What Constitutes "Person"?

[ecco]

That is true about animals, but they do not have the same capacity to analyze that humans have. They can only operate within their own sphere whereas humans can analyze anything in the world.

All animals can only analyze things in their sphere. Have you, personally, ever analyzed the bottom of the Marianas Trench?

I already know the purpose for which I was created because that is in the Baha'i Short Obligatory prayer.

I bear witness, O my God, that Thou hast created me to know Thee and to worship Thee. I testify, at this moment, to my powerlessness and to Thy might, to my poverty and to Thy wealth.

So, your purpose in life is to worship the god who created you. The obverse of that is that god created humans only to make critters to worship him. Wow. That's the epitome of insecurity.

 

[Trailblazer]

All animals can only analyze things in their sphere. Have you, personally, ever analyzed the bottom of the Marianas Trench?

How is that relevant?

So, your purpose in life is to worship the god who created you. The obverse of that is that god created humans only to make critters to worship him. Wow. That's the epitome of insecurity.

God does not want us to worship Him for His sake because God has no need for worship since God has no needs.
God only wants us to worship Him for our own benefit.

“Consider the mercy of God and His gifts. He enjoineth upon you that which shall profit you, though He Himself can well dispense with all creatures.” Gleanings, p. 140

“The one true God, exalted be His glory, hath wished nothing for Himself. The allegiance of mankind profiteth Him not, neither doth its perversity harm Him. The Bird of the Realm of Utterance voiceth continually this call: “All things have I willed for thee, and thee, too, for thine own sake.” Gleanings, p. 260

 

[Revoltingest]

Interesting question placed in another thread, and I thought I'd start one.

I would say that anything "sentient" is "person"; so now we define the qualities of what would qualify as "sentient".

For that, I turn to Gene Roddenberry's "Star Trek"; where "Sentience" requires at least (3) "soft qualities":

• Intelligence: the ability to learn, understand, and cope with new situations
• Self-awareness: being conscious of one's existence and actions or aware of one's self and one's ego
• Consciousness

But this, I find a little lacking; as in yet another Star Trek episode, an atrifically intelligent device was deemed "sentience" after showing the quality of

• Self-Sacrifice

so I would throw that in the list of requirements.

I'd also throw in 2 more, possibly:

• Empathy
• Demonstrable quality of abstract thinking

So the proposed list so far is:

• Intelligence
• Self-awareness
• Consciousness
• Self-Sacrifice
• Empathy
• Abstract thought

Brainstorming and having fun is all I'm doing here ....

I'd say that there's no rigid set of criteria.
Instead it would be various possible combinations
of some or most of the criteria, ie, it's "fuzzy".
Moreover, there'd be more than one kind of personhood.

 

[Martin]

Quite good , but there are exceptions. Trump, for example has no empathy, but is generally considered sentient.

Though possibly not a human.