personhood, oh yes

imza shmo · Subject: personhood, oh yes Fri Aug 15, 2008 5:32 am

what is personhood? or, if you wish, what do you think should be required for personhood?

cherry

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Cath · Number of posts: 272 Registration date: 2008-08-12

imza shmo wrote:

what is personhood?

Kelticmaddox · Subject: Re: personhood, oh yes Fri Aug 15, 2008 3:03 pm

mark, you need to explain a bit more.

High Voltage · Subject: Re: personhood, oh yes Fri Aug 15, 2008 10:16 pm

per·son·hood /ˈpɜrsənˌhʊd/ [pur-suhn-hood]
–noun
1. the state or fact of being a person.
2. the state or fact of being an individual or having human characteristics and feelings: a harsh prison system that deprives prisoners of their personhood.

Case fuckin closed.

imza shmo · Subject: Re: personhood, oh yes Sat Aug 16, 2008 12:48 am

High Voltage wrote:

per·son·hood /ˈpɜrsənˌhʊd/ [pur-suhn-hood]
–noun
1. the state or fact of being a person.
2. the state or fact of being an individual or having human characteristics and feelings: a harsh prison system that deprives prisoners of their personhood.

Case fuckin closed.

what is "the state or fact of being a person [or individual]"?/what constitutes having human characteristics and feelings?

im asking for more than a tautology. for example, if you need one, what makes you a person but not a rock a person? are comatose, braindead patients people? zygotes? war criminals? when does this personhood begin and/or end existing?

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Guest

imza shmo wrote:

what is personhood? or, if you wish, what do you think should be required for personhood?

cherry

There are many characteristics associated with personhood, or individuality. The most obvious ones are those which constitute life itself, such as autonomous movement, self-awareness, the ability to reproduce, to consume, to expel, and so on. In terms of the debate of whether or not a human fetus can be classified as a person, I would say that when the potentiality has been created from fertilisation for those characteristics to eventually arise, then for a human, there are very few circumstances in which the act of abortion should be considered morally preferable, if even any.

In the broader context of personhood, such as whether it is something human animals have and non-human animals do not, I think this is pushing things a bit. Certainly, human animals have a much greater degree of self-awarneess, creativity, reasoning skills, etc, but they don't always have the monopoly on such characteristics. Speaking as a Christian for a moment, the primary thing that separates humanity from the animals is that of the Image of God, which, within the context of the creation narrative, speaks as much to our responsibility toward the rest of creation as it does to our own intra-species relationships.

ichthuz · Subject: Re: personhood, oh yes Sun Aug 17, 2008 2:59 am

being made in god's image. at all stages of life. including prenatal

Existential Cat · Subject: Re: personhood, oh yes Sun Aug 17, 2008 10:48 am

I was going to make an argument about how everything is really just an illusion; however, since I really couldn't put it in a way that I would be able to argue that point of view I decided I'd just say that I was going to say it without actually saying it.

1) Because I'm tired.

2) I don't feel like really trying to come up with an argument, and I dont' think it fits in this discussion anyway.

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Guest

Your avatar seems to fit the conveyance in your post quite well albino

Existential Cat · Subject: Re: personhood, oh yes Sun Aug 17, 2008 7:00 pm

Verily.

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theguy · Number of posts: 80 Registration date: 2008-08-17

Shadowmancer Returns wrote:

imza shmo wrote:

what is personhood? or, if you wish, what do you think should be required for personhood?

cherry

There are many characteristics associated with personhood, or individuality. The most obvious ones are those which constitute life itself, such as autonomous movement, self-awareness, the ability to reproduce, to consume, to expel, and so on. In terms of the debate of whether or not a human fetus can be classified as a person, I would say that when the potentiality has been created from fertilisation for those characteristics to eventually arise, then for a human, there are very few circumstances in which the act of abortion should be considered morally preferable, if even any.

In the broader context of personhood, such as whether it is something human animals have and non-human animals do not, I think this is pushing things a bit. Certainly, human animals have a much greater degree of self-awarneess, creativity, reasoning skills, etc, but they don't always have the monopoly on such characteristics. Speaking as a Christian for a moment, the primary thing that separates humanity from the animals is that of the Image of God, which, within the context of the creation narrative, speaks as much to our responsibility toward the rest of creation as it does to our own intra-species relationships.

I miss you. Crying or Very sad

john · Number of posts: 48 Registration date: 2008-08-18

as a follower of Jesus, im not sure it really matters what makes up personhood. and im not saying that in a blowing it off kind of way. i am saying it more in the way of, i dont think that we should change how we view other things based upon personhood or not. i think our purpose here is to provide for each other and nature alike. to care for and help all else prosper in the manner God intended. while i would rather burn a tree than harm a human, i think i am supposed to care for both. what exactly that entails, im still figuring it out. but i think they are both important. so i find these kind of questions not only moot in the greater point, but kinda distracting from the greater point and merely another issue to distract and divide us from what our real goals should be.

Guest

john wrote:

to care for and help all else prosper in the manner God intended. while i would rather burn a tree than harm a human, i think i am supposed to care for both. what exactly that entails, im still figuring it out. but i think they are both important. so i find these kind of questions not only moot in the greater point, but kinda distracting from the greater point and merely another issue to distract and divide us from what our real goals should be.

I thoroughly resonate with this. To flesh out your paragraph a bit more, I would say that one's own personhood is expressed and validated by an awareness and reverence of the intrinsic value that lies beyond oneself. I'm often told I have a lot of different passions and interests, but every single one of them, whether it is animal rights, nonviolence, anarchism, environmentalism, or what have you, they all come down to an understanding of the great interconnectedness of which we are all part. This is to break away from the lie that we are all separate, self-contained, individual entities, but rather that we are connected to one another and that our lives affect each other regardless of whether we appreciate it or not.

For example, I could talk about personhood, but from that comes respect and understanding of everyone else's personhood, and even toward those things which potentially do not (such as the tree). Now as you said, it is arguably better to sacrifice a tree than a human being, but there is still a place for the tree... it recycles carbon dioxide and provides us breathable oxygen, and its fruit could be taken for food. The reason I talked about human animals and non-human animals earlier on is because to me "personhood" seems to signify something a little broader than talking about what constitutes "humanity"; to talk about personhood is to approach various aspects of the creation around us with the question of how we respond to it. Mark's initial question has often been bound up with the question of whether a fetus has a right to be born, but even this (very important) question itself is bound up in the even more important one of: Is it better to create or to destroy? In what sense might creation be more beneficial? Could destruction be in some ways beneficial? And so on.

Something which is very important to my own understanding of our natural interconnected world derives from my own Christian faith - The Biblical concept of shalom: Integrity, wholeness, nothing broken, nothing missing... peace in its fullest form. One of the more consistent themes of the Psalms, for example, is that of the entire creation, whether man, beast, bird, fish, rock, water, or valley, being in a constant state of praise to the God who created them all. In a way which no one can fully understand, yet in a way which is entirely real, God expresses Himself through (and is at work within) all that exists. I am sure that many other faith traditions and philosophies may have similar ideas using slightly different words and terms, but while I am speaking from my own tradition, which I hold to be truth, it leads me to the broader paradigm of how I then respond to God's shalom within the world that He is progressively reconciling to Himself. The variety of questions that spawn are numerous: Is it ever rightful to kill? Is there a relation of some kind between myself and the animal? Or what about between myself and the plant? How do I go about being a good steward (caretaker) of the natural creation?

We respond in different ways, but I believe that when we open ourselves up to this understanding, we converge on various points. One of my own concerns which relates to this discussion is that of speciesism: similar to racism or sexism, the belief that one particular group of beings is superior to all else, and that the rights of all else are subservient to the one superior group. In this case, human animals often believe themselves to have the right to do as is desired with non-human animals, such as for food and clothing. Whether we want to get involved in "animal rights" or not is something in itself only partially important to the main issue, which is the relation between the two arbitrary classes. If I believe myself superior to the cow or chicken, what is it which makes me superior? Why do I feel the need to consume their flesh when I can just as easily do without it? And so on. My veganism is a response to the concept of shalom, the interconnectedness.

Similar things could be said in regard to the questions of just war. What grants me the automatic right to kill? The obvious (and often secular) answer is that of defence: either defence of the self or the defence of others. Again, this is bound up in the question of what separates the oppressor from the oppressed, and whether it is ever rightful to create or destroy. For those of us who believe in love, it raises the discussion of to what extent this love reaches and for whom it is accorded. Again, as a response to the interconnectedness of the natural creation.

I agree with John, in that a proper response to this concept is the willingness to care for all that is outside of outside of ourselves and to prosper all where possible, and to continually ask ourselves questions about how this may be done. It is only within this broader contextualisation, that the question of personhood may be addressed.