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Bibliography:Divine PersonhoodinPhilosophy of Religion Bibliography:Rights and PersonhoodinSocial and Political Philosophy |
- 3 developmental perspective on the emergence of moralpersonhood James C. Harris.MoralPersonhood -2010 - In Eva Feder Kittay & Licia Carlson,Cognitive Disability and its Challenge to Moral Philosophy. Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 55.
- The publishers would like to apologise for the errors which appeared in the above paper.M. GueninPersonhood’by Louis -2006 -Philosophy 81 (317):463-503.No categories
- Vagueness, Values, and the World/Word Wedge.Personhood Humanity &A. Abortion -1985 -International Philosophical Quarterly 25 (3).
- LegalPersonhood: Animals, Artificial Intelligence and the Unborn.Visa A. J. Kurki &Tomasz Pietrzykowski (eds.) -2017 - Cham: Springer.This edited work collates novel contributions on contemporary topics that are related to human rights. The essays address analytic-descriptive questions, such as what legal personality actually means, and normative questions, such as who or what should be recognised as a legal person. As is well-known among jurists, the law has a special conception ofpersonhood: corporations are persons, whereas slaves have traditionally been considered property rather than persons. This odd state of affairs has not garnered the interest of legal (...) theorists for a while and the theory of legalpersonhood has been a relatively peripheral topic in jurisprudence for at least 50 years. As readers will see, there have recently been many developments and debates that justify a theoretical investigation of this topic. Animal rights activists have been demanding that some animals be recognized as legal persons. The field of robotics has prompted questions about driverless cars: should they be granted a limited legal personality, so that the car itself would be responsible for damages? This book explores such concepts and touches on matters of bioethics, animal law and medical law. It includes matters of legal history and appeals to both legal scholars and philosophers, especially those with an interest in theories of law and the philosophy of law. (shrink)
- Personhood and a Meaningful Life in African Philosophy.Motsamai Molefe -2020 -South African Journal of Philosophy 39 (2): 194-207.This article proffers apersonhood-based conception of a meaningful life. I look into the ethical structure of the salient idea ofpersonhood in African philosophy to develop an account of a meaningful life. In my view, the ethics ofpersonhood is constituted by three components, namely (1) the fact of being human, which informs (2) a view of moral status qua the capacity for moral virtue, and (3) which specifies the final good of achieving or developing a (...) morally virtuous character. In light of the ethics ofpersonhood, I will propose the view that a meaningful life is a function of achieving moral excellence or perfection. The moral perfection proposed here, to embody a meaningful life, is of a deontological and satisficing kind. The achievement of satisfactory levels of moral excellence, within sociopolitical and moral limits, captures the essence of a meaningful life. I conclude the article by considering objections against the view proposed here. (shrink)
- Legalpersonhood for artificial intelligences.Lawrence B. Solum -1992 -North Carolina Law Review 70:1231.Could an artificial intelligence become a legal person? As of today, this question is only theoretical. No existing computer program currently possesses the sort of capacities that would justify serious judicial inquiry into the question of legalpersonhood. The question is nonetheless of some interest. Cognitive science begins with the assumption that the nature of human intelligence is computational, and therefore, that the human mind can, in principle, be modelled as a program that runs on a computer. Artificial intelligence (...) (AI) research attempts to develop such models. But even as cognitive science has displaced behavioralism as the dominant paradigm for investigating the human mind, fundamental questions about the very possibility of artificial intelligence continue to be debated. This Essay explores those questions through a series of thought experiments that transform the theoretical question whether artificial intelligence is possible into legal questions such as, "Could an artificial intelligence serve as a trustee?" What is the relevance of these legal thought experiments for the debate over the possibility of artificial intelligence? A preliminary answer to this question has two parts. First, putting the AI debate in a concrete legal context acts as a pragmatic Occam's razor. By reexamining positions taken in cognitive science or the philosophy of artificial intelligence as legal arguments, we are forced to see them anew in a relentlessly pragmatic context. Philosophical claims that no program running on a digital computer could really be intelligent are put into a context that requires us to take a hard look at just what practical importance the missing reality could have for the way we speak and conduct our affairs. In other words, the legal context provides a way to ask for the "cash value" of the arguments. The hypothesis developed in this Essay is that only some of the claims made in the debate over the possibility of AI do make a pragmatic difference, and it is pragmatic differences that ought to be decisive. Second, and more controversially, we can view the legal system as a repository of knowledge-a formal accumulation of practical judgments. The law embodies core insights about the way the world works and how we evaluate it. Moreover, in common-law systems judges strive to decide particular cases in a way that best fits the legal landscape-the prior cases, the statutory law, and the constitution. Hence, transforming the abstract debate over the possibility of AI into an imagined hard case forces us to check our intuitions and arguments against the assumptions that underlie social decisions made in many other contexts. By using a thought experiment that explicitly focuses on wide coherence, we increase the chance that the positions we eventually adopt will be in reflective equilibrium with our views about related matters. In addition, the law embodies practical knowledge in a form that is subject to public examination and discussion. Legal materials are published and subject to widespread public scrutiny and discussion. Some of the insights gleaned in the law may clarify our approach to the artificial intelligence debate. (shrink)
- Personhood and the Strongly Normative Constraint.Oritsegbubemi Anthony Oyowe -2018 -Philosophy East and West 68 (3):783-801.What I will be referring to as the normative view in contemporary African discourse onpersonhood has received substantial treatment and is beginning to exhibit the sort of systematic coherence that I believe Kwasi Wiredu once anticipated.1 Much of this is due to Wiredu's own work, as well as important recent work by Polycarp Ikuenobe, whose most recent articulation and defense of the view appear in this journal.2 My aim is to engage with this way of thinking about what (...) it means to be a person with a view to repairing aspects of it deemed to be most problematic. To this end, I pursue two broad lines of contestation—the one is theoretical, contesting some of the features it takes to be conceptually required for... (shrink)
- Personhood and Subjectivation in Simondon and Heidegger.Melanie Swan -2014 -Journal of Evolution and Technology 24 (3):65-75.Twentieth century philosophers such as Simondon and Heidegger propose theories of subjectivation that inform our thinking about the definition ofpersonhood and how it arises; including in the potentially wide-ranging context ofpersonhood beyond the human. Simondon’s theory of transindividuation unfolds as a series of decenterings that provides a context for future persons that is a dynamic world of processes without fixity or attachment to any one kind of subject. Subjects participate in but do not cause individuation; and (...) they exist on a spectrum of capacity for action with other living beings including animals; human persons; and possibly a variety of future persons. The role of collectivity in the form of the other has been an important aspect of individuation; however I claim that the function of alterity need not be provided exclusively by a self-similar subject. Philosophical individuation theories serve as a foundation for an approach that opens up greater possibility for individuation in the context of future persons by identifying and alternatively fulfilling the underlying functionality required by individuation. (shrink)No categories
- Personhood and Natural Kinds: Why Cognitive Status Need Not Affect Moral Status.Joseph Vukov -2017 -Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 42 (3):261-277.Lockean accounts ofpersonhood propose that an individual is a person just in case that individual is characterized by some advanced cognitive capacity. On these accounts, human beings with severe cognitive impairment are not persons. Some accept this result—I do not. In this paper, I therefore advance and defend an account ofpersonhood that securespersonhood for human beings who are cognitively impaired. On the account for which I argue, an individual is a person just in case (...) that individual belongs to a natural kind that is normally characterized by advanced cognitive capacities. Since “human being” is just such a natural kind, individual human beings can be persons even when they do not themselves have advanced cognitive capacities. I argue, furthermore, that we have good reason to accept this account ofpersonhood over rival accounts since it is uniquely able to accommodate the intuitive concept of an impaired person. (shrink)
- Personhood, Ethics, and Animal Cognition: Situating Animals in Hare’s Two Level Utilitarianism.Gary E. Varner -2012 - , US: Oup Usa.Drawing heavily on recent empirical research to update R.M. Hare's two-level utilitarianism and expand Hare's treatment of "intuitive level rules," Gary Varner considers in detail the theory's application to animals while arguing that Hare should have recognized a hierarchy of persons, near-persons, & the merely sentient.
- Personhood and neuroscience: Naturalizing or nihilating?Martha J. Farah &Andrea S. Heberlein -2007 -American Journal of Bioethics 7 (1):37-48.Personhood is a foundational concept in ethics, yet defining criteria have been elusive. In this article we summarize attempts to definepersonhood in psychological and neurological terms and conclude that none manage to be both specific and non-arbitrary. We propose that this is because the concept does not correspond to any real category of objects in the world. Rather, it is the product of an evolved brain system that develops innately and projects itself automatically and irrepressibly onto the (...) world whenever triggered by stimulus features such as a human-like face, body, or contingent patterns of behavior. We review the evidence for the existence of an autonomous person network in the brain and discuss its implications for the field of ethics and for the implicit morality of everyday behavior. (shrink)
- HumanizingPersonhood.Adam Kadlac -2010 -Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 13 (4):421 - 437.This paper explores the debate between personists, who argue that the concept of a person if of central importance for moral thought, and personists, who argue that the concept of a human being is of greater moral significance. On the one hand, it argues that normative naturalism, the most ambitious defense of the humanist position, fails to identify moral standards with standards of human behavior and thereby fails to undermine the moral significance ofpersonhood. At the same time, it (...) contends that a more focused attention on the morally relevant features of human life may indeed play a crucial role in enhancing our moral understanding. (shrink)
- ReconceptualizingPersonhood in Bioethics and Law: A Spectrum-Based Approach.Dov Greenbaum -2024 -American Journal of Bioethics 24 (1):38-40.Blumenthal-Barby (2024) argues for the discarding of the longstanding standardpersonhood criteria of bioethicists in assessing the ethical status of new and innovative human-like systems in favor...
- (1 other version)Personhood.Michael Tooley -1998 - In Helga Kuhse & Peter Singer,A Companion to Bioethics. Malden, Mass., USA: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 127–139.This chapter contains sections titled: Basic Moral Principles and the Concept of a Person Human Persons and Human Organisms The Concept of a Person and the Wrongness of Killing What Makes Something a Person? IsPersonhood a Matter of Degree? Is PotentialPersonhood Morally Significant? Is Species Membership Morally Significant? The Moral Status of Human Embryos, Fetuses, and Newborn Infants Summing Up: Ethics and the Concept of a Person References.No categories
- Personhood and (Rectification) Justice in African Thought.Motsamai Molefe -2018 -Politikon:1- 18.This article invokes the idea ofpersonhood (which it takes to be at the heart of Afrocommunitarian morality) to give an account of corrective/rectification justice. The idea of rectification justice by Robert Nozick is used heuristically to reveal the moral-theoretical resources availed by the idea ofpersonhood to think about historical injustices and what would constitute a meaningful remedy for them. This notion ofpersonhood has three facets: (1) a theory of moral status/dignity, (2) an account of (...) historical conditions and (3) the achievement of moral excellence by the agent (personhood). This article argues that a just society is a function of (1) and (2), and it further argues that the aim of rectification justice is to correct these two facets of a society, which are necessary for (3) to be possible. The aim of correcting history just is to makepersonhood a possibility for all humanity, particularly of those who were victims of past injustices. (shrink)
- EnvironmentalPersonhood as a Tool to Protect Nature.Martyna Łaszewska-Hellriegel -2022 -Philosophia 51 (3):1369-1384.The escalating global ecological degradation underlines the continued importance of the need of effective nature protection. In recent years a new concept– “environmentalpersonhood” was developed. The article analyses the concept and asks the question if it can help with the efficiency of protecting the nature. It is the attempt to transfer the essence of human rights to animals and ecosystem, so they will no longer be right’-less. This concept has some of its beginning in the idea of “common (...) heritage of mankind”, which means that some places belong to the whole of humanity and that the resources of these places should be available to all. This article outlines the roots, the development and traces current trends in the legal personification of non-human persons. It asks legal-theoretical questions about the limits and possibilities of opening up the concept of legalpersonhood for non-human legal persons in order to protect the nature and discusses the possibility of creating new institutions that could protect it. The article also shows the importance of creating a new society sensitive to nature’s needs. (shrink)No categories
- WhenPersonhood Goes Wrong in Ethics and Philosophical Theology: Disability, Ableism, and (Modern)Personhood.Scott M. Williams -2019 - In Blake Hereth & Kevin Timpe,The Lost Sheep in Philosophy of Religion: New Perspectives on Disability, Gender, Race, and Animals. New York: Routledge. pp. 264-290.This chapter is aboutpersonhood in relation to ethics and to conciliar Christian theology, and how concepts ofpersonhood may discriminate against profoundly cognitively disabled human beings. (By ‘conciliar Christian theology’ I mean the Christian theology that is articulated in, or endorsed by, the first seven ecumenical councils.) -/- I believe we can learn several things aboutpersonhood by looking at these two topics together. By examining ancient and medieval concepts ofpersonhood and some modern conceptions (...) ofpersonhood we gain a better grasp of the variety of concepts and what substantive work they were intended to do. By becoming familiar with (part of) the history of concepts ofpersonhood we are better situated to appreciate and judge the theoretical work that these concepts were intended to do and what consequences they have in ethical and theological theorizing. -/- In the first section I tell a select history of moral philosophers theorizing aboutpersonhood and discuss these in relation to human beings with profound cognitive disability. I focus on John Locke, Immanuel Kant, and Mary Anne Warren. In the “WhenPersonhood Is Discriminatory” section I argue that concepts ofpersonhood, especially modern concepts ofpersonhood, are typically used in a manner that discriminates against human beings with profound cognitive disabilities. I give two arguments against discriminatory uses ofpersonhood, the Moral Shift Argument and the Argument against ExclusivePersonhood. Although the Moral Shift Argument is deductively valid, it probably has little persuasive power over those who do not share the moral belief that profoundly cognitively disabled human beings are equal members of the moral community. However, the Argument against ExclusivePersonhood has more argumentative force because it denies the claims thatpersonhood is “self-evident” and that it is “obvious” to everyone. In the following section I survey a select history of concepts ofpersonhood in order to establish the claims that concepts ofpersonhood are not self-evident and are not obvious to everyone. This history ofpersonhood goes back to ancient and medieval Christian theorizing and debating aboutpersonhood. It shows that concepts ofpersonhood are not “self-evident” but rather are theoretical posits that are posited in theory construction in order to explain certain putative theological facts. Given thatpersonhood is a theoretical posit and is not “self-evident,” moral philosophers who aim to determine the extent of the moral community on the basis of a supposedly “self-evident” concept ofpersonhood are not justified in doing so. Moreover, given the Argument against ExclusivePersonhood, philosophical theologians who wish to articulate models of the Trinity or Incarnation that are consistent with the seven ecumenical councils will find that they, like moral philosophers, are not justified to assume, or to insist on, modernpersonhood for their models of the Trinity or Incarnation. My overall conclusion, then, is that modernpersonhood is bad for ethics and unnecessary for conciliar ecumenical Christian theology. (shrink)
- Personhood in a transhumanist context: An African perspective.Ademola Kazeem Fayemi -2018 -Filosofia Theoretica: Journal of African Philosophy, Culture and Religions 7 (1):53-78.Personhood is an extensively discussed theme in contemporary African philosophy, which has taken metaphysical, epistemological and normative dimensions. In Western philosophical traditions, discourse onpersonhood is transmuting to debates on transhumanism. Missing in the African philosophical literature is consideration of transhumanism and an explication of the relationship betweenpersonhood and transhumanism. In this article, I critically examine the relationship betweenpersonhood and transhumanism in an African context. Drawing on Barry Hallen’s African metaphysical account ofpersonhood (...) and Thaddeus Metz’s Afro-communal normative conception ofpersonhood, I argue that while some transhumanist elements are embedded in African normative and ontological conceptions ofpersonhood, some others are not. In the final analysis, I defend an Afrofuturistic account ofpersonhood that is compatible with some censored essentials of transhumanism in African thoughts. Keywords :Personhood, Transhumanism, Barry Hallen, Thaddeus Metz, Africa, Yoruba. (shrink)
- Personhood and legal status: reflections on the democratic rights of corporations.Ludvig Beckman -2018 -Netherlands Journal of Legal Philosophy 47 (1):13-28.Personhood and legal status: reflections on the democratic rights of corporations Corporations can have rights but whether they should also have democratic rights depends among other things on whether they are the kind of entities to which the democratic ideal applies. This paper distinguishes four different conceptions of “the person” that can have democratic rights. According to one view, the only necessary condition is legal personality, whereas according to the other three views, democratic inclusion is conditioned also byNo categories
- Foetalpersonhood and representations of the absent child in pregnancy loss memorialization.Helen Keane -2009 -Feminist Theory 10 (2):153-171.Because mourning and memorializing a miscarriage seems to imply acceptance of foetalpersonhood, feminists have been reluctant to address the often traumatic but common experience of pregnancy loss. Feminist anthropologists of reproduction have argued that adopting a view ofpersonhood as constructed and negotiated, rather than inherent, solves this dilemma and enables the development of a feminist discourse of pregnancy loss. This article aims to make a critical contribution to such a discourse by analysing representations of lost babies (...) and children in online pregnancy loss memorials. It focuses on two genres of representation, idealized angels and medical ultrasound images. It argues that the dominance of a biological model ofpersonhood limits the ability of both forms of representation to secure the status of memorialized children as real. However, pregnancy loss memorials do communicate the anguish of grieving parents, in part through the very unrepresentability of their loss. They also provoke a questioning of the taken for granted subject of `the child', whether imagined or real, absent or present. (shrink)
- Personhood and Moral Status.Julie Tannenbaum &Agnieszka Jaworska -2019 - In Antonia LoLordo,Persons: a history of the concept. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 334-362.This chapter focuses on moralpersonhood understood in terms of the notion of moral status. An entity is said to have moral status only if it or its interest matters morally for its own sake. Nonutilitarians tend to think of moral status in terms of entitlements and protections that can conflict with, and sometimes override, doing what would maximize the good and minimize the bad. If moral status comes in degrees, and if there is a status of the highest (...) degree (i.e., full moral status), then moral persons are those with full moral status. After giving a more precise account of it, we assess different views of what it takes to qualify for full moral status (some of which appeal to metaphysical notions of person). We also briefly discuss how metaphysical notions ofpersonhood are put to moral use in utilitarian moral theorizing that eschews the notion of moralpersonhood. (shrink)
- Humanness,Personhood, and the Right to Die.J. P. Moreland -1995 -Faith and Philosophy 12 (1):95-112.A widely adopted approach to end-of-life ethical questions fails to make explicit certain crucial metaphysical ideas entailed by it and when those ideas are clarified, then it can be shown to be inadequate. These metaphysical themes cluster around the notions of personal identity,personhood and humanness, and the metaphysics of substance. In order to clarify and critique the approach just mentioned, I focus on the writings of Robert N. Wennberg as a paradigm case by, first, stating his views of (...) personal identity, humanness,personhood, and the relations among them; second, offering a comparison of a view of humans as substances (understood in the classic interpretation of Aristotle and Aquinas) vs. a view of humans as property-things; third, applying the metaphysical distinctions surfaced in the second section towards a critique of Wennberg. (shrink)
- Personhood and the practical.Marya Schechtman -2010 -Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 31 (4):271-283.Traditionally, it has been assumed that metaphysical and practical questions aboutpersonhood and personal identity are inherently linked. Neo-Lockean views that draw such a link have been problematic, leading to an opposing view that metaphysical and ethical questions about persons should be sharply distinguished. This paper argues that consideration of this issue suffers from an overly narrow conception of the practical concerns associated with persons that focuses on higher-order capacities and fails to appreciate basic practical concerns more directly connected (...) to our animality. A more inclusive alternative is proposed. (shrink)
- Personhood: Beginnings and Endings.Allyne L. Smith -2000 -Christian Bioethics 6 (1):3-14.Allyne L. Smith, Jr.;Personhood: Beginnings and Endings, Christian bioethics: Non-Ecumenical Studies in Medical Morality, Volume 6, Issue 1, 1 January 2000, Pa.
- The trouble withpersonhood and person‐centred care.Matthew Tieu,Alexandra Mudd,Tiffany Conroy,Alejandra Pinero de Plaza &Alison Kitson -2022 -Nursing Philosophy 23 (3):e12381.The phrase ‘person‐centred care’ (PCC) reminds us that the fundamental philosophical goal of caring for people is to uphold or promote theirpersonhood. However, such an idea has translated into promoting individualist notions of autonomy, empowerment and personal responsibility in the context of consumerism and neoliberalism, which is problematic both conceptually and practically. From a conceptual standpoint, it ignores the fact that humans are social, historical and biographical beings, and instead assumes an essentialist or idealized concept ofpersonhood (...) in which a person is viewed as an individual static object. From a practical standpoint, the application of such a concept ofpersonhood can lead to neglect of a person's fundamental care needs and exacerbate the problems of social inequity, in particular for older people and people with dementia. Therefore, we argue that our understanding of PCC must instead be based on a dynamic concept ofpersonhood that integrates the relevant social, relational, temporal and biographical dimensions. We propose that the correct concept ofpersonhood in PCC is one in which persons are understood as socially embedded, relational and temporally extended subjects rather than merely individual, autonomous, asocial and atemporal objects. We then present a reconceptualization of the fundamental philosophical goal of PCC as promoting selfhood rather thanpersonhood. Such a reconceptualization avoids the problems that beset the concept ofpersonhood and its application in PCC, while also providing a philosophical foundation for the growing body of empirical literature that emphasizes the psychosocial, relational, subjective and biographical dimensions of PCC. (shrink)
- An African Philosophy ofPersonhood, Morality, and Politics.Motsamai Molefe -2019 - New York: Palgrave Macmillan.This book explores the salient ethical idea ofpersonhood in African philosophy. It is a philosophical exposition that pursues the ethical and political consequences of the normative idea ofpersonhood as a robust or even foundational ethical category.Personhood refers to the moral achievements of the moral agent usually captured in terms of a virtuous character, which have consequences for both morality and politics. The aim is not to argue for the plausibility of the ethical and political (...) consequences of the idea ofpersonhood. Rather, the book showcases some of the moral-political content and consequences of the account it presents. (shrink)
- Personhood, Utilitarianism, and the Limits of Torture.David E. Decosse -2013 -Criminal Justice Ethics 32 (3):1-4.Can torture ever be morally justified? In the United States, 15 to 20 years ago, this wasn't a question on many peoples' minds because the issue seemed settled: of course torture couldn't be justif...
- Personhood Begins at Birth: The Rational Foundation for Abortion Policy in a Secular State.L. Lewis Wall &Douglas Brown -forthcoming -Journal of Bioethical Inquiry:1-19.The struggle over legal abortion access in the United States is a religious controversy, not a scientific debate. Religious activists who believe that meaningful individual life (i.e., “personhood”) begins at a specific “moment-of-conception” are attempting to pass laws that force this view upon all pregnant persons, irrespective of their medical circumstances, individual preferences, or personal religious beliefs. This paper argues that such actions promote a constitutionally prohibited “establishment of religion.” Abortion policy in a secular state must be based upon (...) scientifically accurate biology, not unprovable theological presuppositions. The scientific facts regarding human pregnancy do not support the position thatpersonhood begins with fertilization—at which point a pregnancy does not yet even exist. Abortion policy should regard the embryo/fetus as part of the pregnant individual’s body until delivery. We argue that individual “personhood” only begins when the _latent_ potentialities of the fetal nervous system are _actualized_ in the newborn after delivery. The paper argues that instantiating non-scientific beliefs concerning embryonic/fetal “personhood” into the law as the basis for abortion policy establishes a state-sponsored religion. The protection of religious liberty requires that abortion be decriminalized. Abortion should be treated like any other medical procedure and regulated similarly. To protect both religious freedom and sound medical practice, individual legalpersonhood should be recognized as beginning only at birth. (shrink)
- PrecautionaryPersonhood: We Should Treat Patients with Disorders of Consciousness as Persons.Matthew Braddock -2021 -American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 12 (2-3):162-164.Should we allocate costly health care to patients diagnosed with disorders of consciousness (DoC), such as patients diagnosed as being in a vegetative state or minimally conscious state? Peterson, Aas, and Wasserman (2021) argue that we should in their paper “What justifies the allocation of health care resources to patients with disorders of consciousness?” Their key insight is that the expected benefits to this patient population helps to justify such allocations. However, their insight is attached to a consequentialist framework aimed (...) at maximizing aggregate social welfare. An alleged virtue of their framework over Braddock’s (2017) approach is their agnosticism about the moral status and rights of DoC patients. In this commentary, however, we argue that their agnosticism is the biggest problem with their approach: failing to treat DoC patients as persons with rights runs the moral risk of violating their rights, which is more serious than the risk of failing to maximize social utility. A better approach that reduces moral risk would incorporate Braddock’s (2017) precautionary presumption ofpersonhood. We should stand in solidarity with DoC patients and treat them as persons with dignity and rights. (shrink)
- Legalpersonhood for the integration of AI systems in the social context: a study hypothesis.Claudio Novelli -forthcoming -AI and Society:1-13.In this paper, I shall set out the pros and cons of assigning legalpersonhood on artificial intelligence systems under civil law. More specifically, I will provide arguments supporting a functionalist justification for conferringpersonhood on AIs, and I will try to identify what content this legal status might have from a regulatory perspective. Being a person in law implies the entitlement to one or more legal positions. I will mainly focus on liability as it is one of (...) the main grounds for the attribution of legalpersonhood, like for collective legal entities. A better distribution of responsibilities resulting from unpredictably illegal and/or harmful behaviour may be one of the main reasons to justify the attribution ofpersonhood also for AI systems. This means an efficient allocation of the risks and social costs associated with the use of AIs, ensuring the protection of victims, incentives for production, and technological innovation. However, the paper also considers other legal positions triggered bypersonhood in addition to responsibility: specific competencies and powers such as, for example, financial autonomy, the ability to hold property, make contracts, sue. (shrink)
- Personhood and the Importance of Philosophical Clarity.Karola V. Kreitmair -2024 -American Journal of Bioethics 24 (1):35-38.In her target article, “The End ofPersonhood,” Jennifer Blumenthal-Barby argues that bioethics as a field should abandon the concept of “person.” She states that for many (inside and outside of bi...
- PosthumanPersonhood.Daryl J. Wennemann -2013 - Upa.Wennemann argues that the traditional concept ofpersonhood may be fruitfully applied to the ethical challenge we face in a posthuman age. The book posits that biologically non-human persons like robots, computers, or aliens are a theoretical possibility but that we do not know if they are a real possibility.
- God,Personhood, and Infinity: Against a Hickian Argument.Mohammad Saleh Zarepour -2020 -European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 12 (1):61.Criticizing Richard Swinburne’s conception of God, John Hick argues that God cannot be personal because infinity andpersonhood are mutually incompatible. An essential characteristic of a person, Hick claims, is having a boundary which distinguishes that person from other persons. But having a boundary is incompatible with being infinite. Infinite beings are unbounded. Hence God cannot be thought of as an infinite person. In this paper, I argue that the Hickian argument is flawed because boundedness is an equivocal notion: (...) in one sense it is not essential topersonhood, and in another sense—which is essential topersonhood—it is compatible with being infinite. (shrink)
- Personhood and AI: Why large language models don’t understand us.Jacob Browning -2023 -AI and Society 39 (5):2499-2506.Recent artificial intelligence advances, especially those of large language models (LLMs), have increasingly shown glimpses of human-like intelligence. This has led to bold claims that these systems are no longer a mere “it” but now a “who,” a kind of person deserving respect. In this paper, I argue that this view depends on a Cartesian account ofpersonhood, on which identifying someone as a person is based on their cognitive sophistication and ability to address common-sense reasoning problems. I contrast (...) this with a different account ofpersonhood, one where an agent is a person if they are autonomous, responsive to norms, and culpable for their actions. On this latter account, I show that LLMs are not person-like, as evidenced by their propensity for dishonesty, inconsistency, and offensiveness. Moreover, I argue current LLMs, given the way they are designed and trained, cannot be persons—either social or Cartesian. The upshot is that contemporary LLMs are not, and never will be, persons. (shrink)
- Moral ProfessionalPersonhood: ethical reflections during initial clinical encounters in nursing education.Chryssoula Lemonidou,Elizabeth Papathanassoglou,Margarita Giannakopoulou,Elisabeth Patiraki &Danai Papadatou -2004 -Nursing Ethics 11 (2):122-137.Moral agency is an important constituent of the nursing role. We explored issues of ethical development in Greek nursing students during clinical practice at the beginning of their studies. Specifically, we aimed to explore students’ lived experience of ethics, and their perceptions and understanding of encountered ethical conflicts through phenomenological analysis of written narratives. The process of developing an awareness of personal values through empathizing with patients was identified as the core theme of the students’ experience. Six more common themes (...) were identified. Development of the students’ moral awareness was conceptualized as a set of stages, commencing with empathizing with patients and nurses, moving on to taking a moral stand and, finally, concluding by becoming aware of their personal values and showing evidence of an emerging professional moralpersonhood. The notions of empathy, caring and emotion were in evidence throughout the students’ experience. Implications for practice and nurse education are discussed. (shrink)
- Abortion,Personhood and the Potential for Consciousness.Robert Larmer -1995 -Journal of Applied Philosophy 12 (3):241-251.The view that the fetus' potential for human consciousness confers upon it the right to life has been widely criticised on the basis that the notion of potentiality is so vague as to be meaningless, and on the basis that actual rights cannot be deduced from the mere potential forpersonhood. It has also been criticised, although less commonly, on the basis that it is not the potential to assume consciousness, but rather the potential to resume consciousness which is (...) morally significant, and on the basis that the fetus does not really possess the potential for consciousness. In response, I argue that these criticisms are mistaken and that the potential for human consciousness is a sufficient condition not simply of potential, but actual,personhood. Since it possesses this potential from the moment of conception, the fetus should be considered an actual person from the moment of its conception. (shrink)No categories
- PostmodernPersonhood: A Matter of Consciousness.Ben A. Rich -1997 -Bioethics 11 (3-4):206-216.The concept of person is integral to bioethical discourse because persons are the proper subject of the moral domain. Nevertheless, the concept of person has played no role in the prevailing formulation of human death because of a purported lack of consensus concerning the essential attributes of a person. Beginning with John Locke's fundamental proposition that person is a ‘forensic term’, I argue that in Western society we do have a consensus on at least one necessary condition forpersonhood, (...) and that is the capacity for conscious experience. When we consider the whole brain formulation of death, and the most prominent defense of it by the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research, we can readily identify the flaws that grow out of the failure to define human death as the permanent loss of the capacity for conscious experience. Most fundamental among these flaws is a definition of human death that reduces persons to the capacity of the brain to regulate purely physiological functioning. Such a formulation would, in theory, apply to any member of the animal kingdom. I suggest that an appropriate concept of death should capture what it is about a particular living being that is so essential to it that the permanent loss of that thing constitutes death. What is essential to being a human being is living the life of a person, which derives from the capacity for conscious experience. (shrink)
- Personhood and property in Hegel's conception of freedom.M. Blake Wilson -2019 -Pólemos (1):68-91.For Hegel,personhood is developed primarily through the possession, ownership, and exchange of property. Property is crucial for individuals to experience freedom as persons and for the existence of Sittlichkeit, or ethical life within a community. The free exchange of property serves to develop individual personalities by mediating our intersubjectivity between one another, whereby we share another’s subjective experience of the object by recognizing their will in it and respecting their ownership of it. This free exchange is grounded the (...) abstract right to property which is defined by the liberal institution of private property. Like all legal/juridical rights, the abstract property right and its related institution are productions of the state, which can also claim priority over them. This prioritization reveals the dialectic inherent in the both the conception and exercise of the right, in which the private right to property at the level of civil society confronts the public right of the state, resulting in both the preservation and uplifting of the right, and, at the same time, its cancellation or annihilation. (shrink)
- Emotions andPersonhood: Exploring Fragility - Making Sense of Vulnerability.Giovanni Stanghellini &René Rosfort -2013 - Oxford University Press.Emotions andpersonhood are important notions within the field of mental health care. How they are related is less evident. This book provides a framework for understanding the important and complex relationship between our emotional wellbeing and our sense of self, drawing on psychopathology, philosophy, and phenomenology.
- Personhood, Dementia, and Bioethics.Steve Matthews -forthcoming -Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics.Jennifer Blumenthal-Barby (2024) has called for bioethics to end talk aboutpersonhood, asserting that such talk has the tendency to confuse and offend. It will be argued that this has only limited application for (largely) private settings. However, in other settings, theorizing aboutpersonhood leaves a gap in which there is the risk that the offending concept will get uptake elsewhere, and so the problem Blumenthal-Barby nominates may not be completely avoided. In response to this risk, an argument (...) is presented in support of the idea that the role of philosophers and bioethicists, far from ending talk ofpersonhood, ought to be to clarify the concept, and to do so in nuanced ways, given its application for specific kinds of impairments. The case of dementia is used to illustrate this in the context of person-centered care. Ironically, given the stigma attached to dementia, far from the need to end talk ofpersonhood, bioethicists are needed to rescue the concept and clarify its role. (shrink)
- (1 other version)CorporatePersonhood and the Corporate Responsibility to Race.Nneka Logan -2019 -Journal of Business Ethics 154 (4):977-988.Often overlooked in studies of the corporation is the recognition that the modern corporate form and its power are rooted in the issue of race, and more specifically, in racial oppression. The racialized roots of the corporation become exposed when we acknowledge the significance of slavery and the Fourteenth Amendment to the evolution of the corporate form along with the discriminatory role corporations have traditionally played in shaping race relations in the U.S. This article draws upon several theoretical perspectives, primarily (...) critical race theory, management theory, legal studies, diversity management, and corporate social responsibility to introduce the corporate responsibility to race concept and establish it as a new basis for understanding why corporate persons have a responsibility for improving race relations. (shrink)
- Conceptualisingpersonhood in nursing care for people with altered consciousness, cognition and behaviours: A discussion paper.Stephen Kivunja,Julie Pryor,Jo River &Janice Gullick -2024 -Nursing Philosophy 25 (3):e12490.The aim of this discussion paper is to explore factors and contexts that influence how nurses might conceptualise and assignpersonhood for people with altered consciousness, cognition and behaviours. While a biomedical framing is founded upon a dichotomy between the body and self, such that the body can be subjected to a medical and objectifying gaze, relational theories of self, multiculturalism and technological advances for life‐sustaining interventions present new dilemmas which necessitate discussion about what constitutespersonhood. The concept (...) ofpersonhood is dynamic and evolving: where historical constructs of rationality, agency, autonomy and a conscious mind once formed the basis forpersonhood, these ideas have been challenged to encompass embodied, relational, social and cultural paradigms of selfhood. Themes in this discussion include: the right topersonhood, mind–body dualism versus the embodied self;personhood as consciousness, rationality and narratives of self; social relational contexts ofpersonhood and cultural contexts ofpersonhood. Patricia Benner's and Christine Tanner's clinical judgement model is then applied to consider the implications for nursing care that seeks to reflexively incorporatepersonhood. Nurse clinicians are able to move between conceptions ofpersonhood and act to support the body, as well as presumed autonomy and relational, social and culturalpersonhood. In doing so, they use analytical, intuitive and narrative reasoning which prioritises autonomous constructions of self. They also incorporate relational and social contexts of the person receiving care within the possibilities of technological advances and constraints of contextual resources. (shrink)
- Personhood.Gary Wiener (ed.) -2022 - New York: Greenhaven Publishing.It might seem unnecessary to define what a person is, but the issue ofpersonhood has been a longstanding source of debate. The scope ofpersonhood has been questioned in many applications, including human slavery, right to life and right to end life, animal rights, bioethics, corporate rights, and theology. It is believed the question will arise again as robots and artificial intelligence become more sophisticated and ingrained in our culture. What makes a person, and who gets to (...) definepersonhood? Viewpoints in this volume address this fascinating topic from a number of angles. (shrink)No categories
- Personhood in Bioethics.Grzegorz Hołub -2007 -Forum Philosophicum: International Journal for Philosophy 12 (1):157-175.The concept ofpersonhood has been recently strongly criticized by some bioethicists. The present article aims at refuting these criticisms. In order to show how the notion ofpersonhood operates in bioethics, two understandings of it proposed by an Italian bioethicist Maurizio Mori are sketched: a person as a part of the cosmological order and a person as an autonomous-like entity. It is argued that none of the proposed understandings is adequate. The cosmological concept perceives the person as (...) a derivative of the empirical processes. The autonomous-like, in turn, conceives the person as a freely acting subject. This paper endeavours to prove that both conceptions are one-sided. In order to do that, the thought of German philosopher Robert Spaemann is deployed. He convincingly points out that the person must be considered from a so-called “modus existendi” stance. It means that to be a person is to possess a unique way of being. That being encompasses the material content not as a casual factor but as an indispensable mean of expressing itself. The final thesis is that the person's being is man's life. Drawing upon such a conclusion, it is taken up a critical discussion with the views rejecting the usefulness of the concept. (shrink)
- Personhood, Ethics, and Disability: A Comparison of Byzantine, Boethian, and Modern Concepts ofPersonhood.Scott M. Williams -2020 - InDisability in Medieval Christian Philosophy and Theology. Oxford: Routledge. pp. 80-108.This chapter compares three different general accounts ofpersonhood (Byzantine, Boethian, and Modern) and argues that ifpersonhood is the basis on which one has equal moral status in the moral community and the disability-positive position is correct, then the Byzantine and Boethian accounts are preferable over the Modern accounts that are surveyed here. It further argues that the Byzantine account is even friendlier to a disability-positive position compared to the Boethian account.
- Personhood, Ethics, and Animal Cognition: Situating Animals in Hare's Two-Level Utilitarianism, by Gary E. Varner * The Philosophy of Animal Minds, edited by Robert W. Lurz.K. Andrews -2014 -Mind 123 (491):959-966.A review ofPersonhood, Ethics, and Animal Cognition: Situating Animals in Hare’s Two-Level Utilitarianism, by Gary E. Varner. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2012. Pp. xv + 336. H/b £40.23. and The Philosophy of Animal Minds, edited by Robert W. Lurz. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Pp. 320. P/b £20.21.
- Personhood and Partialism in African Philosophy.Molefe Motsamai -2018 -African Studies 3.This article ascertains what philosophical implications can be drawn from the moral idea ofpersonhood dominant in African philosophy. This article aims to go beyond the oft-made submission that this moral idea ofpersonhood is definitive of African moral thought. It does so by advancing discourse with regards topersonhood by exploring its relationship with another under-explored idea in African ethics, the idea of partialism. This article ultimately argues that the idea ofpersonhood can be associated (...) with two (related) sorts of partialisms: agent-related and other-centered partialisms. (shrink)
- Embryonicpersonhood, human nature, and rational ensoulment.John R. Meyer -2006 -Heythrop Journal 47 (2):206–225.This essay briefly describes a few of the problems associated with usingpersonhood language to defend the right to life of the pre‐implantation embryo. Arguing that an immaterial soul explains the personal identity of an embryo is problematic for many people because there is no apparent spiritual activity in the unborn. While some scholars argue that the embryo has the potential to act as an adult person and thus should be protected from harm, others contend that potentiality alone is (...) insufficient reason to ascribe special moral worth to the embryo in utero. For Thomas Aquinas, the soul is not only the life‐principle that organizes the human body, but it is also that by which the human being thinks and wills. By making suitable corrections to Aristotle's hylomorphic depiction of the soul–body relation, I suggest that a rational soul must be present from the moment of conception and that it is at the service of the person. What is of critical importance here is to accept that a human being is present from the moment of conception, something the vast majority of embryologists maintain, notwithstanding the inveiglement of those who state that the pre‐implantation blastocyst is simply a disorganized clump of cells. (shrink)
- Personhood and Rights in an African Tradition.Molefe Motsamai -2017 -Politikon:1-15.It is generally accepted that the normative idea ofpersonhood is central to African moral thought, but what has not been done in the literature is to explicate its relationship to the Western idea of rights. In this article, I investigate this relationship between rights and an African normative conception ofpersonhood. My aim, ultimately, is to give us a cursory sense why duties engendered by rights and those by the idea ofpersonhood will tend to clash. (...) To facilitate a meaningful philosophical discussion, I locate this engagement in the context of a debate between Ifeanyi Menkiti and Kwame Gyekye about the nature of Afro-communitarianism, whether it will ground rights as primary or secondary. I endorse Menkiti’s stance that duties are primary and rights secondary; and, I also problematize moderate communitarianism for taking a Western stance by employing a naturalist approach to rights. (shrink)
- Parasiticpersonhood and the ontology of eating.Lisa M. Heldke -2026 - New York, NY: Routledge.Humans must eat, and our eating involves us in a cascade of eating relationships that leave life and death biting into each other. These realities should-but often do not-profoundly shape our understanding ofpersonhood. This book explores "parasiticpersonhood," an alternative to atomistic individualism that acknowledges the biological individual as a network of persistent biological relationships (a "holobiont") and draws insight from the astonishing frequency and variety of parasitic feeding relationships. What happens to our conception ofpersonhood (...) if we consider parasitism as more than just a threat to our health? Parasitism is a remarkably common form of life; however, we tend to think of parasites only as dangerous pestilential organisms that should be eliminated. What if parasitism-in particular, persistent eating relationships that threaten to destabilize host organisms-were instead the model in terms of which we understood what it means to be a person? What if we acknowledged the ineliminability-indeed, the centrality-of parasitism to life, and embraced both the persistent eating and the precarity that they entail as central to our understanding ofpersonhood? In advocating for parasiticpersonhood, this book joins a history of efforts to uproot atomistic individualism, the remarkably durable understanding ofpersonhood that is aptly portrayed by its most well-known 18th century model, the billiard ball: smoothly self-contained, with relationships decidedly external to it. The parasitic alternative conceives persons as collections of organisms in relationships that are, by turns and all at once, essential, precarious, definitive, destabilizing, stable and shifting. The book asks: in what does parasiticpersonhood consist? It goes on to examine implications of this conception ofpersonhood: how is moral agency constituted for the parasitic person, and how does parasiticpersonhood expand our understanding of aesthetic engagement and appreciation? This book will absorb anyone who is interested in thinking about the metaphysical significance of their need to eat, and their reliance on myriad other organisms to enable them to do so. It will engage students and scholars of food and eating, particularly those working on the metaphysics of food, food andpersonhood, fermentation, and the microbiome, as well as philosophers considering the ontological significance of food and eating"-- Provided by publisher. (shrink)No categoriesExport citation
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David Bourget (Western Ontario)
David Chalmers (ANU, NYU)
Area Editors:
David Bourget
Gwen Bradford
Berit Brogaard
Margaret Cameron
David Chalmers
James Chase
Rafael De Clercq
Ezio Di Nucci
Esa Diaz-Leon
Barry Hallen
Hans Halvorson
Jonathan Ichikawa
Monte Johnson
Michelle Kosch
Øystein Linnebo
Paul Livingston
Brandon Look
Manolo Martínez
Matthew McGrath
Michiru Nagatsu
Susana Nuccetelli
Giuseppe Primiero
Jack Alan Reynolds
Darrell P. Rowbottom
Aleksandra Samonek
Constantine Sandis
Howard Sankey
Jonathan Schaffer
Thomas Senor
Daniel Star
Jussi Suikkanen
Aness Kim Webster
Other editors
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