Talk:Person

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Contents 1 Peter Kreeft 2 Capacity to be loved? 3 Troublesome beliefs... 4 Personhood Theory 5 Personhood Theory 6 Removed paragraph 7 Minor Transhumanist Slant 8 Cleaned up 9 Merge People to Person 9.1 Name dispute 10 Rewording 11 "Human being" = Homo sapiens or all genus Homo?

[edit] Peter Kreeft

I have been attempting to link to Peter Kreeft's argument that all humans are necessarily persons. But UninvitedCo.,Inc. keeps reverting my changes.

It's because describing Peter Kreeft as a "philospher" and linking to his website that is clearly bias'd towards a religious view is not deemed impartial. I'd recommend bringing the subject up here for people to discuss, and then perhaps you can work it in logically. Adding the links to things like additional views and other places would be more appropriate than the body of the articles. Wikibofh 23:58, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The Peter Kreeft "argument" uses a straw man, a slippery slope argument and numerous other rhetorical tricks that oughtn't to be needed if he was making a serious philosophical point, and I note that although Peter describes ethics as one of his academic "interests" his background is essentially that of a Christian Apologist and therefore if his essays deserve a place in Wikipedia it's surely over there somewhere. Surely someone, even a graduate student must have published a survey (ie describing schools of thought and papers published) of current ethical thinking on personhood? Otherwise if Peter's essentially "pro-life" essay has to stay we probably need an equivalent fiercely "pro-choice" philosophy essay to balance it. That's not really the Wikipedia way though.

Yes, I think we could get something better than this. Whether the fetus is a person from conception, from some point after conception but before birth, or not until birth, has been written on by a lot of people. Baruch Brody is one well-known "pro-life" philosopher who carries more weight in the philosophical community than Peter Kreeft, who I think it would not be unfair to say is essentially unknown. --Delirium 01:37, July 31, 2005 (UTC)

Peter Kreefts argument seems fallacious because if God exist he is a person, but certainly not a human being. --RickardV 14:01, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Capacity to be loved?

The capacity to be loved is what makes a true person

If your girlfriend died 30 seconds ago and you're not yet aware of that, you still love her, but she's no longer a person. Furthermore, pets can be loved too, but few people would argue they are people. --Army1987 11:19, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Troublesome beliefs...

Certainly the impression I got when I was studying this stuff as part of my Philosophy course was that a lot of trouble comes because people want these 4 things to be true:

• A baby is a person.
• A fetus is not a person.
• A non-human animal is not a person.
• A baby is no smarter than many non-human animals.

It's really quite hard to say how all these things can be true. In particular, saying that a baby is a person because of what it will become means you can no longer say a fetus isn't a person. Evercat 00:20, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

I would debate that a person has to be concious and self aware. From personal experience of my own memories, I can conclude that I have no proof that I existed before 5 years of age. I would also say if I were brain dead then I no longer exist unless somehow I can be revieved to a concious state. The scary thing is that with this thinking, I could say that children before a certain age are not concious or self aware and may not be a person as what we think as sentient. I'm not advocating Pro-Choice or Pro-Life in either direction, but we must look at sentient life as something more than just being alive. Then again I wouldn't want a higher life form passing judment on my thought patterns as not being aware. --68.80.190.94 03:39, 11 August 2005 (UTC) james

what is all this philosphical and controversial discussion about? a person is a distinct living entity - period. (a corpse is not a person, an embryo can not survive on its own - a fetus might survive but is not detached from the mother - if it is (born), it is a baby and thus a person.) Iancarter 23:06, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

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I must be doing something right in considering the opposing side's arguments when my writing is accused of being right wing. Anyway, I would like to know why LucaviX keeps removing:

• The issue that babies seem no more mentally adept than some animals.
• A brief discussion of why the degrees-of-personhood idea is considered "dangerous" by some.

Evercat 01:18, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

I'll give 2 articles that discuss the problem of babies:

• Robert Larmer; Abortion, Personhood and the Potential for Consciousness, Journal of Applied Philosophy, Vol 12, No 3, 1995.
• Don Marquis; Why Abortion is Immoral, Journal of Philosophy, 1989.

e.g. Larmer writes (as a reductio ad absurdum) that:

If we have no qualms about aborting a zygote or fetus ... we should have no qualms about killing an infant ... since in none of these cases is the zygote, fetus, or newborn infant, conscious in the sense in which we normally use the term.

My point is that this is a real argument used by real philosophers, so I will thank you to kindly stop removing it. Evercat 01:37, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Evercat 01:29, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

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Moved comments from main by 65.240.161.47:

Firstly, it has already been noted that the criteria listed above are are subject to debate. Secondly, no one is advocating the inhumane treatment of babies and they meet most of the commonly held criteria of personhood, they are typically held to be "Developing persons". Third, incomplete personhood is indeed recognized by all first world legal systems, as proven by voting rights and otherwise. Lastly the objection to the concept of incomplete personhood are listed in the below paragraph and that is the entire point of bringing "babies" into it which will only act to scare right leaning individuals who do not have an indepth understanding of personhood theory.

Certainly nobody is advocating inhumane treatment of babies, but Peter Singer amongst others seems to take the view that babies are not really people. Certainly, if a baby is a developing person then why isn't a fetus? As for voting rights etc, this doesn't mean that minors aren't considered full persons, just inexperienced persons. Whether all this scares right leaning individuals is irrelevant... Evercat 12:16, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

One last note, not everything in personhood theory is just a "view" there is a science behind it that shouldn't be overlooked. That there are degrees of personhood would be more accurately defined as a common consensus, not just a view, as there is a very wide consensus regarding varying degrees of incomplete personhood

This isn't really a scientific question, it's a philosophical question. I don't understand this constant criticism of non-scientific views in this debate, as the whole thing is unscientific. What makes a person is not the sort of question that science answers. Evercat 01:51, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Some in personhood theory argue that some non-human animals, particularly great apes, can develop personhood. Perhaps the most famous non-human considered by many academics as a person is Coco. However many great apes in captivity, specifically subjects of neurological study, personhood study, and sentient animal studies have been taught sign-language and have developed all or most of the commonly held criteria for personhood. user:lucavix

[edit] Personhood Theory

Personhood Theory isn't entirely new. Personhood theory looks at personhood as an objective science for the most part. It's mostly of interest to transhumanist and Psychiatrist like myself. I think a quick msn search for "personhood theory" may bring a lot up on it. I deal mostly with the Psychiatric aspects while some deal more with the hypothetical aspects. The criteria for personhood in personhood theory do not involve dreams and goals, but focus more on the capacity for self determination, self awareness, a Biographical self, and so forth. The reason I included what you so promptly moved is because it fits perfectly with the larger discussions in personhood theory, mainly the concept of an incomplete or developing person. I would like to have that paragraph that you moved, or something very similar, listed under personhood theory. user:lucavix

I just wonder whether "personhood theory" is sufficiently mainstream for special mention? I mean, it's not that far removed from the criteria set out in the section above... Evercat 23:40, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Personhood Theory is a science, sciences do not need to be mainstream to have merit. Like I said, this isn't a world in which all we have are different viewpoints, we also have actual sciences and fields of study. Personhood theory is however fairly mainstream in academic circles, Particularly among Psychiatrist like myself, but I can't speak for lay circles. user:lucavix

[edit] Personhood Theory

This is a quick note regarding the statement: Another problematic example is the status of a person in deep sleep, with no consciousness at the moment, but who upon waking would return to being an entity with full subjective awareness in the future. This statement needs to be rewitten and factually checked. What is deep sleep? If you mean REM sleep or stage four sleep then the brain is very active, and not considered to be "with no consciousness at the moment". Furthermore, what does "full subjective awareness mean?" Does this mean second order reflection of consciousness, also called introspection? Its very vague and needs to be worked on.

[edit] Removed paragraph

I removed:

Furthermore, this concept of person lead to a paradox regarding "person" in the objective sense. If an individual is not a person but is not not a person, ie. is a partial person, then if we are to use the word person in the objective sense the individual will be both a person and not a person at the same time. This has sometimes been countered by the argument that "person" is a subjective designation thus avoiding the paradox based in the objective sense. Although this can be further countered by the fact that if this is the case then persons are the ones defining what "person" means, which is circular reasoning meaning that "person" would be a meaningless concept which negates the meaningful nature that is needed for it in the field of ethics.

This is terrible. The whole point about having "degrees of X" is that you get away from the need to treat X as a binary "yes or no" concept. A different example would be intelligence. If someone said Bob was somewhat intelligent, and I said "What, you mean Bob both is and isn't intelligent? That's impossible!" I would just be making a mistake. Evercat 12:47, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Minor Transhumanist Slant

Don't get me wrong, though a bit on the Bioconservative side I do see many merits to transhumanism (especially in regards to radical life extension and self improvement) but there seems to now be a minor transhumanist slant that may be worth looking at. I'm not saying that Transhumanism is in any way a bad thing, even though I might not always favor some transhumanist arguments. I have realized in my past experiences here that I am extremely uncomfortable with withdrawing the categorization of person from a late term fetus or young infant, due to my own biases on the issue, so I'm not going to edit anything from fear of going overboard (my POV on this is reason enough to stay pretty much uninvolved). Anyway, I like most of what has been added to the Personhood Theory section, though I was slightly troubled with the suggestion that a sleeping human might be arguably not a person (Most secular humanist interested in personhood theory consider Periodic consciousness a first and primary criteria for personhood, but not continual uninterrupted consciousness). I would like to see some of Personhood Theory (not to suggest that all of it is represented with a slant, but some of it seems to be) represented from a more neutral and less transhumanistic slant. My main concern is that it may be percieved as too far from center if you will, and that some of the merits will be lost on some of the more conservative readers. --Lucavix 05:31, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Uploading proposals tend to assume that the mind does not persist through time in a substantial way (usually theoretically grounded on "eliminative reductivist" arguments that claim there is no soul or "self," but of more central importance, that conscious awareness itself is - somehow - an "illusion"), so making a "copy" of brain structures is - in terms of survival - just as good as preserving the original structure. Advocates also tend to believe that such a copy would have conscious experience rather than merely acting as a convincing automaton (though consistent eliminative reductivist advocates argue that *we already are* automaton-like entities).

When I think of this sort of reductivism I think of Parfit. Perhaps you're thinking of Dennett (who I've really not read at all) but I don't think this sort of view must see consciousness as an "illusion". Also, I don't see why this sort of view is any more open to this "automaton" charge than any other view. Even mind-body dualists can't say how the mere addition of something non-physical gets you out of Hume's dilemma that every thought was either determined or random... Evercat 11:12, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

I hope such additions are not being mistakenly associated with myself. I neither see consciousness as an illusion nor subscribe to the idea that we are somehow entirely automated (I believe in self determination and believe that individual consciousness is not only very real, but a necessity for personhood). --Lucavix 05:31, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

No, my comment wasn't addressed at you. :-) Evercat 20:55, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

I do wonder if we need such a detailed discussion of the various physicalisms, etc, in the section "Are all persons human?" The article is already pretty baffling for a casual reader, I would imagine. We should try to keep things fairly simple... Evercat 12:57, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

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I've removed all of the following, since it's so incredibly baffling, and probably more relevant to pages about mind rather than personhood. Really, if you can't explain something in simple language it's not worth the effort... try to remember that most of your readers will not be specialists in this field. There's an excellent piece on Wikiwatch here that rather explains the problem I'm getting at. Evercat 19:56, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Excised text follows:

People commonly underestimate of the complexity of philosophy of mind when appealing to positions with implications they may not believe to be justified. However, appealing to partial remedies in an attempt to salvage these positions may ultimately prove incoherent as well. For example, within the class of positions identifiable as "physicalist" (that the mind consists of nothing additional to a physical organization that permits conscious perception and abstract thought), positions include [1] "reductive eliminativism," [2] merely "reductive physicalism" and [3] "non-reductive physicalism." Both [1] and [2] ("deep reductivist" views) hold that in understanding the mind, we are forbidden from appealing to anything "over and above" basic elements (e.g. atoms or quanta), including larger-scale organizational structures that these elements cycle through (such as whole nerve cells) as autonomous entities in their own right. However [1] holds that given a deeply reductive premise, all one "is" consists of distinct basic entities, and since such entities constantly enter and exit a larger system like a neuron, it is incoherent not only to claim that a self-same subject persists over time, but (if one follows the reductive claim consistently) even a fleeting "moment" of basic perceptual awareness that occurs over approximately 100 milliseconds cannot be attributed to the same subject of experience. (Note that the issue of immediate perceptual access in consciousness is distinguishable from a capacity for memory.) On this position, there is no "self" as a momentary subject of experience. But more fundamentally, even as part of a system, basic elements as such could not be "subject to" anything other than an extremely particular condition that oftentimes is analogous to conditions outside the system. Therefore, the eliminativist holds that we should not speak of a self and even avoid the term "mind" to help people avoid the temptation to reify the purely abstract term; consequently, the term "person" also becomes suspect as technically incoherent. Instead, eliminativists have argued we should restrict our description to observable entities and convenient descriptions of larger systems of such entities which perform observable functions (e.g. neurons, brains).

Attempting to reconcile deep reductivism with claims that minds, persons, and a "self" or (on Daniel Dennett's account) a series of "selves" do exist, [2] attempts to reinterpret these terms in a purely "functional" manner. The term "information" is appealed to not just as an aspect of things or a perspective on them, but as an ostensibly neutral basis of all ontological analysis, since it can be employed to account for functional relations amongst all observable features of reality, regardless of scale, and can therefore be employed to refer to abstract relations that must occur in a physical system like a brain for it to be capable of the intelligent functions it performs (e.g. problem solving, creative association), as well as such things as abstract social relations (e.g. language, class status) which can indirectly affect an intelligent physical systems, and abstract conditions that can provide such systems with an ever-changing elemental substrate with an abstract form of continuity in terms of the dispositions of a system with a given physical organization (e.g. "beliefs," personality traits). The investigation of mental phenomena using information theory in the field of cognitive science has been highly productive, however, when applied in a deep reductivist manner as [2] does, it proves inadequate for the task of accounting for an immediate subjective experience as [1] due to the same conceptual barriers of reductivism. Essentially, a reductive physicalist can talk about the diachronic "selfhood" of an intelligent system based on a system's behavioral dispositions, but lacks the ability to effectively account for immediate synchronic subjective experience, which in turn would be necessary for any "self" across time that had subjective awareness (as opposed to, say, a non-conscious robot with characteristic behavioral patterns). One strategy to which advocates of [2] will sometimes (tacitly or explicitly) retreat is to claim that because the direct experience of immediate subjectivity is not open to empirical observation, we may be deeply mistaken about the nature of our own immediate interpretive awareness, and "consciousness" may not really be experiential at all, but rather a non-existent kind of "illusion" that mental systems are dispositionally prone to "believe." It is all very Humian.

However, this line of argument takes the perceptive access of minds to reality for granted, and in doing so ignores deeper problems in accounting for any sort of qualitative experience - a universally recognized feature of awareness, even when considered fundamentally illusory - or ability to make judgments for ourselves about the world that permit judgments to occur in a social context, such as a scientific assessment of evidence concerning the nature of basic entities. In order to act in the world as we do, we require experiential access entailing (1) capacities for sensorial report of bodily encounters which are only recognized as representative of any given thing via (2) capacities for judgment of sensory appearances. A human lacking either of these elements would lack any experience. Kant described the hypothetical condition negatively, where a lack of (1) would result in "emptiness" and a lack of (2) would result in "blindness." So, considering the conceptual problems listed above for explaining how the synchronic experience of consciousness is possible, it would seem that the challenge for physicalism to account for reductivist remains to be effectively overcome.

Perhaps a non-reductivist physicalism [3] could eventually meet this challenge while also supporting more robust versions of subjectivity and persistence through time in a naturalistic way. One useful line of thought has come from the great philosopher of biology, Ernst Mayr. He argued against deep reductivism for understanding biological systems in a way that was not "vitalistic," the definitive phrase being "emergent autonomy with compositional reducibility." Using such an account, whole neuronal cells could be considered as persisting physical objects with compositional cycling, and the sensory and intellectual acts necessary for cognition could be recognized as distributed in neural networks for particular functions and across the whole brain for "gestalt" forms of immediate awareness. Such a depiction also suggests that a subject of experience could persist in a substantial way through the persistence of compositional objects (neurons) in the central nervous system, which could also be "cycled" by the loss or gain of neurons or artificial devices operating on computational connectionist principles without dramatically altering the "emergent" subject distributed throughout the system. A forthcoming paper by transhumanist Ben Hyink promises to make just such a case. If the arguments in this emergent autonomy thesis prove sound and its premises do not prove contradictory to new evidence, it would have important implications for uploading proposals, especially in precautionary safety measures necessary to sustain continuous facilitation of a physically persisting subject of experience or a robust form of subjective "self" which can change features (e.g. psychological dispositions) and endure through periods of unconsciousness (e.g. deep sleep) without undermining its own embodied continuity.

By no means does this succinct analysis completely solve the problem, of course. There remain other issues, especially the nature of quantum mechanics, which shape the outcome. Some theorists like Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff even advocate a "quantum consciousness" proposal in which large-scale quantum coherence is held to be the source of conscious subjectivity. Hyink's approach argues that the major interpretations of quantum mechanics all permit his perspective of emergent autonomy, though some allow it in a less "intuitive" or "naïvely realist" way than others, such as the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics.

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Also, this needs to be explained:

1. Self awareness, self bonded to objectivities.
2. Self as longitudinal thematic identity, one's biographic identity.

What does "self bonded to objectivities" mean? And "longitudinal thematic identity"? Good grief. In English, please. Evercat 20:16, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

- The justifications for carefully-reached conclusions in philosophy of mind are complex. Why should we expect the language used to be universal (it takes a lot more space to explain ideas contained in words that one can "goggle")?

• I just came across this several-month-old comment. For anyone who cares, please know that I have recanted my position based on new arguments and more reflection. I hope to publish a paper on the transience of material facilitation of the mind soon. - Ben Hyink

[edit] Cleaned up

The article has been cleaned up as per your request - contact me if you have any inquiries. Izehar 18:53, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merge People to Person

Either People should be merged to Person or Person should be moved to Personhood. Currently there are two different articles with the same name, barring an accident of the language, and it's confusing. Melchoir 05:11, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

People should not be merged to person. I'll check out personhood. Zanaq 11:00, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

And no, person should also not be moved to personhood, there is a nice #redirect in place. I will remove the {merge}tags. Please explain what you find confusing, I may try to clear those elements up in the articles. Zanaq 11:03, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

The redirect is helpful, yes, but it doesn't really make the point strongly enough. Currently, as far as I can tell, the article Person is about personhood, the concept of being a person, but not about persons. The article People is about persons. What I find confusing is that these articles have the same name, modulo a plural, yet they cover different topics. I wouldn't expect to find such a content split on any other topic; to pick a random example, Fruit discusses both fruithood and actual fruits. Fruits is, as it should be, a redirect to Fruit. Melchoir 19:25, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

The article "Person" is about the philosophical topic. Personhood is a far more controversial and widely discussed matter than "fruithood", and it shouldn't be merged with people. I would support a move to Personhood, however. That title more strongly suggests the nature of the article. --The Famous Movie Director 02:36, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Movie Director's comments exactly. Bhuston 17:48, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

no merge! "people" = "group of persons" or "the people" of a nation while "person" is an entity - if a merge should occur it should be with Natural_person Iancarter 22:57, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Name dispute

I suggest moving this page to Personhood, then making Person redirect to Person (disambiguation), with the disambig page improved to include links to all the relevant concepts: People, People (disambiguation), Human, Natural person for the legal term, and Personhood for the philosophical debate about who is a person (this page). This talk page doesn't have a lot of activity, so I'll give it a week or two to see if there are any objections. I haven't done a move that significant before, so someone needs to tell me if there would be dire consequences. --Grace 10:29, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I second your suggestion. It's helpful to recall that for Locke, person is entirely a forensic term, and human is a biological one. By the way, for Locke, children are selves, but they are not persons. As selves, they have certain rights (to life, among others), but as not-yet-persons, they are not yet accountable for their actions. Fascinating reading, Locke's Essay. (I'm writing about it now.) Cheers, Anthony Krupp 04:40, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rewording

In the first sub paragraph somebody werote: " that elevates it above mere objects". In my oppinion this should be rewarded. Animanls are often not considered to be "mere objects". I think a better statement would be: "above nonsentient beings". Your thoughts? --BorisFromStockdale 02:56, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I disagree about the need for rewording. If you read the paragraph, the point being made is about non-human persons and specieism, as well as a direct link to the animal rights debate. --Bhuston 09:08, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Human being" = Homo sapiens or all genus Homo?

"A human being is a member of the genetic species Homo sapiens" -- Two different senses of "is" are possible here: (1) "Is" of time (what situation currently exists) ("My dog is eating") or (2) "Logical is", independent of time ("A dog is a mammal."). In sense (1), a human being is [currently] a member of the genetic species Homo sapiens; however in sense (2), should all members of genus Homo be included as human beings or not? "Neanderthals were human beings", "Homo erectus were human beings." -- 201.50.123.251 13:58, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I have no answer, but find this to be an interesting question!--Anthony Krupp 19:54, 23 August 2006 (UTC)