June 13: Are Animals People?

In today's class, we discussed what makes a person. The main question was how we would determine whether an alien should be treated as a person or as livestock. 

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Group decision:

My group decided that the best we to determine if the alien was a person was whether or not it could convey complex thought and emotion. Besides that, we also went a little off prompt and discussed how it would be hard to identify things about an alien as we would have little idea what to look for as they would most likely be different from us. We also brought up the point that humans tend to react badly to things that are different and that chances are a person would not necessarily care or take the time to figure out whether the alien would count as a person. Lastly, we talked about whether or not it would matter if the alien was considered a person. If we decided the alien was a person, would we give it rights and would we treat it morally either way. 


A new question: If you do not meet all the criteria for personhood, does that mean you are not a person?

After looking at the criteria both the class made and people in general make the question of personhood still is hard to answer. The general list of characteristics is:

  • Sentience
  • Emotionality
  • Reason
  • The Capacity to Communicate
  • Self-Awareness
  • Moral-Agency

    •  Looking at these characteristics you could think at first glance that it makes since that you need to meet all these things to be a person, but that isn't entirely true. There are many examples like babies, the medically ill, comatose patients and most likely others that do not fit into these criteria's for their own reasons. Even so, I wouldn't say that this makes them not a person. In general, what I came up with is the idea that to be a person one must be capable of meeting all the things on the list. While they may not have reason, or a moral agency yet doesn't mean they can't. For example, a comatose patient may not be able to communicate but they have the capacity to be able to if they were to wake up. Therefore, I have decided that if a creature could reach everything on the list or match everything on the list then they are a person. Of course, this could be debated but as of right now this is the best answer I can think of. 


    What I learned:

    I learned that my father and sister will turn to cannibalism if the right conditions arise. 

    In seriousness though I learned a bit about how others think and how certain things that may seem set in stone really just aren't. A checklist will never be able to cover everything. 







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