betcha can't answer this!?

Question

this is a follow-up to my previous question in philiosophy. What to do believe is the criterion for personhood?
My previous question was besides the fact that you are a human being, what makes you a person?
the concept of personhood was implied in that question. so this time , i will make it explicit.

alright ricky; this concept of personhood comes about when dealing with abortion, euthanasia, stem research, comatose patients, etc.; more specifically, the idea of whether or not can kill or terminate a person's life. however, I 'm also using this is the generic sense. what makes you a person. to answer this, what is personhood?

Answer 1

Personhood is a status that is bestowed on something else by a conscious observer. The criterion for bestowing personhood changes from individual to individual, and it may not be inaccurate to say that it says more about the bestower than the recipient.

It is, however, easy to demonstrate that being alive or conscious is in no way necessary for 'person' status. Even in the legal sense a human who is brain-dead is still a person. Nor would it be difficult to find someone who would answer 'yes' to the question, "Is George Washington a person?".

We can even get more esoteric than that. Some surveys about cars show people spending more on their car than their significant other (60%), talking to it on a regular basis (62%), and even buying it a Valentine's Day gift (29%) (link 1). Not exactly behaviours we would expect toward simple objects. It is just as common for children to insist on having a place set at a dinner table for their stuffed animal. Because it's a 'person'.

It's not difficult to go the other way on this matter too. Many of the atrocities humans have committed on each other have been justified on the basis of non-personhood. If one group of people weren't allowed to own things or have freedom, it was usually because they weren't 'people' to their oppressors. The presumption being that they were therefore something less. America (or at least some of their politicians) de-persons criminals, terrorists, and enemies in war rather regularly, for example.

Personhood, then, is a way of assigning an appropriate amount of rights and priveleges to another thing, be it living or dead, animate or otherwise. It is not intrinsic to anybody, and is perhaps best identified as simply a mental means of simplifying the process of such assignations.

That's my take anyway, for what it's worth. Peace.

Answer 2

Hi...this will be short...before a person can be a person, or human , one must have a soul. This term"personhood" allows the joining of anyone with a soul into the club.if you want a certain type of personhood to join your club, there are many characteristics that you may want to require., two of which might be honesty and loyalty.

Answer 3

i had a long discussion about this today. being a person (in the abstract way, because technically, human being is being in the homo sapien genus, but let's go beyond that and equate personhood with having a soul, for instance. im gonna argue that animals have souls.) is defined by being able to imagine better (and worse) things. That is to say, having memory. if a creature has memory of good things, than that creature can imagine those good things in the future. therefore making that creature a person. animals can do the same thing, because they have memory and therefore can imagine. limited memory, but memory nonetheless. so animals are people too.

yeah, im kinda hippie ish. but sit on it. oh, and incidentally, you should have said "betcha can't answer this CORRECTLY" because, of course, anyone can answer. if i had replied with 1+1=3 i would have answered it.

Answer 4

The word "humanism" has countless meanings, and because authors and audio equipment oftentimes do no longer make clean which meaning they intend, those attempting to describe humanism can surely grow to be a source of misunderstanding. Humanism is a rationalistic equipment of theory attaching best magnitude to human somewhat than divine or supernatural concerns. in case you like I actual have an in-intensity article that summarizes the countless styles of humanism that i'd desire to mail to you.

Answer 5

You have proposed a word "personhood" without describing the contexts in which it will be used. You need to define those contexts before anyone can define the word (and probably vice versa). So, give us some examples where you would use this word.

Answer 6

What to do believe is the criterion for personhood?

The fact that you have an eternal soul.

Answer 7

well, I'd say your personality makes you the person you are.

but, I do not think there is a definition for personhood...

Answer 8

hmmm....
i like the idea that a person is someone who has a sense of self as well as a sense of the wider world and their place in it... with this comes the inference of autonomy, individuality, personality etc etc...
but, then, you think of a tiny baby or someone in a coma, these are people but have no personal awareness, so it may have to be modified to be the CAPACITY, someone who at some time will have or has had these things...
Anyone agree/ disagree?

Answer 9

"Soul Traveler," Albert Taylor, a space flight engineer with NASA, gives his story of moving from human being and engineer to person (pure son).

You might also enjoy
"Expecting Adam," Martha Beck
"Extraordinary Knowing," Elizabeth Mayer, Ph.D.
"Man, Master of His Destiny," O. M. Aivanhov.
"Gandhi, the Man: The Story of His Transformation," Eknath Easwaran, Ph.D. http://www.easwaran.org
"Watch Your Dreams" and "Men in White Apparel," Ann Ree Colton.
"The Reincarnation of Edgar Cayce?", Free and Wilcock http://www.divinecosmos.com
"Autobiography of a Yogi," Paramahansa Yogananda http://www.yogananda-srf.org
"Life before Life," Jim Tucker, M.D.
"The Beautiful Story of a Master," Louise-Marie Frenette.
"Babies Remember Birth," David Chamberlain, Ph.D.
"Climb the Highest Mountain," Mark Prophet.

Http://www.coasttocoastam.com radio has occasional guests who speak to this, e.g. this Thursday, http://www.seandavidmorton.com will be on, always worth listening to.

These authors give some clear answers to your question of how Self-realization and Soul-individuation procede.

cordially,

j.

Answer 10

I honestly don't bother trying to define it. Some say a human in a vegetative state is not human or a human born anecephalic is not human.

Or if we could clone humans with no brain and have scores of human bodies with replacement organs and limbs, they wouldn't really be human with no brain.

It really doesn't matter to me what they are called. It doesn't matter how strongly I believe in my own definition. Like "morality" or "good" it will ALWAYS be subjective, so there is no point for me.