C.S. Lewis wrote that the more we use a word outside of its true meaning, the less meaning that word will eventually have. Take for example the word “gentleman”, which used to mean someone who was independently wealthy and did not need to work. The term was used so often outside this definition, that now we simply address people as “ladies and gentlemen” without it having any real meaning at all.
We’re at risk of this happening to the word “person”. I assume that most people probably use the term to refer to all human beings (who can also be referred to as “natural persons”). However, the words “person” and “personhood” are starting to provide we “natural persons” with strange peers.
…the category of “person” may be taken to include such non-human entities as animals, corporations, artificial intelligences, or extraterrestrial life
Are corporations people? And if these invisible and artificial creations are “persons”, does saying someone is not a person really truly mean anything at all?
by
Melissa says
I’ve actually done some research into the history of the word “person”.
The classical definition of the word person is “an individual substance of a rational nature,” that is, a being with a rational soul. Persons were defined by Boethius (ca. 500 a.d.), a Roman statesman and Christian martyr, to include the three Persons of the trinitarian God, man and the angels. The difference between persons and non-persons was the capacity to use reason.
The question then became ” When does a human obtain his (her) rational soul?” And the answer to that, from at least the time of Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) was that a human has a soul from the very beginning, from conception. This was a matter of faith, see, because it certainly isn’t readily apparent that a young child has a soul capable of reason.
However…
In our modern era, you are right that the definition of person has morphed a bit. I would disagree with you that person in today’s age would be used to describe human beings. Instead, I think that, in the law and common use, a definition of person would be more like “a being or entity that is capable of reason, and self-direction.” So, yes, corporations could be considered persons to some degree, as could some higher animals. Artificial intelligence? God help us, it probably could be as well.
And if you use the capacity for reason as your benchmark for personhood, then yes, embryos and fetuses don’t meet the mark. Neither do small children, the mentally disabled, and people with acute mental illness.
They are human. That should be enough to entitle them the human right to life, should it not?
Andrea Mrozek says
Thank you, Melissa, very interesting!
Dan says
“And if you use the capacity for reason as your benchmark for personhood, then yes, embryos and fetuses don’t meet the mark.”
On the contrary, they most definitely *do* meet the mark. The key word here is “capacity”. It does not have to be an immediately exercisable capacity!! Do you have the capacity for reason when you are asleep, or drunk, or (God forbid) in a coma? Yes, but that capacity is not immediately exercisable. Similarly, human beings at the earliest stages of their natural development have the capacity for reason, but it is not immediately exercisable.
I could go on… but I think it would be preferable to refer you to an article that does a much better job of explaining this than I ever could:
“Embryo Ethics” by Robert George
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/daed.2008.137.1.23
I also recommend this book if you want to see some very detailed rebuttals to all kinds of pro-choice arguments:
Embryo: A Defense of Human Life
Author: Robert P. George, Christopher Tollefsen
Published: January 8, 2008
Published By: Doubleday Publishing
Jennifer Derwey says
Thanks to everyone for their comments. The point I was hoping to illustrate was that “personhood” guidelines are constructed for legal terms, and it’s not something “in and of itself” that has any particular value or deserves any dignity. People try to say that one does not have rights if they are not a “person”, but these rights and persons statements are all constructs for legal purposes. I think when the majority of people hear the word “person” they think human being, even though that’s not the sole use of the word.
Of course saying one is not a person doesn’t make someone not a human being, these constructs are just fitted to our convenience for legality’s sake. It’s not enough to say someone is not a “person”, because that’s simply a made-up term that can apply to WalMart as soon as it can apply to my mother. But I certainly think my mother (and unborn children) is deserving of more dignity than WalMart, even if they’re both persons in the laws’ eyes.
Suricou Raven says
One of the sources of misunderstanding is over what really qualifies someone as a person for moral purposes.
For those with a religious justification, which includes much of the pro-life faction, it’s easy: Humans are magic, by divine creation. End of debate. If it’s human, it’s a person with all the rights of a person. Exactly what ‘human’ means can be debated a bit, but is less flexible than ‘person.’
This is why the pro-life side often refers to conception as the moment a person is made. New organism, organism is human, therefore organism is a person. Simple.
For others though, it isn’t so simple. There are many like myself who believe that the appropriate definition for person isn’t a matter of simple classification, but of mental capabilities. We are the ones who feel that, for example, an AI or an extraterrestrial could be a person. Hypothetically, of course. On the other hand, we can also accept the idea of a human non-person: Someone who may be a biological human organism but does not meet the criteria of personhood. Such as a person with severe brain damage. To us, such an organism isn’t morally a person – they are an ex-person, and the best use for them is to take them as spare organs so at least some real people will benefit from their misfortune. It’s the mind that makes a person, and a human without a mind is just an animal.
Melissa says
You know, Suricou, I’m glad you are here debating, but it is really hard to take you seriously when you only engage in straw man arguments.
“Humans are magic, by divine creation”. Just where did you get that notion? The word “person” as used to denote an individual, was coined by the Christian martyr Boethius ca. 500. The very origins of the word come from the debates on the Trinity. Person is a word that has religious connotations in its very essence, and to deliberately ignore those connotations is to fail to engage in the heart of the argument. You can do better than that.