posted
Okay, I am pretty sure that I am a person. And it certainly seems that most of the other "people" I know are people to, assuming I have not been decieved by human-like Terminator androids from the future or something. But at the same time, there seems to be a lot of ambiguity about where that personhood line rests. Are fetuses people? That's one nobody can decide on. What about sentient robots? That one, though not nearly as pressing a concern as fetuses, is another people often disagree on. What about dogs or cats or cows? Most people usually say they aren't people, but a number do want to give them rights that we normally associate with people.
So, question 1: Where do we draw the line? Are babies necessarily people? Are the elderly? What about the mentally disabled? What about this stapler on my desk?
And then there's question 2: Why do we care about that line? We seem to think persons get special rights that other things do not. For instance, we say people should have a say in how they are governed, but trees and rocks do not need to consent to their own treatment. We say it's murder to kill a person, but acceptable to smash a soda can. We say persons are responsible for their actions, but hurricanes are not usually assigned any moral responsibility for the destruction they cause. So what is so special about a person that makes us apply a whole different set of rules to them?
Posts: 2432 | Registered: Feb 2001
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quote:We seem to think persons get special rights that other things do not.
We don't think that. That is exactly how it works under the U.S. Constitution. Any enitity not considered a "person" isn't protected under the constitution.
*Reflects that if people thinks having lawyers run the government is bad, we should be grateful we don't have philosophers running things.*
(S'all for awhile, maybe til tomorrow. Gotta do a lot of similar stuff right now and get paid for it.)
Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
I think it has to do with how we, considering ourselves to be people, want to be treated by others. I think treating someone like a person is to think about what they feel like.
I don't like keeping pets because I never feel like those animals are really happy living with me. Sure they might be safe and well-fed, but who knows if that is what gives their life meaning? It would be like keeping Captain Pike in that zoo with the blonde woman. Or even a blonde, a redhead, a brunette, and the green slave dancer. Or more simply, like one of those beta fish in a babyfood jar.
Of course most pets, as with most livestock, have been altered by our breeding of them into something far from the wolf that was first tamed. If we didn't take care of them, they wouldn't exist. Which is not to say we should slaughter them with abandon, just that maybe we should cut back our consumption and not breed so many to begin with.
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posted
Ultimately, I can't answer "Why do we care about that line?" without resorting to my faith: because human beings are made in the image of God with both spiritual and physical aspects, and as such are due dignity and respect.
From a secular, legal point of view, my answer is that the mutual protection of rights is one of the prime justifications for coercive government (even democratically coercive). So it is precisely at this line that some of the most high-stakes legal questions arise, and precisely why this line should be respected to the extent that we err on the safe side of what/who is human.
posted
I guess we think there is something in a human being - I would call it a soul cause don't have any better word but it's not in a religious context - that is precious and deserves to decide for itself. And that things don't have.
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quote:We don't think that. That is exactly how it works under the U.S. Constitution. Any enitity not considered a "person" isn't protected under the constitution.
Are you arguing that the only reason we treat people differently than nonpeople is because the constitution tell us to?
I find that reasoning troubling. For one thing, don't you think the Founding Fathers had some REASON for making such a line between those who get rights and those who do not?
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posted
Oh, I see. Still, we put it in the law because we thought it is important. We could rewrite that law tommorrow if we deemed it wrong. So it still boils down to, why do we think it is important?
Because we are social animals. We desire to know who is human and where our position on the social totem pole is. We constantly looking and reafirming our position and the positions of others... not just humans but everything. What is a threat, what is not... What can be used, and how useful it is.
That and because without civilization and rules and rights, we have rule of the bullies. Whoever is strongest wins. But rule by bully means that other bullies can take over the bully that took you over. Civilization in general fobids the bully behavior. Even the weakest of us can live and be somewhat successful.
I had a clearer picture on how to answer this...but work is distracting me.
Ok... here is a good example. Anyone here see that movie "Little Big Man"? The Native Americans in that movie called themselves in their own language "human beings" or "the people". They saw themselves as being real... being a person... and the white man as being something less than human.
This is how the Nazi's were able to do what they did... because they stopped seeing anyone who was decreed an enemy as something not human...not really a person.
Little kids do this too... but with animals. We've all seen it or heard of it, kids torturing a snake or a cat. Or when those employees were torturing those chickens last month. They did not see those things as being real...being alive.
Posts: 4953 | Registered: Jan 2004
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posted
I guess it all comes down to what we can use and exploit to the full of our power. Given enough room, we will exploit our own people. So why as a society we care what makes a person is to limit the power of the bully. To make civilization more efficient and fair and giving to all members of it.
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I know this is an interesting diversion for some people. It's work to me. Speaking of which, I have waiting for me. Don't really have the time to do the kind of responses I would like.
*reminds self to put some segments of HHGTTG up sometime - the ones dealing with philosophy*
quote:From a secular, legal point of view, my answer is that the mutual protection of rights is one of the prime justifications for coercive government (even democratically coercive).
But there's a problem that arises with the mutual protection argument... Why not exclude the harmless?
If being a person just amounts to being "in" on the mutual protection agreement, why do we bother letting in old crippled people or baby orphans who are incapable of threatening us. Why do we call them people? We don't need a mutual protection agreement from them, since they can't harm us. We could easily get away with relegating them to the status of animals, yet we feel like that would be wrong... why? The line we normally draw is drawn in such a way that some of the harmless are included (orphans, elderly, etc.) and some are excluded (animals, rocks, trees.) Thus, it can't just be a matter of "I won't harm you so you won't harm me."
posted
Because the purpose is the "mutual protection." This isn't a selfish utilitarian theory, it derives from my religious beliefs, so is not based on the harm a person can commit. Besides, old crippled people could certainly threaten our rights if, for instance, they paid young, healthy people to beat us up.
Further, at least the early areas of dispute can be said to protect everyone. Anyone who survived those disputed time periods benefited from the protection afforded when they were young.
quote:How can a corporation be legally considered a person? 19-Sep-2003
***
What most people don't know is that after the above-mentioned 1886 decision, artificial persons were held to have exactly the same legal rights as we natural folk. (Not to mention the clear advantages corporations enjoy: they can be in several places at once, for instance, and at least in theory they're immortal.) Up until the New Deal, many laws regulating corporations were struck down under the "equal protection" clause of the 14th Amendment--in fact, that clause was invoked far more often on behalf of corporations than former slaves. Although the doctrine of personhood has been weakened since, even now lawyers argue that an attempt to sue a corporation for lying is an unconstitutional infringement on its First Amendment right to free speech. (This year, for example, we saw Nike v. Kasky.)
posted
If an elderly person tries to hire someone to beat you up, but has no protection in law, what's to keep the thug from beating up the old man (presumably a much easier target) and taking the money anyway?
As for the original question, I want to be treated in certain ways; the simplest means of getting others to agree is to offer them the same rights in exchange. This makes us both better off - a classic example of the iterated Prisoner's Dilemma, except that humans can punish defectors quite effectively, and cooperation is therefore an even better strategy than it usually is.
As for including the elderly and children, it's an extension of the same thing : I want my parents to be treated well, I want my (future) children to be treated well, and so I extend those rights to others.
To be clear : I am not arguing 'do as you would be done by' from moral principle, but from efficiency.
[ October 04, 2004, 05:52 PM: Message edited by: King of Men ]
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quote:If an elderly person tries to hire someone to beat you up, but has no protection in law, what's to keep the thug from beating up the old man (presumably a much easier target) and taking the money anyway?
I don't find it to hard to imagine effective safeguards against that. Simply controlling access to the money would go a long way.
Or the old guy could have a super-powerful wheelchair with lots of weapons.
posted
I'm surprised to see all these legal and sociological explanations appear here. Although I'm not religious, I think Dag's first post is the closest to the truth anyone's gotten. People are special, and not just because we've evolved behaviors or written laws that assume we're special.
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posted
Your idea of a world with weapon-weilding wheelchairs intrigues me. I would like to subscribe to yourr Newsletter...
Posts: 236 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:I'm surprised to see all these legal and sociological explanations appear here. Although I'm not religious, I think Dag's first post is the closest to the truth anyone's gotten. People are special, and not just because we've evolved behaviors or written laws that assume we're special.
How can you argue "people are special" without referring to an external force making us so? Seems to me you want the benefits of religion without admitting that you've got one.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
King, you made a very good point earlier. There always comes a point in every group dynamic when the stakes of competition become so high that it suddenly makes more sense to stop fighting and cooperate. And in order to cooperate, rules must be made. It's those cooperative efforts with the best rules that last longer, and benefit the most. It can be argued that the current state of Law in America is the best set of those rules the world has ever seen.
We could all one day decide to say "To heck with it! I'm going off on my own!" But we are social animals, as Telp said. Only the true anti-socials would try to make it on their own, but on the whole, left to our own devices--without rules, law, or government--humans have a natural tendency to divide themselves into tribes according to shared cultural/ethnic/national background. These tribes naturally compete with one another... for land, to protect themselves from foreign threats, etc. Such was the state of pre-recorded history on this planet. But competition, the bully factor, anarchy... these get your little tribe only so far. At some point you're going to have to join forces with an adjacent tribe. Maybe to fight off a foreign invader. Maybe because if you join technologies, together you can kill buffalo that will feed both tribes more than if they never joined forces and were left eating possom. In that sense, human beings are actually *forced* by our own naturally self-serving behavior to share in the wealth, to spread the workload, and to trade with those who we first called our enemies. Because in doing so, we improve the lives of both our tribe. Fast-forward a couple thousand years, and presto, you're back to globalization. Laws, rules, government... these are just natural extensions of our basic tendency towards larger degrees of cooperation. Government itself is a cooperative effort.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, in order for you to cooperate with me, you must assign value to my life. Otherwise you're just using me, and that form of cooperation will not last long. Only if you and I truly value one another will we get anywhere, in a collective sense. And I must not only assign value to *you*, I've got to assign value to your children, your parents, your invalid brother, everyone you care for. Why? Because *you* value them. And I would ask you to value me and everyone in my tribe, too.
That's why we care how we define a "person". Because paradoxically, to care about everyone in my extended social group is to care about *me*. And really that's all we are by nature. Self-serving egoists.
posted
Well, the point is that we are so damn good at being self-serving egoists, we don't have any enemies anymore. Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:How can you argue "people are special" without referring to an external force making us so? Seems to me you want the benefits of religion without admitting that you've got one.
There are a lot of qualitative differences between humans and lower animals, some of which could form the basis of a good distinction between people and non-people.
Harry Frankfurt, for instance, has argued that people are creatures who can possess second-order desires, which are desires to have certain desires. Most lower animals probably don't have this capability; the ones who might possess it (apes, dolphins) might deserve to be called 'people' anyway.
quote:*Reflects that if people thinks having lawyers run the government is bad, we should be grateful we don't have philosophers running things.*
See, lawyers might take offense at that sort of thing. We philosophers are just happy to be noticed! Anyway, it pays the bills... sort of.
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posted
But aren't you just placing the problem at one further remove, arguing 'creatures with second-order desires are special, and humans have second-order desires, so humans are special'? You haven't given any reason for second-order-desiring creatures to be given extra consideration; you've only argued that it is one distinguishing characteristic of humans.
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posted
Another part of the account is that second-order desires are the distinguishing mark of free will. Thus people would be the only beings with free will, and if we have a moral obligation to respect free will, then people deserve moral rights that other beings don't have.
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posted
Well, yes. If we have a moral obligation to respect free will. You're just adding another layer again.
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posted
At least part of what differentiates people from non-people is that people are able to anticipate the far reaching and long term results of their actions and to choose to act or not act accordingly.
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posted
Rabbit, you make a very good point there...
By the way, why do we think that something that has a higher order of some kind is more *special* ? Because that's what seems to be the course of evolution, the course to *better*. Why do we chose the *better*? Huh, if you want to go like this you can go on forever... But I think once you reach *good* or *bad* you can stop. Yes, the definitions of good and bad varry, but the point is: we're doing what is good for ourselves, and having the ability to plan, to see ahead, to see past our present wishes is a step forward in what we think is the right direction.
So, if you want, we choose to give more rights according to complexity. And for all we know we, humans, are the most complex life-forms existing. Little green men from Mars, fighting gods, titans or other creatures of that kind not counting. So it's kind of natural to give ourselves the biggest amount of rights. I'm not saying we're the only one deserving them; after all, we are trying to protect special natural areas, endangered species (though we are the cause they became endangered ), etc., because we DO care about other things than ourselves.
I hope I don't sound that complicated that I think I do. Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
Edmund Burke on Americans and their all too prevelant legal education:
quote:If the spirit be not tamed and broken by these happy methods, it is stubborn and litigious. Abeunt studia in mores. This study renders men acute, inquisitive, dexterous, prompt in attack, ready in defence, full of resources. In other countries, the people, more simple, and of a less mercurial cast, judge of an ill principle in government only by an actual grievance; here they anticipate the evil, and judge of the pressure of the grievance by the badness of the principle. They augur misgovernment at a distance; and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze.
quote:*Reflects that if people thinks having lawyers run the government is bad, we should be grateful we don't have philosophers running things.*
(I understand the sentiment -- believe me, I do! -- but I'm pretty sure that it cuts both ways, and we could find a slew of hotheads/idiots/"the clueless" in any profession or avocation. Frustrating, but tarring the lot with one brush is like saying all activists are loudmouths who don't bother to get their facts straight before climbing up on their soapboxes.
'Taint so, and it minimizes the effectiveness (and the resolve) of those who fight the good fight.
But I know, just a rough day. Me, too. )
[ October 05, 2004, 12:53 AM: Message edited by: Sara Sasse ]
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posted
It occurred to me that I have forgotten to put in my opinion on the issue - something I'd hate to forget!
I think there's two critical characteristics of people, as opposed to nonpeople - and that these characteristics make us more important than nonpeople, in a sense.
The first characteristic relies on the idea of qualia, which I've talked about before. If you don't know what that is (since it's an obscure term), imagine it this way: Pinch your hand really hard. You feel pain, and you might say "ouch." Notice, that those are two different things. There is the experience of pain that you feel inside your mind, and there is the action of saying "ouch" that is visible to the external world. We can imagine hooking up a stuffed dummy up to some wires and a radio in such a way that it too yells "ouch" when you pinch it's arm. It would react the same way we do. However, since it is just a dummy and not a person, it would not EXPERIENCE the pain - it would not feel anything. It is this experience, what it feels like, that is called "qualia."
Anyways, I'd assert that people have qualia, whereas many nonpersons do not. People experience things. If you break my arm off, you can expect me to feel pain. But if you break the branch of a tree, you probably assume it feels nothing.
But it's more than that. It's not just that a tree feels nothing. It's that a tree ISN'T anything, beyond what we perceive it as. It has no self. If we weren't around to interpret it as a tree, it would just be a collection of atoms. It is just an object in our own perception of the world. In contrast, even if noone were around me, I'd still be me. I am a subject, not just an object of created by other people's perceptions. I experience qualia, thus I have a self.
So, rule 1: People have subjective experience, a.k.a. qualia.
This is important because, since pain is an experience, only people with experience can suffer. Thus, if something has no experience, we don't need to worry about hurting it. There's no need to worry about smashing a rock because a rock experiences no pain. And if a fetus experiences no pain, we wouldn't need to worry about hurting it either, right?
Then there's a second characteristic, which is harder to define. That's what separates people from animals (which we presume experience things, yet we nevertheless don't consider people.) The difference here, I think, is along the lines of intelligence. You have to be intelligent enough to recognize that you are a person, and that you are obligated to obey people rules. Or, more accurately, you don't have to be that intelligent, but you must be capable of being that intelligent. A baby, for instance, might understand very little - but we assume it will grow up to understand it is a person and understand the rules we follow.
This characteristic is critical because part of our obligations other people extends from their obligations to us. And only people who can understand those obligations and willingly choose to accept them are actually obligated by the rules. Thus, only people capable of making such informed choices can be full members of society.
So, I guess there are three groups. There are people, nonpeople with "selves" (animals), and mere objects in our world. That's my theory.
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