The term person in common usage means an individual human being A human is a member of a species of bipedal primates in the family Hominidae . DNA and fossil evidence indicates that modern humans originated in east Africa about 200,000 years ago. When compared to other animals and primates, humans have a highly developed brain, capable of abstract reasoning, language, introspection and problem solving. This. In the fields of law Law is a system of rules, usually enforced through a set of institutions. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a primary social mediator in relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus ticket to trading on derivatives markets. Property law defines rights and obligations related, philosophy Most academic subjects have a philosophy, for example the philosophy of science, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of logic, the philosophy of law, and the philosophy of history. In addition, a range of academic subjects have emerged to deal with areas which would have historically been the subject of philosophy. These include, medicine Medicine is the art and science of healing. It encompasses a range of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness, and others, the term also has specialised context-specific meanings.

In many jurisdictions, for example, a corporation A corporation is a legal entity separate from the persons that own it. In British tradition it is the term designating a body corporate, where it can be either a corporation sole or a corporation aggregate (involving more persons). In American and, increasingly, international usage, the term denotes a body corporate formed to conduct business, and is considered a legal person A legal person, also called juridical person or juristic person, is a legal entity through which the law allows a group of natural persons to act as if they were a single composite individual for certain purposes, or in some jurisdictions, for a single person to have a separate legal personality other than their own. This legal fiction does not with standing to sue or be sued in court. In philosophy and medicine, person may mean only humans who are capable of certain kinds of thought.^[1][2] This could also extend to late fetuses and neonates, dependent on what level of thought is required.

Personhood in theology

Person and personhood were used in concepts in the early Christian The first known usage of the term Χριστιανός can be found in the New Testament in Acts 11:26: "the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch." They were disciples and followers of Jesus Christ. The other two New Testament uses of the word also refer to the public identity of those who follow Jesus. The Jewish king said theological tradition However, on a more basic theoretical level, tradition can be seen as information or composed of information. For that which is brought into the present from the past, in a particular societal context, is information. This is even more fundamental than particular acts or practices even if repeated over a long sequence of time, during the first centuries A.D. by the Church Fathers The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, or Fathers of the Church are the early and influential theologians and writers in the Christian Church, particularly those of the first five centuries of Christian history. The term is used of writers and teachers of the Church, not necessarily saints. Teachers particularly are also known as doctors of the. The very concept of person (prosopon in Greek Greek , an Indo-European language native to the southern Balkan peninsula, is the language of the Greeks. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European. It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical Ancient Greek literature) was the result of a theological dispute, how God God is most often conceived of as the supernatural creator and overseer of the universe. Theologians have ascribed a variety of attributes to the many different conceptions of God. The most common among these include omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, omnibenevolence , divine simplicity, and eternal and necessary existence. God has also been, according to the Christian (Orthodox Note: The Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches preserve ancient church traditions but are not in communion. As such, the term Orthodox Christianity when used inadvisably to refer to these two Churches collectively refers more to a common eastern influence than to doctrinal matters) teaching, can be One and three at the same time. Further explication of the problem led to the formulation that there is one substance (or being) and three subsistences (hypostases): God Father In many religions, the supreme deity is given the title and attributions of Father. In many forms of polytheism, the highest god has been conceived as a "father of gods and of men". In the Israelite religion and its closest modern relative, Talmudic Judaism, God is called Father because he is the creator, law-giver, and protector. In, God Son God the Son is the second person of the Trinity in Christian theology. The doctrine of the Trinity identifies Jesus of Nazareth as God the Son, united in essence but distinct in person with regard to God the Father and God the Holy Spirit . God the Son is co-eternal with God the Father (and the Holy Spirit), both before creation and after the End ( and God Holy Spirit In Christianity, the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost is the Spirit of God. In mainstream Christian theology he is the third person of the Trinity and part of the Godhead, equal with God the Father and with God the Son, but still just one God, not three. This theological concept of the person as something that has a specific identity and holds the fullness of being, was applied to the human being A human is a member of a species of bipedal primates in the family Hominidae . DNA and fossil evidence indicates that modern humans originated in east Africa about 200,000 years ago. When compared to other animals and primates, humans have a highly developed brain, capable of abstract reasoning, language, introspection and problem solving. This as well. The Church Fathers interpreted the "icon An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Orthodox Christianity. More broadly the term is used in a wide number of contexts for an image, picture, or representation; it is a sign or likeness that stands for an object by signifying or representing it either concretely or by analogy, as in semiotics; by extension, of God" in man as human ability to exist as a person, having his/her own unique identity in communion with other persons. Later in the West the concept was translated into Latin as persona and was explained by Boethius Anicius Manlius Severinus Boëthius was a Christian or pagan philosopher of the 6th century. He was born in Rome to an ancient and important family which included emperors Petronius Maximus and Olybrius and many consuls. His father, Flavius Manlius Boethius, was consul in 487 after Odoacer deposed the last Western Roman Emperor. Boethius himself and St. Augustine Augustine of Hippo (Latin: Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis;) (November 13, 354 – August 28, 430), Bishop of Hippo Regius, also known as St. Augustine or St. Austin , was a Berber philosopher and theologian as something characterized by rational capacities.^[3]

Scientific approach

As an application of Social Psychology Social psychology is the study of how people and groups interact. Scholars in this interdisciplinary area are typically either psychologists or sociologists, though all social psychologists employ both the individual and the group as their units of analysis. and other disciplines, phenomena such as the perception and attribution of personhood have been scientifically studied.^[4][5] 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 Personality psychology is a branch of psychology that studies personality and individual differences. One emphasis in this area is to construct a coherent picture of a person and his or her major psychological processes . Another emphasis views personality as the study of individual differences, in other words, how people differ from each other. A.

Individual rights and responsibility

Closely related to the debate on the definition of personhood is the relationship between persons', individual rights Individual rights refer to the rights of individuals, in contrast with group rights. An individual right is the sanction of independent action. Both natural and legal conceptions or rights may distinguish between individual and group rights, although natural rights theories often limit themselves to discussion of individual rights, group rights, and ethical Ethics is a branch of philosophy which seeks to address questions about morality, such as what the fundamental semantic, ontological, and epistemic nature of ethics or morality is , how moral values should be determined (normative ethics), how a moral outcome can be achieved in specific situations (applied ethics), how moral capacity or moral responsibility Moral responsibility can refer to two different but related things. First, a person has 'moral responsibility' for a situation if that person has an obligation to ensure that something happens. Assume that John promises to baby-sit for his neighbour while she goes to a job interview. However, he decides he will go to a concert instead. Arguably,. Many philosophers would agree that all and only people are expected to be ethically responsible, and that all people deserve a varying degree of individual rights Human rights refer to the "basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled." Examples of rights and freedoms which have come to be commonly thought of as human rights include civil and political rights, such as the right to life and liberty, freedom of expression, and equality before the law; and economic, social and cultural^{[citation needed]}. There is less consensus on whether only people deserve individual rights and whether people deserve greater individual As commonly used, individual refers to a person or to any specific object in a collection. In the 15th century and earlier, and also today within the fields of statistics and metaphysics, individual means "indivisible", typically describing any numerically singular thing, but sometimes meaning "a person." . From the seventeenth rights than non-people^{[citation needed]}. The rights of animals Critics argue that animals are unable to enter into a social contract or make moral choices, and therefore cannot be regarded as possessors of rights, a position summed up by the philosopher Roger Scruton, who writes that only human beings have duties, and that, "[the] corollary is inescapable: we alone have rights." A parallel argument are an example of contention on this issue.

Who is a person?

• Human beings A human is a member of a species of bipedal primates in the family Hominidae . DNA and fossil evidence indicates that modern humans originated in east Africa about 200,000 years ago. When compared to other animals and primates, humans have a highly developed brain, capable of abstract reasoning, language, introspection and problem solving. This - In contemporary global thought, once human beings are born Birth is the act or process of bearing or bringing forth offspring . The offspring is brought forth from the mother. Different forms of birth are oviparity, vivipary or ovovivipary, personhood is considered automatic.
  • Exceptions: - Exceptions to this are often emotive and controversial. Some people have given opinions that fetuses A fetus is a developing mammal or other viviparous vertebrate, after the embryonic stage and before birth. The plural is fetuses, the disabled Disability is defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 as "a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities." An individual may also qualify as disabled if he/she has had an impairment in the past or is seen as disabled based on a personal or group standard or norm. Such, the profoundly and long term brain damaged Brain damage may occur due to a wide range of conditions, illnesses, injuries, and as a result of iatrogenesis. Possible causes of widespread brain damage include prolonged hypoxia (shortage of oxygen), poisoning by teratogens (including alcohol), infection, and neurological illness. Chemotherapy can cause brain damage to the neural stem cells and, those in coma In medicine, a coma is a profound state of unconsciousness. A comatose person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to pain or light, does not have sleep-wake cycles, and does not take voluntary actions or other persistent vegetative states A persistent vegetative state is a condition of patients with severe brain damage who were in a coma, but then progressed to a state of wakefulness without detectable awareness. It is a diagnosis of some uncertainty in that it deals with a syndrome. It is classified as a Permanent Vegetative State after approximately 1 year of being in a, may be dubious as regards personhood. Such views are strongly debated from both sides. Historically, personhood has been denied to women, perceived other races, the mentally disabled, and in many tribal societies, all people not from the tribe.
• Animals Animals are a major group of mostly multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life. Most animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and independently. Most animals are also - Some philosophers and those involved in animal welfare, ethology Ethology is the scientific study of animal behavior, and a sub-topic of zoology (not to be confused with ethnology, which compares and contrasts different human cultures), animal rights Critics argue that animals are unable to enter into a social contract or make moral choices, and therefore cannot be regarded as possessors of rights, a position summed up by the philosopher Roger Scruton, who writes that only human beings have duties, and that, "[the] corollary is inescapable: we alone have rights." A parallel argument and related subjects, consider that certain animals should also be granted personhood. Commonly named species in this context include the Great Apes A number of known extinct genera are grouped with humans in the Hominina subtribe, others with orangutans in the Ponginae subtribe. The most recent common ancestor of the Hominidae lived some 13 million years ago, when the ancestors of the orangutans speciated from the ancestors of the other three genera.[citation needed] The ancestors of the and possibly cetaceans The order Cetacea (pronounced /sɨˈteɪʃə/, L. cetus, whale, from Greek) includes whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Cetus is Latin and is used in biological names to mean "whale"; its original meaning, "large sea animal", was more general. It comes from Ancient Greek κῆτος (kētos), meaning "whale" or " or elephants Elephants are large land mammals of the order Proboscidea and the family Elephantidae. There are three living species: the African Bush Elephant, the African Forest Elephant and the Asian Elephant . Other species have become extinct since the last ice age, the Mammoths, dwarf forms of which may have survived as late as 2,000 BC, being the best-, due to the acknowledged intelligence and intricate societies of such species. In animistic Animism (from Latin anima ) is a philosophical, religious or spiritual idea that souls or spirits exist not only in humans and animals but also in plants, rocks, natural phenomena such as thunder, geographic features such as mountains or rivers, or other entities of the natural environment, a proposition also known as hylozoism in philosophy religion, animals, plants, and other entities may be persons or deities A deity is a postulated preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by believers.
• Certain societal constructs A social construction or social construct is any phenomenon "invented" or "constructed" by participants in a particular culture or society, existing because people agree to behave as if it exists or follow certain conventional rules. One example of a social construct is social status. Another example of social construction is - certain social entities, are considered legally as persons, for example some corporations A corporation is a legal entity separate from the persons that own it. In British tradition it is the term designating a body corporate, where it can be either a corporation sole or a corporation aggregate (involving more persons). In American and, increasingly, international usage, the term denotes a body corporate formed to conduct business, and and other legal entities. This is known as legal, or corporate, personhood The corporate personhood debate refers to the controversy over the question of what subset of rights afforded under the law to natural persons should also be afforded to corporations as legal persons.

In addition speculatively, there are several other likely categories of beings where personhood might be at issue:

• Unknown intelligent life-forms Extraterrestrial life is defined as life which does not originate from Earth. It is the subject of astrobiology and its existence remains hypothetical, because there is no credible evidence of extraterrestrial life which has been generally accepted by the mainstream scientific community. Hypotheses regarding the origin of extraterrestrial life, if - for example, should alien life be found to exist, under what circumstances would they be counted as 'persons'?
• Artificial life Artificial life is a field of study and an associated art form which examine systems related to life, its processes, and its evolution through simulations using computer models, robotics, and biochemistry. There are three main kinds of alife, named for their approaches: soft, from software; hard, from hardware; and wet, from biochemistry - at what point might human-created biological life be considered to have achieved personhood?
• Artificial intelligence Artificial Intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science which aims to create it. Major AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents," where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions which maximize its chances of success. John - assuming the eventual creation of an intelligent and self-aware system of hardware and software, what criteria would be used to confer or withhold the status of person?
• Modified living beings, cyborgs A cyborg is a cybernetic organism . The term was coined in 1960 when Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline used it in an article about the advantages of self-regulating human-machine systems in outer space. D. S. Halacy's Cyborg: Evolution of the Superman in 1965 featured an introduction by, who wrote of a "new frontier" that was "not - for example, how much of a human being can be replaced by artificial parts In medicine, a prosthesis (from Greek πρόσθεσις) is an artificial extension that replaces a missing body part. It is part of the field of biomechatronics, the science of fusing mechanical devices with human muscle, skeleton, and nervous systems to assist or enhance motor control lost by trauma, disease, or defect. Prostheses are typically before personhood is lost?
  • Further, 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?
  • If the person (or "individual") could go back in time and relate to his/her earlier self. Would it then be two persons yet the same being. Or one person in two bodies?
  • Are the surgical separations of Siamese twins cases more complicated, challenging and controversial than abortion?
• Do we have to consider whatever "willing and communicative (capable to register its own will) autonomous body" in the universe, no matter about races, an individual (a person)? Do they deserve equal rights with the human race?

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 debate

The 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.

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).

Nonhuman sentient beings as persons

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.

See also

• Anthropocentrism
• Anthropology
• Beginning of human personhood
• Being
• Consciousness
• Corporate Personhood Debate
• Great Ape personhood
• Juridical person
• Juristic person
• Nonperson
• People
• People (disambiguation)
• Personoid
• Phenomenology
• Subject (philosophy)
• Theory of mind

References

1. ^ Strawson, P.F. 1959. Individuals. London: Methuen: 104.
2. ^ Locke, John. 1961. Essay Concerning Human Understanding. London:Dent: 280.
3. ^ Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimirs Seminary Press, 1997). ISBN 978-0881410297
4. ^ Person Perception. Second Edition. Schneider, Hastdorf, and Ellsworth. 1979, Addison Wesley ISBN 0-201-06768-4
5. ^ Second-Language Fluency and Person Perception in China and the United States
6. ^ Dershowitz, Alan. Rights from Wrongs: A Secular Theory of the Origins of Rights, 2004, pp. 198–99, and "Darwin, Meet Dershowitz," The Animals' Advocate, Winter 2002, volume 21.
7. ^ "'Personhood' Redefined: Animal Rights Strategy Gets at the Essence of Being Human", Association of American Medical Colleges, retrieved July 12, 2006.
8. ^ "Animal law courses", Animal Legal Defense Fund.

Bibliography

• The category of the person. Anthropology, philosophy, history Edited by M. Carruthers, S. Collins, and L. Steven. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1985
• Cornelia J.de Vogel The concept of personality in Greek and Christian thought. In Studies in philosophy and the history of philosophy. Vol. 2. Edited by J. K. Ryan, Washington: Catholic University of America Press 1963. pp. 20-60

External links

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Carsten Korfmacher, 'Personal Identity', in the IEP
• "Person". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/Person.

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