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That clickbait title though. Of course an orca is not a person; an orca is not human, which is most peoples' understanding of "person". I understand if article

That clickbait title though. Of course an orca is not a person; an orca is not human, which is most peoples' understanding of "person". I understand if articles might have clickbait titles, but can we give a more reasonable title on HN? Even the second part of the article title, "The more we learn about orcas, the more our assumption of innate superiority looks like a presumption" would've been more effective.

AnkhMorporkian 11y ago
I think a better title would be "Should we grant human rights to killer whales?" Still interesting, still thought provoking, but without the obvious absurdity.
xCathedra 11y ago
The term person has established precedent, both for humans and non-humans. For humans, the legality of abortion is often thought of in terms of the humanity of the embyro. However, the actual legal issue is whether the law extends to the embyro the right of personhood. Peter Singer has advocated both for the personhood of certain animals and the non-personhood of certain humans (including live infants below certain cognitive thresholds) for some time.
- pluma 11y ago
  The abortion debate is largely orthogonal to the personhood of a foetus. There is no precedent for making it illegal to refuse to risk your health, well-being and bodily integrity to sustain another person with your own body. If the risk is negligible, sure, everything else would be denial of assistance -- but pregnancy (to say nothing of birth) is extremely risky as far as biological processes go. You could argue about a voluntary pregnancy being some kind of contract that suspends your right to bodily integrity but that still wouldn't apply to unwanted pregnancies, which represent the majority of abortions. Arguing that a foetus' personal rights are violated by early stage termination of a pregnancy is just special pleading biased by religious ideas about the inherent sanctity of life. Most nefariously, the same people who argue for the rights of a foetus also oppose the welfare that would be necessary to address the social impacts of the unwanted birth. Or to put it more hyperbolically: "A human's life is holy, until they are born".
  - xCathedra 11y ago
    I'm only arguing that the term personhood has extensive use in definining rights for humans and non-humans, providing a prominent ethicist as an example. I'm not trying to open up an abortion debate in a comment thread, because those simply go no where, influence no one, and fail to advance a meaningful dialogue. You can certainly disagree with applying personhood to the abortion debate and claim an unlimited number of nefaroious motives behind pro-life advocates, but those would be different discussions. The term personhood is used widely for embyronic and non-human rights, that's the extent of my claim.
schoen 11y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personhood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personhood
yk 11y ago
That is the question basically, is being human a necessary precondition to being a person? And assuming that it is, which humans are not persons ( otherwise human and person would just be synonymous).
- jstanley 11y ago
  That doesn't really follow. Just because human may not be a necessary precondition doesn't mean being human can't be a sufficient precondition. Consider the hypothetical definition that a person is any being that is either a human or a dolphin. Now all humans are people, but not all people are humans.
  - yk 11y ago
    Yes, I stand corrected. Luckily I made that mistake twice, so the overall argument still works.
PhasmaFelis 11y ago
Did you actually read the article? The question "Are killer whales persons" is in fact the central issue that it examines, and the use of "persons" instead of "people" ought to make it clear that they're using "person" in the legal sense.
adamnemecek 11y ago
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/RNHP http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/RNHP

AnkhMorporkian 11y ago

I think a better title would be "Should we grant human rights to killer whales?" Still interesting, still thought provoking, but without the obvious absurdity.

xCathedra 11y ago

The term person has established precedent, both for humans and non-humans. For humans, the legality of abortion is often thought of in terms of the humanity of the embyro. However, the actual legal issue is whether the law extends to the embyro the right of personhood. Peter Singer has advocated both for the personhood of certain animals and the non-personhood of certain humans (including live infants below certain cognitive thresholds) for some time.

pluma 11y ago
The abortion debate is largely orthogonal to the personhood of a foetus. There is no precedent for making it illegal to refuse to risk your health, well-being and bodily integrity to sustain another person with your own body. If the risk is negligible, sure, everything else would be denial of assistance -- but pregnancy (to say nothing of birth) is extremely risky as far as biological processes go. You could argue about a voluntary pregnancy being some kind of contract that suspends your right to bodily integrity but that still wouldn't apply to unwanted pregnancies, which represent the majority of abortions. Arguing that a foetus' personal rights are violated by early stage termination of a pregnancy is just special pleading biased by religious ideas about the inherent sanctity of life. Most nefariously, the same people who argue for the rights of a foetus also oppose the welfare that would be necessary to address the social impacts of the unwanted birth. Or to put it more hyperbolically: "A human's life is holy, until they are born".
- xCathedra 11y ago
  I'm only arguing that the term personhood has extensive use in definining rights for humans and non-humans, providing a prominent ethicist as an example. I'm not trying to open up an abortion debate in a comment thread, because those simply go no where, influence no one, and fail to advance a meaningful dialogue. You can certainly disagree with applying personhood to the abortion debate and claim an unlimited number of nefaroious motives behind pro-life advocates, but those would be different discussions. The term personhood is used widely for embyronic and non-human rights, that's the extent of my claim.

schoen 11y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personhood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personhood

yk 11y ago

That is the question basically, is being human a necessary precondition to being a person? And assuming that it is, which humans are not persons ( otherwise human and person would just be synonymous).

jstanley 11y ago
That doesn't really follow. Just because human may not be a necessary precondition doesn't mean being human can't be a sufficient precondition. Consider the hypothetical definition that a person is any being that is either a human or a dolphin. Now all humans are people, but not all people are humans.
- yk 11y ago
  Yes, I stand corrected. Luckily I made that mistake twice, so the overall argument still works.

PhasmaFelis 11y ago

Did you actually read the article? The question "Are killer whales persons" is in fact the central issue that it examines, and the use of "persons" instead of "people" ought to make it clear that they're using "person" in the legal sense.

adamnemecek 11y ago

http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/RNHP http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/RNHP