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"Can an animal be a person?" According to the definition, a "person" refers to a human [0][1]. Perhaps the better question is should we treat the whales better

"Can an animal be a person?" According to the definition, a "person" refers to a human [0][1]. Perhaps the better question is should we treat the whales better or differently based on what we learned rather than shoe-horn them into a word that literally means human. [0] Oxford English: "A human being regarded as an individual" [1] Merriam-Webster: "a human being"

meric 11y ago
I think saying a human being can be called a "person" - meaning rational agent, is also misleading. Almost no human being can live out the rest of their lives alone without becoming seriously dysfunctional, (and irrational). The rare human able to do this has terminal cancer or is very old and is about to pass away this very night and/or week at tops.
vilhelm_s 11y ago
Talking about non-human persons is standard philosophical terminology, e.g Personhood. What is it to be a person? What is necessary, and what suffices, for something to count as a person, as opposed to a non-person? What have people got that non-people haven't got? This amounts more or less to asking for the definition of the word person. An answer would take the form “Necessarily, x is a person if and only if … x …”, with the blanks appropriately filled in. More specifically, we can ask at what point in one's development from a fertilized egg there comes to be a person, or what it would take for a chimpanzee or a Martian or an electronic computer to be a person, if they could ever be. (See e.g. Chisholm 1976: 136f., Baker 2000: ch. 3.) (from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-personal/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-personal/)
itistoday2 11y ago
Under United States law companies are persons as well, so these definitions are a bit out of date. It's perfectly reasonable to expand the term "person" to apply to non humans, companies and orcas alike.
- deleted 11y ago
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- pluma 11y ago
  True, but the legal definition of a person and the dictionary definition don't have to agree, so it's important which personhood we're trying to redefine. Should orcas be legal persons? Probably not. They can't give consent and will never be able to, in principle. This is different from a mentally underdeveloped human or a human child because an orca will neither grow up to be able to give consent nor could they reach that capacity as a species (within human timeframes). Could orcas evolve to become legal persons? Maybe, but there isn't any selection pressure guiding them in that direction. We should however acknowledge that "personhood" is not a well-defined requirement for the rights we grant to persons. We should probably extend some of those rights to certain animals independently of whether we can consider them persons or not. They're autonomous and have some form of sentience -- it seems only fair to acknowledge that in how we treat them. That aside, the real debate here is animal rights and what constitutes animal cruelty. Personally I think Sea World is criminally abusive because it is necessarily incapable of holding large water mammals like orcas in captivity in a way that minimizes suffering for them -- the tank size alone could not be large enough for that; the economics just wouldn't work out.
  - itistoday2 11y ago
    > because an orca will neither grow up to be able to give consent Conjecture that I do not agree with. Orcas can definitely give consent, it depends on the situation. > nor could they reach that capacity as a species (within human timeframes). More conjecture with which I disagree. Orcas can talk and they can indicate consent already. > there isn't any selection pressure guiding them in that direction. Conjecture. Strongly disagree. > Personally I think Sea World is criminally abusive because it is necessarily incapable of holding large water mammals like orcas in captivity in a way that minimizes suffering for them Finally, something we agree on.
    - pluma 11y ago
      I'm talking about informed, legal consent. A child isn't able to give that, much less any non-human animal.

meric 11y ago

I think saying a human being can be called a "person" - meaning rational agent, is also misleading. Almost no human being can live out the rest of their lives alone without becoming seriously dysfunctional, (and irrational). The rare human able to do this has terminal cancer or is very old and is about to pass away this very night and/or week at tops.

vilhelm_s 11y ago

Talking about non-human persons is standard philosophical terminology, e.g Personhood. What is it to be a person? What is necessary, and what suffices, for something to count as a person, as opposed to a non-person? What have people got that non-people haven't got? This amounts more or less to asking for the definition of the word person. An answer would take the form “Necessarily, x is a person if and only if … x …”, with the blanks appropriately filled in. More specifically, we can ask at what point in one's development from a fertilized egg there comes to be a person, or what it would take for a chimpanzee or a Martian or an electronic computer to be a person, if they could ever be. (See e.g. Chisholm 1976: 136f., Baker 2000: ch. 3.) (from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-personal/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-personal/)

itistoday2 11y ago

Under United States law companies are persons as well, so these definitions are a bit out of date. It's perfectly reasonable to expand the term "person" to apply to non humans, companies and orcas alike.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
pluma 11y ago
True, but the legal definition of a person and the dictionary definition don't have to agree, so it's important which personhood we're trying to redefine. Should orcas be legal persons? Probably not. They can't give consent and will never be able to, in principle. This is different from a mentally underdeveloped human or a human child because an orca will neither grow up to be able to give consent nor could they reach that capacity as a species (within human timeframes). Could orcas evolve to become legal persons? Maybe, but there isn't any selection pressure guiding them in that direction. We should however acknowledge that "personhood" is not a well-defined requirement for the rights we grant to persons. We should probably extend some of those rights to certain animals independently of whether we can consider them persons or not. They're autonomous and have some form of sentience -- it seems only fair to acknowledge that in how we treat them. That aside, the real debate here is animal rights and what constitutes animal cruelty. Personally I think Sea World is criminally abusive because it is necessarily incapable of holding large water mammals like orcas in captivity in a way that minimizes suffering for them -- the tank size alone could not be large enough for that; the economics just wouldn't work out.
- itistoday2 11y ago
  > because an orca will neither grow up to be able to give consent Conjecture that I do not agree with. Orcas can definitely give consent, it depends on the situation. > nor could they reach that capacity as a species (within human timeframes). More conjecture with which I disagree. Orcas can talk and they can indicate consent already. > there isn't any selection pressure guiding them in that direction. Conjecture. Strongly disagree. > Personally I think Sea World is criminally abusive because it is necessarily incapable of holding large water mammals like orcas in captivity in a way that minimizes suffering for them Finally, something we agree on.
  - pluma 11y ago
    I'm talking about informed, legal consent. A child isn't able to give that, much less any non-human animal.