Clarification/Follow-up by tonyrey on 08/12/08 10:50 am:
Jim
You take it for granted that the legal notion of a person is an adequate basis for discussion yet your scepticism about non-material reality poses doubt about the very existence of rational beings. Personhood becomes not only a legal fiction but an illusion if there are no entities apart from brains. How can bodies with brains transcend physical causes and have any rights? They are allegedly no more than products of random mutations like other forms of life! What reason have we to regard ourselves as moral actors when our DNA differs from that of apes by about only 5%?
Clarification/Follow-up by tonyrey on 08/12/08 6:06 pm:
server,
I agree that there is no reason to assume that humans are the only beings that exist. Similarly if persons are regarded as rational beings there is no reason to assume that only humans are persons. It is quite possible there are other rational beings, i.e. persons, elsewhere in the universe. So all humans are persons but not all persons are necessarily human.
Clarification/Follow-up by Oldstillwild on 08/12/08 6:24 pm:
"How do you know there are no persons apart from human beings?"
well...,lets see....,
of course Im able to imagine all sorts of special situations and fantasies,that this might be a problem,but thats a scope as wide as the universe,
so I asked you some hints about the direction youd aim to be headed.
In stead you come up with this more of the same question.......
Ill remain close to home:
People decided to call themselves Persons.
That was the basic decision.
After that,they studied themselves in all particulars,hence we know what a person is about.
The next question would be:
Are there any other lifeforms who 'd deserve to be treated like a person and maybe we will call that creature Person too.
Most unlikely,coz there are more non-persons in daily life than one would expect.
Before Im running out of characters:
USA indians,Bolivian indians,black people,red haired people,homo-sexuals,poor people,sikhs,moslims,hindu's,little people,fat people,yellow people,non-white people,white people,catholics,presbitarians,cannibals,forestpeople,laps,gipsies,jews,arabics,villains,clochards,mentally disturbed people,leprous people,apes etc.etc.
So its most unlikely,that there would be any lifeform granted to be named and treated like a Person.
Let alone if any species we know,should be treated like a person.
Science never is looking for persons.The most we can think of is if any species may or may not be able to do or have capabilities like persons,as we are.
I personally think,that we are not all that at all and that lifeforms we call animals,deserve more to be called and treated like a person,than human beings.
so,
time for a Inbev brew!
hi
Clarification/Follow-up by tonyrey on 08/13/08 2:33 am:
Osw,
Delightful! Beyond the scope of science indeed...
Clarification/Follow-up by server on 08/13/08 6:55 am:
tonyrey,
"persons are regarded as rational beings"
Right, but that isn't the definition for 'persons'.
A person is defined as a human being.
Other rational beings, if any, would be defined differently. They can't be defined as human beings or persons.
Persons are meat-eating beings too, but no way that is the definition for 'persons'.
Why would you want to call another being a person and get yourself confused?
Clarification/Follow-up by tonyrey on 08/13/08 11:07 am:
server
Your definition of a person is different from that used by many philosophers. John Locke, for example, defined a person as "a thinking intelligent Being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing in different times and places; which it does only by that consciousness, which is inseparable from thinking, and as it seems to me essential to it". In philosophy human beings are not regarded as the only possible persons.
Clarification/Follow-up by server on 08/13/08 12:41 pm:
tonyrey,
Locke also said that the term 'persons' could be applied only to intelligent agents capable of a law and happiness and misery (An Essay concerning Human Understanding, Book II Chapter 27).
So who are capable of a law and happiness and misery besides human beings? If there is none, then human beings are the only persons known so far.
Clarification/Follow-up by tonyrey on 08/13/08 3:36 pm:
server
Precisely! The definition allows for the possibility that there are other persons of whom we have no inkling. It seems highly improbable that we are the only persons in this vast universe...
Clarification/Follow-up by Oldstillwild on 08/13/08 7:06 pm:
Definition isnt an issue here at all....
Its all about perception and experiencing and expectation and fantasy and
miss-linking the alien-issue to a earthly definition "problem".
Im talking already for hours to aliens,most probably thru a for them ancient game,while you are fully feverishly occupied determining if it might be or not a person or something else.....
The most humane scientific approach just like what scientists supposedly were doing to the aliens in Roswell....
If I were that alien Id beep up directly my armees!
hi.
Clarification/Follow-up by server on 08/14/08 10:24 am:
tonyrey,
What is the point of making allowance for beings that may not exist at all and if they do exist, we wouldn't even know it? Why shouldn't we be realistic and define terms based on beings that we know and whose existence we are sure of?
Of course you can talk to aliens, but that would just be a one-way conversation because if they do exist, they wouldn't know it and they wouldn't understand you.
We can't assume things that are surreal.
Clarification/Follow-up by tonyrey on 08/14/08 2:36 pm:
server
To assume that we are the only rational beings in the universe is non-scientific. If scientists restricted themselves to known entities they would be unlikely to discover new ones. Philosophy and science are based on open-mindedness and the spirit of investigation. The SETI project would not have been launched if no allowance were made for intelligent beings on other planets.
To confine attention to human beings also distorts one's perspective. It implies that "man is measure of all things" and that human beings are the authors of morality. Yet the rights to life, liberty and happiness are not just human conventions. There is no valid reason for rejecting the value and dignity of non-human persons.
We do not know whether they exist but if they are discovered it need not be a one-way conversation. A modicum of intelligence is required to understand the meaning of drawings and symbols. To decipher an unknown language would not be the first such achievement...
Clarification/Follow-up by server on 08/15/08 12:57 pm:
tonyrey,
Well, it all depends whether your philosophy is possibilism or actualism. Possibilists would include possible but non-actual objects in things that exist while actualists wouldn't accept that there is any kind of being beyond actuality.
Clarification/Follow-up by tonyrey on 08/15/08 3:58 pm:
server
Whether you are a possibilist or an actualist it is highly improbable that we are the only rational beings in this immense universe. To assume that we are is certainly unscientific. The success of science stems from its provisional view of reality rather than one that is restricted to known facts. But we have strayed from the original question which concerns the distinctive features of a person!
Clarification/Follow-up by server on 08/16/08 6:05 am:
tonyrey,
It was mentioned in your question that 'it seems a mistake to define a person as a human being'.
No, it isn't a mistake. The majority of people are actualists. That's why the dictionaries define 'a person' as a human being.
The common people are actualists who live in the real world. The specialists such as scientists can be possibilists and look beyond the actuality.
Clarification/Follow-up by tonyrey on 08/16/08 4:51 pm:
server
Like scientists philosophers have (or should have) a more comprehensive outlook than "the common people". At all events let us conclude this discussion by agreeing that persons are rational, moral beings capable of happiness and misery!
Clarification/Follow-up by server on 08/16/08 8:07 pm:
tonyrey,
Of course persons are rational, moral beings capable of happiness and misery, but for the time being, they are human beings.
