own mind about purpose and meaning is for those of you in the Abrahamic faiths."
This is almost charming in its absolute ignorance. Almost.
Well, enjoy your echo chamber. I have every confidence the Institute will reach a determination its like-minded members will find congenial.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/08 at 12:35 PM
"As to the uncomfortable search for right and wrong in the absence of God and universal absolutes, welcome to the modern condition. That's the way things are."
So, to sum up, there are no universal absolutes...except that there are no universal absolutes. Or maybe the only absolute is - outside of this absolute there are no universal absolutes?
This is nonsense.
"But I understand how disorienting taking responsibility for making up your own mind about purpose and meaning is for those of you in the Abrahamic faiths. "
And your snobbery and condescension is getting old. If "making up your own mind" means flinging yourself off the cliffs of insanity and coming up with the nonsense above, then I'll stick to whatever it is that you think is controlling my mind.
I was going to find a book, but I'll just suggest you read some Chesterton. Pretty much any book of his might help you. I'll keep you both (Mike and jhughes) in my prayers.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/13 at 02:18 AM
"Actually, the fact that Mr. Treder says that those motivated by religious impulses have nothing to offer in the discussion effectively loads the dice, as someone else noted above."
This is a misunderstanding of what Mr. Treder actually said, that, "We're focused on reason-based discussion, not faith-based." It is not that people motivated or influenced by religion are not welcome here, but that this discussion is about finding the truth through reason and logic.
I myself am a devout Christian. I would be overjoyed if God simply came down from His throne and set things straight, but He doesn't do that. Hence it is left to us to discover the truth with the faculties He, or evolution, gave us. That is what this discussion is about.
As far as powerful groups or individuals using these theories to justify genocide, or something similar, this to me is an irrelevant fear. Bad people will do bad things with or without justification. If these theories didn't exist, they would just find another way to rationalize their unethical behaviors.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/06 at 02:30 PM
I suggest we deemphasize "human" and "personhood" and talk in terms of agency, identified as promoting various branches of our hierarchical, fine-grained values-in-common.
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