Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83 v7 ucbtopaz-1.8; site ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!talcott!panda!genrad!decvax!ucbvax!ucbtopaz!mwm From: mwm@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: What's a person? Message-ID: <871@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA> Date: Wed, 31-Dec-69 18:59:59 EST Article-I.D.: ucbtopaz.871 Posted: Wed Dec 31 18:59:59 1969 Date-Received: Fri, 5-Apr-85 12:08:52 EST References: <1597@bmcg.UUCP> <233@tilt.FUN> <676@unmvax.UUCP> <240@tilt.FUN> <1426@dciem.UUCP> <785Re: What's a person? <254@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP> Reply-To: mwm@ucbtopaz.UUCP (Praiser of Bob) Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica Lines: 33 Summary: >I think you're talking about intelligence, not sentience. You are correct. I was using sentience in to mean "self-aware." A quick check of my OAD shows that no such meaning is in the language. Oh well, I'll use intelligence from now on. Since nobody has bothered putting forward a definition of what a person is, I'll go ahead and put forward my definition (again), and the test that goes with it. Simply put, any being is a person, and deserving of the rights thereto, if they are sufficiently intelligent. To demonstrate (from now on, intelligence should be read as "sufficiently intelligent") intelligence, all they have to do is convince me that they have it. Simple, no? To see how this works in practice, drop the assumption that intelligence -> personhood, which turns the test into "you are a person if you can convince me you are a person." Off-color people in most societies have spent the last few centuries convincing the powers that be that they are, indeed, people, and deserve to be treated as such. In other words, the test I put forward is the one currently being used in practice. Using intelligence as a test for personhood leads to the interesting concept of "partial personhood." You're not intelligent enough to be considered a person, but you're not far from it, so we'll give you part of the rights of a person. Ugly as this may sound, it's something we practice every day in the US. Now, would someone else post a different definition of what a person is, or agree with mine?