Personhood is the status of being a person. Defining personhood is a controversial topic in philosophy and law, and is closely tied to legal and political concepts of citizenship, equality, and liberty. According to law, only a natural person or legal personality has rights, protections, privileges, responsibilities, and legal liability.[1]
Personhood continues to be a topic of international debate. Historically, personhood was questioned during the abolition of slavery, the fight for women's rights, debates about abortion, fetal rights and reproductive rights as well as debates about corporate personhood.[2]
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Capacities or attributes common to definitions of personhood can include agency, self-awareness, a notion of the past and future, and the possession of rights and duties, among others.[3] However, the concept of a person is difficult to define in a way that is universally accepted, due to its historical and cultural variability and the controversies surrounding its use in some contexts.
| “ | The criteria for being a person... are designed to capture those attributes which are the subject of our most humane concern with ourselves and the source of what we regard as most important and most problematical in our lives. | ” |
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—Harry G. Frankfurt |
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In philosophy, the word "person" may refer to various concepts. According to the "naturalist" epistemological tradition, from Descartes through Locke and Hume, the term may designate any human (or non-human) agent which: (1) possesses continuous consciousness over time; and (2) who is therefore capable of framing representations about the world, formulating plans and acting on them.[4]
Others have proposed different concepts, including Charles Taylor and Harry G. Frankfurt. According to Taylor, the problem with the naturalist view is that it depends solely on a "performance criterion" to determine what is an agent. Thus, other things (e.g. machines or animals) that exhibit "similarly complex adaptive behaviour" could not be distinguished from persons. Instead, Taylor proposes a significance-based view of personhood:
What is crucial about agents is that things matter to them. We thus cannot simply identify agents by a performance criterion, nor assimilate animals to machines... [likewise] there are matters of significance for human beings which are peculiarly human, and have no analogue with animals.[5]
The philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt writes that, "What philosophers have lately come to accept as analysis of the concept of a person in not actually analysis of that concept at all." He suggests that the concept of a person is intimately connected to free will, and describes the structure of human volition according to first- and second-order desires:
Besides wanting and choosing and being moved to do this or that, [humans] may also want to have (or not to have) certain desires and motives. They are capable of wanting to be different, in their preferences and purposes, from what they are. Many animals appear to have the capacity for what I shall call "first-order desires" or "desires of the first order," which are simply desires to do or not to do one thing or another. No animal other than man, however, appears to have the capacity for reflective self-evaluation that is manifested in the formation of second-order desires.[6]
According to Nikolas Kompridis, there might also be an intersubjective, or interpersonal, basis to personhood:
What if personal identity is constituted in, and sustained through, our relations with others, such that were we to erase our relations with our significant others we would also erase the conditions of our self-intelligibility? As it turns out, this erasure... is precisely what is experimentally dramatized in the “science fiction” film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a far more philosophically sophisticated meditation on personal identity than is found in most of the contemporary literature on the topic."[7]
Other philosophers have defined persons in different ways. Boethius gives the definition of "person" as "an individual substance of a rational nature" ("Naturæ rationalis individua substantia").[8] Peter Singer defines a “person” as being a conscious, thinking being, which knows that it is a person (self-awareness).[9]
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.[10] Some animal rights groups have also championed recognition for animals as "persons".[11]
A person is recognized by law as such, not because he is human, but because rights and duties are ascribed to him. The person is the legal subject or substance of which the rights and duties are attributes. An individual human being considered as having such attributes is what lawyers call a "natural person."[12] According to Black's Law Dictionary,[13] a person is:
In general usage, a human being (i.e. natural person), though by statute term may include a firm, labor organizations, partnerships, associations, corporations, legal representatives, trustees, trustees in bankruptcy, or receivers.
As an application of social psychology and other disciplines, phenomena such as the perception and attribution of personhood have been scientifically studied.[14][15] 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.
Various specific debates focus on questions about the personhood of different classes of entities.
Historically, not even all humans have enjoyed full legal protection as persons (women, children, non-landowners, minorities, slaves, etc.), but 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.
The beginning of human personhood is a concept long debated by religion and philosophy. In contemporary global thought, once humans are born, personhood is considered automatic. However, personhood could also extend to late fetuses and neonates, dependent on what level of thought is required. With respect to abortion, 'personhood' is a term used to describe the status of a human being having individual human rights. The term was used by Justice Blackmun in Roe v. Wade.[16] However, the distinction in ethical value between currently existing persons and potential future persons has been questioned.[17] Subsequently, it has been argued that contraception and even the decision not to procreate at all could be regarded as immoral on a similar basis as abortion.[18]
A political movement in the United States seeks to define the beginning of human personhood as starting from the moment of fertilization, with the consequence that abortion, as well as forms of birth control that prevent implantation of the embryo, could become illegal.[19][20] Supporters of the movement also state that it would have effects on the practice of in-vitro fertilization.[21]
The principal organization within this movement is Personhood USA, a Colorado-based umbrella group with a number of state-level affiliates[22] which describes itself as a nonprofit Christian ministry[23] and seeks to ban abortion, embryonic stem cell research and human cloning. Personhood USA was founded by the anti-abortion campaigner Keith Mason in 2008 following the failure of an attempt by the Colorado for Equal Rights campaign to establish a state constitutional personhood amendment.
Opponents of the movement regard it as an attempt by the pro-life movement to circumvent the Roe v. Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision by indirect means,[24] without exceptions even in the case of rape or incest.[22] Some medical organizations have described the potential effects of personhood legislation as potentially harmful to patients and the practice of medicine, particularly in the cases of ectopic and molar pregnancy.[25]
Susan Bordo has suggested that the overwhelming focus on the issue of personhood in abortion debates has often been an alibi for depriving women of their own rights as persons. She writes that "the legal double standard concerning the bodily integrity of pregnant and nonpregnant bodies, the construction of women as fetal incubators, the bestowal of 'super-subject' status to the fetus, and the emergence of a father's-rights ideology" demonstrate "that the current terms of the abortion debate – as a contest between fetal claims to personhood and women's right to choose – are limited and misleading."[26]
While some 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), others 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 personhood theory as biased against human exceptionalism. Of course, many religious communities (of many traditions) view the other versions of personhood theory perfectly compatible with their faith, as do the majority of modern Humanists (especially Personists).
Several attempts to enact the from-fertilization definition of personhood into U.S. state constitutions via referenda have failed.[27] Following two failures to enact similar changes in Colorado in 2008 and 2010, a 2011 initiative to amend the state constitution by referendum in the highly conservative state of Mississippi also failed to gain approval with around 58% of voters disapproving.[27][28] In an interview after the referendum, Mason ascribed the failure of the initiative to a campaign run by Planned Parenthood.[29]
Other similar initiatives are being planned for 2012 by supporters in California, Florida, Montana, Nevada and Ohio.[23][24]
In 1920, with the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, women got the right to vote in the United States. In 1971, US Supreme Court ruled in Reed v. Reed[30] that the 14th amendment applies to women,[31] as "people" according to the US Constitution.[32] In 2011, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia argued that women do not have equal protection under the 14th amendment as "people"[33] because men's rights are guaranteed by specific language in the Constitution, but women's rights are not mentioned.[34]
In 1772, Somersett's Case determined that slavery was unsupported by law in England and Wales, but not elsewhere in the British Empire. In 1868, under the 14th Amendment, black males in the United States became citizens. In 1870, under the 15th Amendment, black males got the right to vote.
Some philosophers and those involved in animal welfare, ethology, animal rights and related subjects, consider that certain animals should also be granted personhood. Commonly named species in this context include the great apes, cetaceans,[35] and elephants, because of their apparent intelligence and intricate social rules. The idea of extending personhood to all animals has the support of legal scholars such as Alan Dershowitz[36] and Laurence Tribe of Harvard Law School,[37] and animal law courses are now taught in 92 out of 180 law schools in the United States.[38] 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.
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).
Other theorists attempt to demarcate between degrees of personhood. For example, Peter Singer's two-tiered account distinguishes between basic sentience and the higher standard of self-consciousness which constitutes personhood. Julian Friedland has advanced a seven-tiered account based on cognitive capacity and linguistic mastery.
In 2007 the parliament of the Balearic Islands, an autonomous province of Spain, passed the world's first legislation granting legal rights to all great apes.[39] In 1992, Switzerland amended its constitution to recognize animals as beings and not things.[40] However, in 1999 the Swiss constitution was completely rewritten. A decade later, Germany guaranteed rights to animals in a 2002 amendment to its constitution, becoming the first European Union member to do so.[40][41][42] New Zealand granted basic rights to five great ape species in 1999. Their use is now forbidden in research, testing or teaching.[43]
Speculatively, there are several other likely categories of beings where personhood is at issue.
If alien life were found to exist, under what circumstances would they be counted as "persons"? Do we have to consider any "willing and communicative (capable to register its own will) autonomous body" in the universe, no matter the species, an individual (a person)? Do they deserve equal rights with the human race?
If artificial intelligences, intelligent and self-aware system of hardware and software, are eventually created, what criteria would be used to determine their personhood? Likewise, at what point might human-created biological life be considered to have achieved personhood?
The theoretical landscape of 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). For example, how much of a human can be replaced by artificial parts before personhood is lost, if ever? If the brain is the reason people are considered persons, then if the human brain and all its thought patterns, memories and other attributes could also in future be transposed faithfully into some form of artificial device (for example to avoid illness such as brain cancer) would the patient still be considered a person after the operation?
Today, in statutory and corporate law, certain social constructs are legally considered persons. In many jurisdictions, some corporations and other legal entities are considered legal persons with standing to sue or be sued in court. This is known as legal or corporate personhood.
In 1819, the US Supreme Court ruled in Dartmouth College v. Woodward, that corporations have the same rights as natural persons to enforce contracts.
In animistic religion, animals, plants, and other entities may be persons or deities.
Christianity is the first philosophical system to use the word "person" in its modern sense. The word "persona" was transformed from its theater use into a term with strict technical theological meaning by Tertullian in his work, De Trinitas ("On The Trinity"), in order to distinguish the three "persons" of the Trinity. Subsequently, Boethius refined the word to mean "an individual substance of a rational nature." This can be re-stated as "that which possesses an intellect and a will." Thus, the word "person" was originally a theological term created and defined by Christians to explain Christian theological concepts.
| “ | The definition of Boethius as it stands can hardly be considered a satisfactory one. The words taken literally can be applied to the rational soul of man, and also the human nature of Christ. That St. Thomas accepts it is presumably due to the fact that he found it in possession, and recognized as the traditional definition. He explains it in terms that practically constitute a new definition. Individua substantia signifies, he says, substantia, completa, per se subsistens, separata ab aliia, i.e., a substance, complete, subsisting per se, existing apart from others (III, Q. xvi, a. 12, ad 2um).
If to this be added rationalis naturae, we have a definition comprising the five notes that go to make up a person: (a) substantia-- this excludes accident; (b) completa-- it must form a complete nature; that which is a part, either actually or "aptitudinally" does not satisfy the definition; (c) per se subsistens--the person exists in himself and for himself; he is sui juris, the ultimate possessor of his nature and all its acts, the ultimate subject of predication of all his attributes; that which exists in another is not a person; (d) separata ab aliis--this excludes the universal, substantia secunda, which has no existence apart from the individual; (e) rationalis naturae--excludes all non-intellectual supposita. To a person therefore belongs a threefold incommunicability, expressed in notes (b), (c), and (d). The human soul belongs to the nature as a part of it, and is therefore not a person, even when existing separately. |
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—Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913, Person. |
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The notion of the possession of intellect and will is important, since Christians hold that the one divine nature is nothing except the one Divine Intellect and the one Divine Will. The Second Letter to Peter (2 Peter 1:4) indicates that human persons can "share in the divine nature." Though they have the capacity to share in it, human persons cannot possess it. This is one of the major distinctions between the three Persons of the Trinity and all other kinds of persons - each one of the uncreated persons of the Trinity possesses the one Divine Nature entirely unto Himself. He does not share it. Yet there is only one God, one Divine Nature. Other created persons can, at most, share in the Divine Nature, they cannot possess it.
Thus, for Christians, there are three kinds of persons: the three uncreated Persons of the Trinity who each possess the single Divine Intellect/Will, the created persons who are pure spirit and possess angelic intellects/wills, and the created persons who are a combination of spirit and physical body, who possess human intellects/wills. Angels are created persons who are pure spirit. Human persons are a created persons who are combinations of pure spirit and physical body. There are no other kinds of persons.
Every human person exists via the union of human intellect, human will and human body. The human soul is considered to be the human intellect and the human will. The will is said to be nothing more than the "appetite" of the intellect. The human soul is the form of the human body - it keeps the body from disintegrating. In the Catholic tradition, the human soul is infused into the human body at conception and is immortal. Death occurs when the human soul separates from the human body and the body disintegrates into dust.
Since neither the Persons of God nor the persons who are angels have bodies, neither of these kinds of persons can experience death. The restoration of the body at the Last Judgement is the restoration to the human person of an essential aspect of his/her existence as person.
Since the Greek concept of nous is not comparable to the Christian concept of rational intellect, it is not the case that the Greeks had a similar understanding of person. Indeed, it is difficult to find a concept or set of concepts in any non-Christian culture which corresponds to the Christian definition. Modern attempts to redefine "person" and "personhood" are detailed in the article above.
In Islam, sentient beings including Humans, Jinns and Angels, are regarded as people, up-to the extent of personalizing animals and inanimate objects as holding a form of anthropocentrism as it is an ill described theme in the Quran. Genderless figures are typically described by male gender and are referred to as "He" when classical Arabic has no pronoun for "It" . Being Human is more to do with being the best of the creation as the worst of the creations are seen as non-human, reflecting real-life notions who reflect humanity as beings practicing positive (as well as subhuman can mean a being who is seen negatively in a moral aspect rather biological) aspects and is considered highly subjective when defining person-hood to only children of Adam, as Human-like beings have existed long before the creation of Adam and Eve. According to such a theme, it is then to assume that Islam is not only for Humans, but for all that exists as being defined by personification are considered Muslims except for holders of free-will who are able to become Kufr.Though it is wise to associate personhood with humans among humans themselves when on Dunya, as such means of personification is knowledge of the unseen.
In the Quran, Humans themselves directly are referred to as "Mankind".
Christianity and Islam differ on the nature on demons. Christianity sees demons as fallen angels. In Islam, demons are a separate creation, human-like beings but made from fire, and angels in Islam will not become fallen angels.
The most human-like creations are referred to as Jinns, a prototype of human beings as they have free-will and are sapient and live human-like lives with the ability to create societies, socialize, make families, commit crimes etc. but have a large lifespan or seen to be immortal until their death with the shaytan. They are able to spy and trick themselves and mankind but they are life based on fire. Some hadiths state their numbers as many, many times more numerous than that human beings.