Can a non-human be a Person? think Science Fiction

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What constitutes Personhood?

Does that still stand true if humans are not the only creatures of God with an immortal soul?

What brings me to this discussion is contemplating how to explain Personhood to fans of Science Fiction and Fantasy novels who may accept such novels as more fact than fiction.

I can hold my own supporting Personhood of a human embryo or zygote, but what if what we were discussing was not human.

How about a robot who has been programmed to learn or a robot who has become self-aware?

How about a monkey/chimp who has been the first recipient of a successful human brain transplant? or who has become (through some scientific experimentation) a cognitive, learning, self-aware being?

How can I defend human Personhood to an Athiest/Agnostic/Secular Humanist without discrediting Personhood for any or all severely mentally handicapped, children in the womb, AND without discrediting other alien beings from some other planet…ALL without relying on God and the scriptures and without using the trite explanation of “if God made other alien creatures with immortal souls then they are part of God’s creation and will go to Heaven or Hell”?
 
Catholic theology has traditionally said non-humans can be persons, such as angels and demons.
 
To be a person requires the existence of an immaterial soul. The soul has the faculties of intellect and free will. So if a robot has a soul, he’s a person.

The trouble is, even human souls do not arise from matter; they are individually created by God. Since they are spirit, they cannot arise from mater. How would a robot get a soul, except by divine creation?
 
I kind of like the way that Isaac Asimov dealt with the robot question in his robot stories. How much freedom do they have within the limits of the Three Laws? But in the end, it wasn’t so much a philosophical question for him as a sort of computer code question, since Asimov didn’t believe that even human beings have souls.
 
JimG said:
Sure, but they have no souls!😃
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In the words of Edward Thurlow, “Corporations have neither bodies to be punished, nor souls to be condemned; they therefore do as they like.”

The problem is that corporations employ people who individually have souls but, en masse, abdicate their consciences to what is good for the bottom line.
 
If it is a non-human intellagent alien, a deffinent maybe ! ! ! 😃
 
Donna6987 said:
What constitutes Personhood?

Does that still stand true if humans are not the only creatures of God with an immortal soul?

What brings me to this discussion is contemplating how to explain Personhood to fans of Science Fiction and Fantasy novels who may accept such novels as more fact than fiction.

I can hold my own supporting Personhood of a human embryo or zygote, but what if what we were discussing was not human.

How about a robot who has been programmed to learn or a robot who has become self-aware?

How about a monkey/chimp who has been the first recipient of a successful human brain transplant? or who has become (through some scientific experimentation) a cognitive, learning, self-aware being?

How can I defend human Personhood to an Athiest/Agnostic/Secular Humanist without discrediting Personhood for any or all severely mentally handicapped, children in the womb, AND without discrediting other alien beings from some other planet…ALL without relying on God and the scriptures and without using the trite explanation of “if God made other alien creatures with immortal souls then they are part of God’s creation and will go to Heaven or Hell”?
Click to expand...
I create science-fiction scenarios all the time.
  1. Robots are mobile machines - that’s all. Its self-awareness would consist of nothing more than being a robot. It would have no goals, desires, dreams, fears or hopes. It would function based on its programming. It would not be a person in any sense of the word. We already have “learning” robots but they have no desire to learn unless that function is programmed into them. A robot can be turned on or off like an appliance and sit in a broom closet for years. It functions but does not care. It performs whatever its controller tells it to do based on its capabilities.
  2. A monkey/chimp being somehow modified to be more like a human in terms of intelligence is still a monkey. It relies on instinct. It would only have utility value. Monkeys don’t build cities and its natural state is to live in the wild. A “human brain transplant”? In real life, that would pose a problem. A) Your brain in a chimp’s body? Good idea? B) A chimp that has been somehow modified to think and learn would have no reason to do much more than eat, sleep and mate. It might work with humans but its basic chimp identity would not change. Unless you wanted to create a race of smart chimps on an already overcrowded planet. And they would have to be paid in exchange for their work, but housing wouldn’t be an issue. The neighbors might complain about chimps roaming around or hanging out in trees. Ordinances would have to be passed.
  3. We have nothing about aliens. Nothing. Did I say nothing? They could be blobs that can produce pseudo arms with hands and legs and a head or look just like us. But we don’t know. That’s as far as that goes. Everything after is pure speculation, not fact.
  4. The severely mentally handicapped are easily recognized as humans. What’s the problem there? If the argument is that they do not have the cognitive capacity to interact with their environment in a useful way, what? Have them die? Or work on ways to solve their cognitive malfunctions? Mind-electronic device interfaces exist. Genetic studies are finding causes for malfunctions. Genetic engineering holds out the possibility that defects can be fixed.
So a non-human is not a person.

Ed
 
edwest2 said:
I create science-fiction scenarios all the time.
  1. Robots are mobile machines - that’s all. Its self-awareness would consist of nothing more than being a robot. It would have no goals, desires, dreams, fears or hopes. It would function based on its programming. It would not be a person in any sense of the word. We already have “learning” robots but they have no desire to learn unless that function is programmed into them. A robot can be turned on or off like an appliance and sit in a broom closet for years. It functions but does not care. It performs whatever its controller tells it to do based on its capabilities.
  2. A monkey/chimp being somehow modified to be more like a human in terms of intelligence is still a monkey. It relies on instinct. It would only have utility value. Monkeys don’t build cities and its natural state is to live in the wild. A “human brain transplant”? In real life, that would pose a problem. A) Your brain in a chimp’s body? Good idea? B) A chimp that has been somehow modified to think and learn would have no reason to do much more than eat, sleep and mate. It might work with humans but its basic chimp identity would not change. Unless you wanted to create a race of smart chimps on an already overcrowded planet. And they would have to be paid in exchange for their work, but housing wouldn’t be an issue. The neighbors might complain about chimps roaming around or hanging out in trees. Ordinances would have to be passed.
  3. We have nothing about aliens. Nothing. Did I say nothing? They could be blobs that can produce pseudo arms with hands and legs and a head or look just like us. But we don’t know. That’s as far as that goes. Everything after is pure speculation, not fact.
  4. The severely mentally handicapped are easily recognized as humans. What’s the problem there? If the argument is that they do not have the cognitive capacity to interact with their environment in a useful way, what? Have them die? Or work on ways to solve their cognitive malfunctions? Mind-electronic device interfaces exist. Genetic studies are finding causes for malfunctions. Genetic engineering holds out the possibility that defects can be fixed.
So a non-human is not a person.

Ed
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Really?

Angels and demons are not human yet they are considered persons.
 
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