Persons

Question 0

What does it mean to say that personhood is a matter of degree?

Answer 0

Personhood is a sliding scale as opposed to a yes or issue.
Often links to age, as you mature you develop the skills of personhood more and more, and become more of a person as a result.
Small children are thus still counted as persons, but to a lesser degree than a usual adult, and more than a penguin for eg.

Question 1

What does it mean to say that personhood is a matter of kind?

Answer 1

The idea that it is a binary issue; you either are a person or you are not.
People often appeal to the characteristics of personhood as evidence for this, if you possess them you are a person, if you do not you are not.
Others may appeal to the idea of a soul which only humans possess, thus we are the only beings capable of personhood.

Question 2

What does it mean to say that human is a biological concept?

Answer 2

The word human and person have different meanings, despite usually overlapping.
Human refers only to the species of primate we are - homeo sapiens.

Question 3

What does it mean to say that person is a social, moral and psychological concept?

Answer 3

The characteristics of personhood involve all three aspects, and none are isolated from the other.
This means personhood is not purely biological and not unique to humans, a non human could be a person.
Eg sonny in I robot.

Question 4

What does it mean to say that a characteristic is ‘necessary’ for personhood?

Answer 4

A necessary characteristic of personhood refers to a characteristic or factor that must be present in order to attain personhood, if the characteristic is not present, then personhood is denied, regardless of other characteristics. So for example being a boy is necessary for being a father, along with having a child. It is possible to have a mixture of necessary and sufficient characteristics.

Question 5

What does it mean to say that a characteristic is ‘sufficient’ for personhood?

Answer 5

A sufficient characteristic is a characteristic that is not required for personhood, but if attained is enough to gain personhood. For example being shot 27 times in the chest is sufficient enough to kill somebody, however is not required to kill somebody, there are numerous other method in which somebody can be killed. If a characteristic of personhood is sufficient, then other characteristics cannot be necessary, they would be part of the sufficient characteristic. For example if autonomy is sufficient, then it would lead you to believe that the remaining characteristics are also attained with autonomy by default, such as rationality, mental characteristics etc.

Question 6

List/explain in detail all the characteristics that have traditionally been put forward for identifying a ‘person’ (you should identify at least 8).

Answer 6

• Rationality – the ability to use reason to make a decision
• Reflection on experience – being able to remember and learn things from things that have happened to you in the past.
• Network of beliefs - being able to make conclusions from beliefs you hold, e.g. It is hot, hot hurts, I should not hold this.
• Self awareness – being aware of your existence and being capable of imagining yourself as something separate from what you are now.
• Embodiment – having a physical body.
• Language use – being able to communicate either verbally or physically through some means, but communicating specific meanings of words, not merely general communication such as barking.
• Social being – being able to interact with other beings
• Mental characteristics – having a personality which affects how you act in different situations.

Question 7

What is meant by the phrase ‘potential person’?

Answer 7

A potential person is somebody who is not currently a person; however it is worth taking into account that they have the potential to grow into a person in the future. So for example a baby cannot be classified as a person according to the characteristics of personhood; however there is something that separates a baby from a flower – the fact that in the future the baby will have the ability to grow into a person. Therefore a baby can be described as a potential person.

Question 8

What is meant by the phrase ‘diminished person’?

Answer 8

A diminished person is essentially somebody in the process of becoming an ex person, due to the fact they are in the process of losing their characteristics of personhood. This is common for many diseases such as dementia, in which elderly people can lost their memory, self awareness, rationality etc. Due to this it is hard to pinpoint whether or not they are a person or not, as the illnesses can be very complex, it is more of a scale and can vary from day to day. For this reason we say they are a diminished person.

Question 9

What is meant by the phrase ‘ex person’?

Answer 9

An ex person is a potential person in reverse chronological order. An ex person could be somebody who is dead, or has become brain dead. Although they now do not possess any of the characteristics of personhood, thus not allowing them to be a person, it is worth taking into account that in the past they were a person.

Question 10

What is meant by the phrase ‘simple person’?

Answer 10

A person who possesses the characteristics for personhood to a very limited extent, e.g. a child.

Question 11

What does it mean to say that there is a problem with ‘counting persons’?

Answer 11

This problem stems from different opinions on what people believe qualifies something as a person, for example somebody who is bi-polar may count as 2 persons to one person, 1 to another, and possibly not a person at all in another’s eyes. Another problem is do potential persons count as a person, for example if there is a pregnant woman, are there two persons in the room or one?

Question 12

Explain why some philosophers think that not all humans are persons. Explain Singer’s views.

Answer 12

Some humans do not possess the necessary characteristics required for personhood, and being human alone is not sufficient, e.g. a comatose person. Human is a biological term, person is not, if we treat them as the same then we are “speciesist in favour of humans” (Peter Singer).

Question 13

Explain the meaning of the term ‘chauvinism’, in relation to this topic.

Answer 13

Prejudiced belief in superiority of one’s own group, in this case normally the belief that humans can be persons and machines or animals cannot on the grounds that they are not human.

Question 14

Explain the meaning of the term ‘anthropomorphism’, in relation to this topic.

Answer 14

“Attribution of human motivation, characteristics, or behaviour to inanimate objects, animals or natural phenomena.”

Question 15

What is ‘artificial intelligence’? What is the key problem/question for calling AI ‘persons’?

Answer 15

If a computer or machine has AI it has been programmed to be able to carry out tasks which we could consider require “human intelligence”. An example of this is a computerized opponent in a game show who would imitate a person.

Artificial intelligence refers to machines such as robots, that we as humans create, and often have vast understanding or knowledge of many things, however there is a dilemma whether classifying them as persons or not. Although they can have most of the characteristics of personhood, eg rationality, embodiment, social etc. AI are at the moment incapable of having any form mental states. This leads to the idea that they do not actually understand what they are conveying, much like a calculator doesn’t understand the maths that it calculates - it is just a code.

Question 16

Explain the meaning of the term ‘qualia’.

Answer 16

Qualia are regarded as one of the things that are necessary in order to possess mental characteristics. Qualia are the “raw feels” of the sensory experiences that we encounter throughout life; they are the way things seem to us. Clearly this is different for every person, nobody can experience everything in the world exactly the same, and therefore they make up our subjective experience of the world. This can include things such as the stinging of a pain, and even if a robot was programmed to say “ouch” when appropriate due to a pressure plate, it was lack the understanding or qualitative experience of the heat in order for it to have a mental state.

Question 17

Explain the meaning of the term ‘intentionality’.

Answer 17

Intentionality is regarded as the other thing required for a mental state, and is what allows mental states to have a relevance or purpose to the agent. The property of “being directed at” or “being about” objects in the world. Many would say that robots and computers execute no functions that can be called intentional. This is because they simply follow out a programme rather than think about something directly for their own purpose. The Chinese room experiment demonstrates this well.

Question 18

Explain what the Turing Test is, and what it is trying to show.

Answer 18

The Turing Test was introduced in 1950 by Alan Turing in which player C has to try and correctly identify the computer and human between players A and B. Some see that if the machine can be functionally equivalent to persons then in essence they may as well be persons. In order to pass the computer must have built in errors as to not appear too intelligent, indeed the idea is that the machine merely imitates persons in order to convince player C that it is one. Some say however that this does not demonstrate any level of understanding or intelligence, merely human behaviour, and there is a distinct difference.

Question 19

Explain Searle’s Chinese Room example, and what it is trying to show.

Answer 19

The Chinese room involves an experiment in which somebody sits inside a small room with two holes, one going in, one going out, numerous Chinese symbols, and a manual in their language about how to arrange the symbols. They are then passed in symbols, unknown to them this is a question in Chinese, and using the manual they can create a response also in Chinese. To anybody outside the box this appears to be a Chinese man inside the box communicating with them, however the man in the box clearly has no understanding of what he has just done, and this can be compared to how machines appear to respond to questions they are given, however they merely follow a “manual” or programme and deliver a response that we have programmed them to say with no underlying understanding.

Question 20

What is a ‘non-human animal’? What is the key problem/question for calling them ‘persons’?

Answer 20

A non-human animal is any animal that is not of the homeosapien species, for example a whale or a cockroach. The problem arises for referring to them as persons as we do not truly know or understand about their mental characteristics, it is accepted that most animals are sentient beings at least, for example a dog displays happiness or pain, as well as some form of rationality. However the dispute is about the extent to which these characteristics are displayed, and to whether or not they should be granted personhood. A characteristic such as rationality is difficult to pinpoint, when is a being rational compared to irrational. Most would say a dog is not self-aware or capable of making largely intelligent decisions, however it does make some form of rational decisions, even if it just based on the natural instincts of the dog.

Question 21

Explain Descartes’ and Kant’s attitude to animals.

Answer 21

Kant: While both animals and humans have desires to can compel them to action, only human beings are capable of standing back from their desires and choosing which course of action to take. This ability is manifested by our wills. Since animals lack this ability, they lack a will, and therefore are not autonomous. According to Kant, the only thing with any intrinsic value is a god wills, since animals have no wills at all, they cannot have good will’s; they therefore do not have any intrinsic value.

Descartes: Descartes believed that all of animal behaviour could be explained in purely mechanistic terms, and that no reference to conscious episodes was required for such an explanation.

Question 22

Explain Hume and Singer’s attitude to animals.

Answer 22

Hume: “no truth appears to me more evident than that beasts are endowed with thought and reason as well as men.” Hume thinks that animals are just as capable as thought and reason as humans, suggesting that they too can be persons.

Singer: Peter Singer sees no reason why humans are special, and animals are not equal to us, he claims that to believe otherwise is “speciesism” in favour of ourselves.

Question 23

Explain the Red Dot test in relation to animal intelligence.

Answer 23

The red dot test or mirror test is a means of measuring the self-awareness of an animal. The animals are left in a call with a full length mirror and their behaviour is recorded, the most self-aware animals began using the mirror to groom themselves and to show them places that they cannot see. After this an odourless spot of red dye is put on the animal. Their behaviour is monitored again and the most self-aware animals began turning to examine the dot in the mirror, or even poking it. It is thought that the animals which reacted to the red dot test would have an aspect of self-awareness as it meant that they identified themselves as the thing in the mirror and therefore identified themselves as a self.

Question 24

What is personal identity through time? What issue is at stake?

Answer 24

Personal identity is essentially what makes us us. It is what makes me the same person as I was 5 minutes ago. If we don’t retain our personal identity we cannot have responsibility for our actions.

Question 25

What does it mean to say that identity is a ‘psychological’ issue?

Answer 25

Psychological refers to the idea of a mind, not brain, or potentially a soul of some form. My psychological state involves my personal memories, tendencies, habits etc. and it something that is distinguishable from my physical body. Some say that this is more important than one’s body, so for example if all my mental characteristics were kept the same and moved to another body, I would still be the same person.

Question 26

What does it mean to say that identity is a ‘physical’ issue?

Answer 26

Physical refers to one’s physical body or entity, and is separate from the soul or mind. Some would say that my personal body and how I appear to other people is what gives me my personal identity, as it is how other people perceive me to be. It is possible to imagine my body without a mind, but I cannot imagine my mind without a body.

Question 27

What does it mean to say that identity is a ‘numerical’ issue?

Answer 27

A numerical identity is the idea that I am the same person if I am the same entity throughout time, regardless of changing qualities or views. It works well to imagine following somebody around for their entire life with a video camera, the film would be unbroken and thus I am the same, despite having changed unrecognizably since the age of 2.

Question 28

What does it mean to say that identity is a ‘qualitative’ issue?

Answer 28

A qualitative identity is the idea that I am the same if I posses the same qualities as myself at a previous point in time, regardless of the physical entity. So for example I am qualitatively the same entity as my identical twin sister, or if my body was switched with another’s, I would still be the same person qualitatively, despite numerically being different.

Question 29

Explain Descartes’ attitude to continuing personal identity – and some of the disadvantages.

Answer 29

Numerical psychological identity: the soul theory, we possess the same soul through time. This therefore means somebody with no memories is the same person, as their soul is technically the same, which seems to be illogical. It also means that once we die the soul lives on, which is a very religious viewpoint to take.

Question 30

Explain Hume’s attitude to continuing personal identity – and some of the disadvantages.

Answer 30

You are not the same person through time; personal identity is a myth/illusion because you are psychologically and physically changing every single second. If this is true then how do we develop any kind of relations or friendships with other people, or similarly how can we blame somebody for their actions if they are not the person who is responsible for the action. This attitude poses many problems because of our attitudes towards other people, however also puts forward a logical reason for why we are not the same person throughout time.

Question 31

Explain Locke’s attitude to continuing personal identity – and some of the disadvantages.

Answer 31

Numerical psychological identity: Locke believes in the memory theory, in which the ability to remember past mental states gives you the knowledge that your mind is continuing through time. This however has potential flaws, for example where is the line at which remembering enough is sufficient, by which I mean nobody can remember absolutely everything they do at a given point in time. It also raises the idea that somebody with a false memory has a different personal identity despite nothing ever really happening to them. Although memory is important, eg Bourne shows you are a different person without a memory, it is not the defining feature of your identity.

Question 32

Explain Williams’ attitude to continuing personal identity – and some of the disadvantages.

Answer 32

Numerical physical identity: You are the same person through time if you numerically have the same brain and body through time. This puts the idea forward that it is simply our body that is important, not our psychological state, so if I switched bodies with somebody, they would become me, and I would become them, despite the mental factors being the same. A lot of people have difficulty accepting that our personality does not affect our identity at all. Eg. Bourne is a different person mentally, despite having the same body.

Question 33

Explain Parfit’s attitude to continuing personal identity – and some of the disadvantages.

Answer 33

You are not the same person through time, because you are constantly changing, but something of my current psychological states survives in my future states, and something of my past psychological states survive in my present ones. There are strong overlapping interconnections between my mental states. This gives the idea that identity is more of a scale than a binary issue, this seems logical, for example I do not think of myself as the same person characteristically as when I was 8, however there are significant connections between us. The further back you go the less the connections become. This then means that if very little of the past me survived into present me, I am not truly responsible for those actions, eg the Nazi who hated the crimes he committed during WWII.

Question 34

Provide thought experiments to show that psychological identity is not sufficient or necessary.

Answer 34

If we lose our memories or have some other form of psychological accident then according to this we would not be the same person.

Question 35

Provide thought experiments to show that physical identity is not sufficient or necessary.

Answer 35

If physical identity is sufficient or necessary we would not be the same person through time as our bodies are constantly changing, nothing about my body is the same as it was 7 years ago.

Question 36

Explain why Strawson feels that persons equally require physical and mental characteristics to be persons.

Answer 36

Persons are credited with physical characteristics, designating location, attitude, relatively enduring characteristics like height, colouring, shape and weight on the one hand, and various states of consciousness like thinking, remembering, seeing, deciding, feeling emotions etc. on the other. However we ascribe states of consciousness to others on the basis that they exhibit physical and observable behaviours, therefore you cannot have one without the other in order to be a person.

Question 37

What is ‘behaviour’? Explain why behaviour is important for Strawson, in identifying persons.

Answer 37

Behaviour is the logically adequate grounds for ascribing personhood, it is important because it entails both mental and physical characteristics.

Question 38

What is the ‘traditional’ philosophical approach to identifying persons?

Answer 38

The traditional view is that we can identify persons by looking at their defining characteristics; this claims that the concept of persons is logically secondary.

Question 39

Why does Strawson reject this ‘traditional’ way?

Answer 39

Without already having the view of a person being an accumulation of both mental and physical states, it is impossible to identify.

Question 40

What is a ‘logically primitive’ concept?

Answer 40

The concept of a logically primitive person means that it comes first, or is primary, in order of explanation. This means it cannot be broken down in terms of other concepts, it must first be accepted before other concepts can be analysed in terms of it. So for example without the primitive concept, we could not identify particular characteristics that persons possess (e.g. Rationality).

Question 41

Explain why Strawson feels, instead, that personhood is a ‘logically primitive’ concept.

Answer 41

“The concept of a person is the concept of a type of entity, such that both predicates ascribing sates of consciousness and predicates ascribing corporeal characteristics…are equally applicable to a single individual of that single type”

Question 42

Explain why Strawson feels that personhood is a ‘natural’ concept.

Answer 42

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