Personhood

[MarcoPolo]

It has to do with how some one treats entity and why some one would use brain functioning to classify a human entity as a person.

As to whether or not it is a human being is a question with wiggle room such that two people asking the question may not be asking the same thing despite identical wording of the question; they may be using different criteria/definition for person. It’s going to be hard to agree on an answer to the question until every one is asking the same question; (and it seems that sets of people that have opposing views on the question might not be asking the same question). Within this thread already some of the various definitions or criteria that people have used has been mentioned.

So you are saying we can never determine whether or not abortion is murder because some people have a different definition of a human being than other people?

 

[MarcoPolo]

Although I would not share that estimation, I understand why.

Personhood is a state of being that relates to other beings, hence “personality.” Likewise the 3 Divine Persons, who from eternity are a relation to each other.

All persons are beings; not all beings are persons.

But any relatability to others, in human life, depends upon a working brain; without that function personhood is disabled (although not absent).

ICXC NIKA

I understand you do not share the estimation, but why would a person with minimal brain function be considered “unrelated” to anyone else? It sounds like there is a jump from the relationality of human persons to conscious interaction.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

So you are saying we can never determine whether or not abortion is murder because some people have a different definition of a human being than other people?

No, I am saying there is some unnoticed ambiguity in the question. Nail down the question to something less ambiguous and you’ll find more agreement. For example, even in the question you asked above the legal meaning of “murder” may differ from one jurisdiction to another. Depending on the circumstances and geography the intentional killing of an unborn (or even the killing of an adult) may be murder, or manslaughter, a non-offense, and so on. A slightly less charged word is “killing.” There’s less opportunity for ambiguity with this word, though I can understand why “murder” may be a more desired word because of the emotional impact and moral implications that it carries. People kill on a regular frequency without it raising much moral concern (ex: killing a weed, house plant, roach, fish, so on…).

In my previous message to you I was talking about “humans” and “persons.” There’s a range of how people draw the line(s) for the criteria to consider an entity a person (note necessary limited to entities that are descendants of homo sapiens). Asking some one whether entity X is a person or human is about the same as asking "does entity X meet your definition/criteria for being considered a person."Some may say yes, some may say no.They probably are not all using the same definition/criteria. There will be disagreement.

 

[MarcoPolo]

No, I am saying there is some unnoticed ambiguity in the question. Nail down the question to something less ambiguous and you’ll find more agreement. For example, even in the question you asked above the legal meaning of “murder” may differ from one jurisdiction to another. Depending on the circumstances and geography the intentional killing of an unborn (or even the killing of an adult) may be murder, or manslaughter, a non-offense, and so on. A slightly less charged word is “killing.” There’s less opportunity for ambiguity with this word, though I can understand why “murder” may be a more desired word because of the emotional impact and moral implications that it carries. People kill on a regular frequency without it raising much moral concern (ex: killing a weed, house plant, roach, fish, so on…).

In my previous message to you I was talking about “humans” and “persons.” There’s a range of how people draw the line(s) for the criteria to consider an entity a person (note necessary limited to entities that are descendants of homo sapiens). Asking some one whether entity X is a person or human is about the same as asking "does entity X meet your definition/criteria for being considered a person."Some may say yes, some may say no.They probably are not all using the same definition/criteria. There will be disagreement.

How about “When does human life begin?”

 

[SentinelofTruth]

Petaro:

There are many functioning persons with a full frontal lobotomy. Don’t rely on a Hollywood movie for your science. Terri never lost her Personhood. If a well functioning brain was the sole criteria for personhood, there are a lot of cars being driven around here with no person driving.

I don’t know what you’re saying with the last sentence here, but, giving you the benefit of the doubt, I this post. You neuralists are making a huge mistake here. The brain has nothing to do with personhood. Personhood is constituted by the soul, not the brain. And a lobotomy can’t take your free will, because that would be taking your personhood, and a being’s essential nature cannot change unless it is to stop counting as the same being.

GEddie:

Personality != personhood. Personality is how the person relates to others, not the person themself.

While the first statement here is technically true, I disagree with the following sentence (your following sentence, not mine) I define personality as including virtues and vices (it’s hard to draw a concrete line). Personality requires free will, which constitutes personhood. Anything with free will must also have personality.

 

[GEddie]

While the first statement here is technically true, I disagree with the following sentence (your following sentence, not mine) I define personality as including virtues and vices (it’s hard to draw a concrete line). Personality requires free will, which constitutes personhood. Anything with free will must also have personality.

Maybe, but I think we are using skew definitions.

I have always understood personality as being the set of adjectival properties concerning someone’s interpersonal activity (e.g. quiet, outgoing, smiley-facey etc). Maybe you could add moral propensities to that, but I’ve never understood the term that way.

ICXC NIKA

 

[SentinelofTruth]

GEddie:

I have always understood personality as being the set of adjectival properties concerning someone’s interpersonal activity (e.g. quiet, outgoing, smiley-facey etc). Maybe you could add moral propensities to that, but I’ve never understood the term that way.

I think it follows even under this definition that personality and personhood are mutually inclusive. Besides, there is not as much difference between these definitions as it seems. The traits you include follow from the ones I include (keep in mind I didn’t say personality is only moral qualities). For example, a very cowardly person is likely not to talk very much (in general). If you want to term to encompass only traits with no moral value, then we can use it that way, but I find it hard to draw a clear line.

 

[carn]

As such, before there is an electro-chemical brain activity, one cannot “grant” personhood to the developing organism

Sp personhood from week five or six onward?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embryo
“Neurogenesis is underway, showing brain activity at about the 6th week.”

• at least not on rational ground.

Last time i checked the thing was called human rights. Hence, rationally the only question would be, whether its a living member of the species human/homo sapiens. And it seems prior conception, there isnt a living member of the species human and after conception there is one till the event called “Death”.

Some guys in the US once also wrote:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
That also sounds like rationally its only relevant whether its a human.

 

[GEddie]

I think it follows even under this definition that personality and personhood are mutually inclusive. Besides, there is not as much difference between these definitions as it seems. The traits you include follow from the ones I include (keep in mind I didn’t say personality is only moral qualities). For example, a very cowardly person is likely not to talk very much (in general). If you want to term to encompass only traits with no moral value, then we can use it that way, but I find it hard to draw a clear line.

No, I think we are agreed that where there is a human person (functionally) there will be personality.

I also sometimes think that personality is the expressed surface of personhood.

There are limits, though. We would not say that a fetus, or someone irreversibly unconscious has a personality. That would not negate their personhood.

ICXC NIKA

 

[SentinelofTruth]

GEddie:

There are limits, though. We would not say that a fetus, or someone irreversibly unconscious has a personality. That would not negate their personhood.

I would say that a fetus, as soon as he/she (very important to avoid using “it”) has made his/her first choice, does have a personality.

 

[Starrsmother]

I don’t know what you’re saying with the last sentence here, but, giving you the benefit of the doubt, I this post. You neuralists are making a huge mistake here. The brain has nothing to do with personhood. Personhood is constituted by the soul, not the brain. And a lobotomy can’t take your free will, because that would be taking your personhood, and a being’s essential nature cannot change unless it is to stop counting as the same being.

While the first statement here is technically true, I disagree with the following sentence (your following sentence, not mine) I define personality as including virtues and vices (it’s hard to draw a concrete line). Personality requires free will, which constitutes personhood. Anything with free will must also have personality.

The problem with the attempt at the definition of life’s beginning as other than at the moment of conception is that it depends on human technological advances for support. Another words–based on the various definitions of human brain wave activity etc as life’s beginning, life must have began much later in say, the 1800’s–since human technology was not developed enough to detect life until a far later certain point. By that same argument–in the future, and as more and better technology develops, life will undoubtedly be recognized earlier and earlier. Does that change when life occurs? Or does it only change when man becomes aware of the miracle of life being present?

 

[BellsMom]

Personhood is constituted by the soul, not the brain.

Not only can you not prove the existence of the soul. You have no way of knowing when that soul would be granted to its new owner. Even the church admits it cannot know such a thing.

Basing a person-hood argument on ensoulment (is that even a word?) is a poor argument I think.

 

[GEddie]

Not only can you not prove the existence of the soul. You have no way of knowing when that soul would be granted to its new owner. Even the church admits it cannot know such a thing.

Basing a person-hood argument on ensoulment (is that even a word?) is a poor argument I think.

Ensoulment is indeed a word.

However, assuming that there is a soul, the body is not the owner of the soul; rather vice-versa. The soul, after all, generates the mind, free-will, the affections, and other aspects of personhood; the soulless body is not much of a person.

I agree that in the current society, arguing personhood on the basis of ensoulment is too weak to proceed with.

ICXC NIKA

 

[SentinelofTruth]

Bell(name removed by moderator):

Basing a person-hood argument on ensoulment (is that even a word?) is a poor argument I think.

It wasn’t intended to be a proof. It was just pointing out the church’s teaching, which I thought would do since most of the people here before you came in were catholic.
Bell(name removed by moderator):

Not only can you not prove the existence of the soul. You have no way of knowing when that soul would be granted to its new owner. Even the church admits it cannot know such a thing.

What makes you think I can’t prove the existence of the soul? Consider the following:

1. Free will exists (provable through another argument, if you would like to see that one too).
2. Physical things are deterministic.
3. Free will isn’t.
4. Therefore free will entails the existence of the soul.
   Also, I do, in theory, have a way of knowing when that soul would be created. If we were to scan the brain of a fetus, we would see events which we were unable to trace back to any physical cause. This would constitute empirical proof of the soul. But even without having neuro-scanned a fetus, it makes sense that the biggest milestone in our physical existence (our physical creation (conception)) would be the point at which the soul is created.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

How about “When does human life begin?”

There’s still some potential to run into the same thing. You may be able to show and convince some one that the tissue that eventually may or may not form a child is living tissue at each point that you check. From the perspective that living tissue tends to bud off from other living tissue once could argue that one’s life began with the earliest ancestor that could be said to be living.

But people don’t necessary see that living tissue as “a life.” If I scratch myself there are skin cells that are being destroyed and no longer living. Yet this isn’t thought of as loss of life. A person could under go organ transplants from organs failing yet when the failed organ is removed and destroyed it isn’t thought of as loss of life. The exception to his seems to be the brain. If all of a person’s other organs are preserved and undamaged but the person ends up with a non-functional brain the person’s life may be considered terminated. Someone has already mentioned this in the thread so I won’t go into details there. But that seems to be why some see a human’s life beginning with the development and functioning of their nervous system.

So for some a “life” has to do with being alive with low biological dependence on others. This view is somewhat indicated in the OP.

Is it based upon being “alive?” I know that pro-abortion people make the argument that a “fetus” is not alive, or not “developed” enough to be a “person” yet. A “fetus” technically exhibits all the scientific characteristics of “life” (or at least, what we currently know about it),…]

A fetus to some is seen as being alive but not a life similar to how other tissue is seen as being alive but not a life.

 

[MarcoPolo]

There’s still some potential to run into the same thing. You may be able to show and convince some one that the tissue that eventually may or may not form a child is living tissue at each point that you check. From the perspective that living tissue tends to bud off from other living tissue once could argue that one’s life began with the earliest ancestor that could be said to be living.

But people don’t necessary see that living tissue as “a life.”

That different people have different views is kind of irrelevant to whether or not it is true, no? So whatever view someone may have, we ask them, when does human life begin? I don’t want to know how you think others would answer. Formulate a reasoned answer. That’s what I would say to someone who answered nebulously as you did above.

 

[GEddie]

That different people have different views is kind of irrelevant to whether or not it is true, no? So whatever view someone may have, we ask them, when does human life begin? I don’t want to know how you think others would answer. Formulate a reasoned answer. That’s what I would say to someone who answered nebulously as you did above.

When we normally speak of a human life, we do not speak of the species generally, nor of skin or blood cells that separate from the live body and die. Normally, it means the unique life of a human soma with a unique genotype. This is the “person.”

The genotype precedes the soma, and exists from the point of conception.

You can play nonending word games to defend the prerogative (not “right”) to abortion, but physically, the unique life begins at conception. So does personhood, although in an abeyance.

ICXC NIKA

 

[ThinkingSapien]

That different people have different views is kind of irrelevant to whether or not it is true, no?

As I said before, not every one is interpreting the question the same. One’s views are going to impact not just the answer but the interpretation of the question. I got the impression that both you and the OP have a general answer for yourselves on person-hood, life, and humans, and that the topic of discussion wasn’t to find the answers to the person-hood question, but why others haven’t arrived to the same answer and don’t feel the same way.

That’s what I would say to someone who answered nebulously as you did above.

Just a note: I’ve not shared much of my own views beyond sharing that I don’t feel that a life has been lost when I scratch myself. I’ve shared the views that I’ve encountered.

 

[carn]

There’s still some potential to run into the same thing. You may be able to show and convince some one that the tissue that eventually may or may not form a child is living tissue at each point that you check. From the perspective that living tissue tends to bud off from other living tissue once could argue that one’s life began with the earliest ancestor that could be said to be living.

But people don’t necessary see that living tissue as “a life.” If I scratch myself there are skin cells that are being destroyed and no longer living. Yet this isn’t thought of as loss of life. A person could under go organ transplants from organs failing yet when the failed organ is removed and destroyed it isn’t thought of as loss of life. The exception to his seems to be the brain. If all of a person’s other organs are preserved and undamaged but the person ends up with a non-functional brain the person’s life may be considered terminated. Someone has already mentioned this in the thread so I won’t go into details there. But that seems to be why some see a human’s life beginning with the development and functioning of their nervous system.

So for some a “life” has to do with being alive with low biological dependence on others. This view is somewhat indicated in the OP.

A fetus to some is seen as being alive but not a life similar to how other tissue is seen as being alive but not a life.

What about less talking about tissues and more about looking into bio books?

At all stages after conception the “tissue” is a living being. If one would ask the question “Which species does this living being belong to?” the answer would be “human”.

So that “tissue” is at all stages biologically at least one living human being (to account for twins, which can happen up to ~25 days, after wards its one living human being). What is incomprehensible about the conclusion, if a human being exists and if humans have a right to live, then that human being has a right to live?

I know, one could opt out by saying “Humans in declaration of human rights are not identical to all living members of the species human”, but at least one should be able to agree that the concept “Its a human being” + “humans have rights” → “it has rights” is not something completely incomprehensible.