what is the essence of being a human person????

Question

hehehe iam actually making a short essay about this question and i need additional points and additional ideas... plzzz share your ideas.....

Answer 1

If someone endorses position X, we should ask ì X, as opposed to what?î So if we are human persons, then in contrast to what are we human? Rocks, carrots, and cats? Obviously. But how about humanoids of different skin color, eye shape, and regions of habitation? Unfortunately, many human beings in the last several centuries have defined themselves in opposition to the peoples of Africa, Asia, and the Americas. As we shall see, race, like gender, has been one of the most important principles of personhood since at least the Enlightenment period. And philosophers have been some of the most important architects of our vision of race and humanity. The first part of the course, then, is devoted to a study of the ancient and modern views of body, soul, personhood, and citizenship, up to and including the Enlightenment period. The second part of the course turns to the legacy of the Enlightenment period: the emergence of the liberal self and the racial self. In the final portion of the course, we examine our philosophical inheritance in action. Specifically, we will focus on how present multiculturalism has absorbed and modified past concepts of personhood and race. The philosophy of the human person has much to offer to our understanding of humanity, as do literature, psychology, history and other disciplines. It also has much to gain from specific philosophical treatment of race.

A person can have recognition, existence and legal capacity under the law (legal personhood). There are various legally operative definitions for personhood, but they all rely on formal, prescriptive definitions that must eventually be evaluated and falsifiable. Most such definitions form the basis of specific rights that may be exercised or enforced (such as human rights, custody, conservatorship and suffrage). Such definitions may also impose obligations or duties which carry a penalty if they are breached.

Some legally operative definitions of 'person' go beyond the scope of establishing rights and obligations for individual human beings. For example, in many jurisdictions, any artificial legal entity (like a school, business, or non-profit organization) is considered a juristic person. As another example, the United States Constitution has historically applied different definitions of 'person' for the purpose of allotting seats in the House of Representatives.

Recognition as a 'person' is significant in society because it goes to the heart of many debates over the status, respect, rights, and treatments, which are obligatory to different types of living beings. It is closely connected to the societal concept that sufficiently intelligent or self-aware beings should be respected and have their rights enforced for this reason, whereas a degree of exploitation is permissible for entities lacking it. Such exploitation has at times taken the form of slavery or medical torture for humans, and cruelty and vivisection for animals. Personhood is directly connected to issues such as rights and the capability to protect those rights by law or to have them protected on one's behalf if incapable.

Human beings represent the most prevalent conceptual definition of 'person'. Some philosophers, like Peter Singer of Princeton University, regard certain types of animals with high cognitive abilities and a degree of societal development as persons, and argue that some human beings — for example, those with certain types of brain damage — are not. Should other intelligent life ever be discovered beyond those known to science, similar questions would be relevant in establishing personhood.

Personhood is held by some to be an attribute of more than just human beings. Some religions specify deities as occupying the place of personhood in many different forms. It is not uncommon for spiritual and archetypal roles to be depicted as "persons".

Personhood is frequently examined through any of several artistic modalities, especially in literary works. In fictional works, fantasy and science fiction often explore the question of personhood by relaxing one or more of the common characteristics associated with it, and then exploring the ramifications and possible consequences. For example, Isaac Asimov introduced the three laws of robotics by relaxing the assumption that personhood is restricted to biological organisms. As another example, David Brin explored the attributes of personhood; especially identity, autonomy, and agency, by depicting a world in which characters could "copy" themselves in the novel Kiln People.[3]

The personhood theory has become a pivotal issue in the interdisciplinary field of bioethics. While historically most humans did not enjoy full legal protection as "persons" (women, children, non-landowners, minorities, slaves, etc.), from the late 18th through the late 20th century being born as a member of the human species gradually became secular grounds for an appeal for basic rights of liberty, freedom from persecution, and humanitarian care.

Since modern movements emerged to oppose animal cruelty (and advocate vegetarian or vegan lifestyles) and theorists like Turing have recognized the possibility of artificial minds with human-level competence, the identification of personhood protections exclusively with human species membership has been challenged. On the other hand, some proponents of "human exceptionism" (also referred to as "speciesism") have countered that we must institute a strict demarcation of personhood based on species membership in order to avoid the horrors of genocide (based on propaganda dehumanizing one or more ethnicities) or the injustices of forced sterilization (as occurred in the U.S. to people with low I.Q. scores and prisoners).

While the former advocates tend to be comfortable constraining personhood status within the human species based on basic capacities (e.g. excluding human stem cells, fetuses, and bodies that cannot recover awareness), the latter often wish to include all these forms of human bodies even if they have never had awareness (which some would call "pre-people") or had awareness, but could never have awareness again due to massive and irrecoverable brain damage (some would call these "post-people"). The Vatican has recently been advancing a human exceptionist understanding of the personhood theory, while other communities such as Christian Evangelicals in the U.S. have sometimes rejected the personhood theory as biased against human exceptionism. Of course, many religious communities (of many traditions) view the other versions of the personhood theory perfectly compatible with their faith, as do the majority of modern Humanists.

The theoretical landscape of the personhood theory has been altered recently by controversy in the bioethics community concerning an emerging community of scholars, researchers and activists identifying with an explicitly Transhumanist position, which supports morphological freedom even if a person changed so much as to no longer be considered members of the human species (whatever standard is used for this determination).

Answer 2

A mind with personality and soul which will transfer self to the next world by faith in the God of creation. Mind is your ship, the Spirit is your pilot, the human will is captain. The master of the mortal vessel should have the wisdom to trust the divine pilot to guide the ascending soul into the harbors of eternal survival. Only by selfishness, slothfulness, and sinfulness can the will of man reject the guidance of such a loving pilot and eventually wreck the mortal career upon the evil shoals of rejected mercy and upon the rocks of embraced sin. With your consent, this faithful pilot will safely carry you across the barriers of time and the handicaps of space to the very source of the divine mind and on beyond, even to the Paradise Father.

Answer 3

I believe that the answer has to do with the selfish gene as put forward by Dawkins. Humans are merely "gene survival machines," he asserted in the book, 'The Selfish Gene'.

Every thing we do is designed to get our gene to the next generation. If a person doesn't have decendents then one may fall back to beauty and self-preservation.

Answer 4

Same as any other animal.

To collect energy, reproduce & avoid being eaten.

We just make everything more complicated. It's our speciality.
Lions have claws, humans are tricky.

Answer 5

humans can use reason above instinct which makes us unique, self awareness is one thing that separates humans from other animals and as a human we spend time asking questions that other life on this planet does not seem to recognize.

Answer 6

Practicing humanity!
Humanity constitutes all the moral and social values that govern the human nature.

Answer 7

Free Will

Answer 8

free will, a soul, and being able to love

Answer 9

empathy and connectedness .

Answer 10

love... it's that simple...