Biological definition of a person
A human being
Psychological definition of a person
A conscious or rational human being
Legal / ethical definition of a person
Having certain rights or duties
Moral Personhood
- The moral sense of personhood denotes individual beings that are moral agents.
- Moral agents engage in behaviors that can be evaluated as moral or immoral, as morally right or wrong, as morally permissible or morally impermissible.
- Their acts are blameworthy or praiseworthy. It makes sense to hold them morally responsible for their intentional actions.
- Human beings are considered moral agents and moral persons.
- Non human animals are commonly held not to be moral agents and not moral persons.
Metaphysical Personhood
- The concept of metaphysical personhood would be to use personhood as a basic category of reality encompassing beings of a certain type: rational, moral agents, using language, etc.
- Adult humans are commonly considered persons
- Suggested criteria: consciousness, self awareness, use of language, ability to initiate action, intelligence, logic, rationality.
Physical Personhood
- A human being is essentially a physical being, with no metaphysically distinct soul or mind.
- Dualists or idealists believe that human beings are more than just physical, with the involvement of a metaphysically distinct mind or soul.
Legal Personhood
- Certain groups of individuals can be considered as a unit, an actor, a legal person.
- This sort of legal personhood allows the unitary group, for example, a corporation, to enter into contracts and engage in other legal matters as if it were a natural person.
- To most thinkers, useful as this is, it is an artificial type of person and not metaphysically significant.
Determinism (definition)
The philosophical position that denies that we have the free will to do anything other than what we do in fact do.
Determinism (detail)
- The theory holds that the universe is utterly rational because complete knowledge of any given situation assures that unerring knowledge of it future is also possible.
- Pierre-Simon, Marquis de Laplace, (18th century) framed the classical formulation of this thesis.
- For him, the present state of the universe is the effect of its previous state and the cause of that state that follows it.
- If a mind, at any given movement, could know all of the forces operating in nature and the respective positions of all its components, it would thereby known with certainty the future and the past of every entity, large or small.
Autonomy
Autonomy is an individual’s capacity for self-determination or self-governance. Beyond that, it is a much-contested concept that comes up in a number of different arenas.
-Autonomous agents are self-governing agents.
-no guarantee greater range of options or the sort of opportunities one wants to have, if self governed.
-can govern self without being able to appreciate the difference between right and wrong
an autonomous agent can do something wrong without blame
Autonomy (fold concept)
operate as an inchoate desire for freedom in some area of one’s life, and which may or may not be connected with the agent’s idea of the moral good.
Moral autonomy
the capacity to deliberate and to give oneself the moral law, rather than merely heeding the injunctions of others.
Personal autonomy
the capacity to decide for oneself and pursue a course of action in one’s life, often regardless of any particular moral content.
Political autonomy
the property of having one’s decisions respected, honored and heeded within a political context.
