More than likely - rather than give a chimpanzee recognition as a person - the court will strike down the "only humans can have guardians" law or interpret another law, or will simply say "sorry - the chimp may be owned by a trust that delineates highly specific instructions enforceable by civil action but not by criminal law."
The fears of the people caring for him is that should someone sue the trust and win it as an award for bankruptcy - or whatever, they would then be free to do whatever with the chimpanzee, including selling the chimpanzee outside of Austria.
The legal implications of granting personhood to a chimpanzee from the bench - are staggering. Such a thing needs to be done through legislation, not from the bench, unless his life can be saved no other way.
I can think of nothing more I would like, than to see "personhood" defined by law according to sentient and cognitive capacity/capability, rather than genetic content - as delineated by medical opinion.
The /legal problems it would solve are incredible, vast and diverse/. Social problems, probably not for a while.
Of course, this is because I - for one - welcome our robotic overlords.
Yea! for the obscure sci-fi reference! (I can't remember for sure who wrote the story though, although I remember several Mars related stories by (I think) the same author.
You were nicer than I was going to be--my line would have been to the tune of "yeah, he wrote a few Mars-related stories. Red Planet, Stranger In A Strange Land..."
Did they just ask who was entitled to human rights? I'd think "humans" would be the default answer, there. If it's not, then either we're alloting them poorly or we need a new word to define them.
I think it would exacerbate social problems, quite frankly.
Not every person has the same sentience or cognitive capabilities. Defining human beings as less human because they happen to have less intelligence (according to our flawed measures of testing intelligence) opens the way for a resurgence in eugenics movements (at the very least) all the way to wholesale exploitation, slavery, or even mass murder at the most.
One of the justifications people have for depriving other people of their human rights is that they're less human. Considering that human rights as we conceptualize them today are fairly recent, I'm not in favor of doing anything that could potentially undo that progress.
Ah! We can, however, determine a certain point of sentience and cognitive capability and potential that defines where legal personhood begins. Brain-death is on one side, and self-aware chimpanzees / gorillas / AIs are on another.
I'm not happy with the law making genetic humans special - even when they're brain-dead - and other-than-human sentient beings - or potential sentient beings - property.
Sentience is simply sensory awareness, and lots and lots of things have that. I'm no biologist, but I'd venture that most animals, even single-celled ones, have some degree of sensory awareness and I'm not okay with extending rights to the whole lot of them.
However, I'm pretty sure that kind of extreme example isn't what you meant, and I don't like to make my point by hyperbole, so...
How do you prove self-awareness (which is a different concept from both sapience and sentience)? Animals don't have language (at least not one we can understand) so how would we empirically establish their self-awareness? In addition, humans aren't even self-aware until a certain stage in life so would that criterion means babies and toddlers aren't entitled to rights? What about persons with mental disabilities like Alzheimer's? Are they suddenly rightless too?
That's tough. I now hope that medical doctors, psychologists and neurological biologists can find a standard, one not based on mere use of language.
Babies have a potential, a capability. Alzheimer's patients as well. I would suspect that under such a proposal, that rights would be granted based on evidence showing reasonable suspicion of ability, and revoked only on hard medical criteria.
Also, I wonder why they're going to the personhood route instead of getting the law changed so that animals can receive gifts or inherit property. The latter seems like it would be easier.
Language isn't a "mere" thing. It's a huge deal. Language is one of the primary things that separates human beings from every other species on the planet. Though I'm allowing for the possibility that animals may use language, as of right now, linguists have found no other species that fulfills all the requirements for a language. So...huge deal.
So...are babies non-persons until they exhibit said potential or capacity? What if they're a bit slow? Also, Alzheimer's is a progressive, degenerative disease. People don't get better from it. You lose potential with no hope of regaining it, so my question remains, are they non-persons after a certain period of time?
What is a reasonable suspicion of ability? What is ability? If you're talking about expanding the definition of personhood in one direction (multi-species) while limiting it in another direction (not all human beings would be eligible) then these concepts become very important.
did anyone else read that story about the Austrian father who kept his OWN DAUGHTER in the basement as a sex slave and breeder cow for decades? plus, their resulting inbred children?
I think below a certain cognitive capacity a being isn't a person, but it does make sense to extend personhood rights beyond the strict boundaries of persons.
These aren't novel arguments. One of the reasons I'm sensitive to abruptly redefining personhood in exclusionary terms is because for centuries (at least in America), huge swaths of the population weren't defined as real persons and were treated accordingly.
That is a time I really don't want to go back to. Instead of coming up with ways to deprive human beings of human rights, I believe we should be more invested in making sure all humans have access to them.
Heck, Alzheimers isn't even the half of it. I'm extremely leery of definitions that make autistic children or adults, people with downs syndrome, or one of many many other disorders into non-humans.
Babies, abused children or those raised in a deprived environment and therefore failing to develop language skills, someone who suffers a brain injury and becomes severely aphasic...
I really don't see how limiting personhood to the ability to speak and reason extends the right of personhood beyond what most people are. As a matter of fact, I find it even more limiting.
I'm extremely leery of definitions that make autistic children or adults, people with downs syndrome, or one of many many other disorders into non-humans.
And I'm extremely leery of people who use "human" as if it meant "person".
I assure you I'm quite literate and that I did read your entire comment.
What you say is, "I think below a certain cognitive capacity a being isn't a person, but it does make sense to extend personhood rights beyond the strict boundaries of persons.
Then you go on to say that cognitive capacity is "Basically the ability to speak and reason.
If cognitive capacity is the ability to speak and reason and if beings who lack these abilities are not persons, then how does that broaden the definition of personhood?
Animals cannot speak. The scientific community is still undecided about the reasoning capacities of certain animals. And we know definitively that there are human beings who cannot speak and/or reason. Therefore, I restate that narrowing the qualifications of personhood to two qualities is not an extension of personhood at all.
You're conflating the strict boundaries of personhood with personhood rights. I believe that it is proper to extend personhood rights to beings which do not fall within what I consider to be the boundaries of personhood.
I think we're approaching the problem from different starting points but with similar goals. The goal I think we can agree on is the extension of personhood rights to a reasonably maximal set of beings. Where I think we're differing here is that you seem (and please correct me if I'm wrong here, I don't want to put words in your mouth and am simply trying to be sure that I understand your argument properly) to want to accomplish this by maximising the boundaries of the category "persons", while I want to have as sharply drawn as possible boundaries for that category without necessarily denying all those outside it the rights accruing to those within that boundary.
To be a little more succinct, it looks like the disconnect between our arguments is that you see the sets of personhood and personhood-rights-receivers as exactly the same, and I don't. Is that accurate?
(Also, I regard "speech" as being more on the order of language, which as far as I know is necessary for reason. Speech is really more evidence of reason, which I hold to be paramount for personhood, than any kind of extra criterion.)
Though I have a question...if you're not using the criterion of personhood to define who gets personhood rights, then what criterion are you using? And, in that case, are they no longer personhood rights but some other kind of rights?
I can't see any other way to use it. As long as people with chromosome disorders are still considered human, despite not even having the same number of chromosomes as the traditional "definition" of human in a biological sense, then "human" is necessarily a fuzzy term.
Although I suppose it's probably necessary to note that I'm a transhumanist, so I often approach these conversation from the perspective of people made from or in some philosophical way descended from humans, but who may be, in a literal sense, nothing more than a computer program.
I truely think the only way forward without society imploding on itself is to gradually broaden the term "human" until its a cladistic description, rather than a species description.
But looking at it from another view, I see no reason why a neandertal would be considered less human than someone with Down's Syndrome. The neandertal wouldn't be Homo sapiens sapiens, but he'd still be HUMAN.
I know that sensory awareness and self-awareness are not the same thing. It's why I distinguished between them.
Even single-celled organisms respond to stimuli (light, temperature, etc.) which seems ro require some kind of sensory apparatus.
I think that since neither of us are biologists, psychologists, linguists, etc., it'd be pretty ridiculous to start saying which species are self-aware and which aren't. One should stick to what one knows.
I am also a speciesist and I'm perfectly okay with that. It irks me that people would campaign so hard for animal rights when human rights are violated everyday.
It irks me that people would campaign so hard for animal rights when human rights are violated everyday.
I'm afraid that argument smacks to me as similar to "Even men have their human rights violated, so why are you bothering to fight for rights for women?"
In Austria, I think it's safe to say that human rights are pretty safe. The civilians in Austria doesn't really have a lot of influence in human rights issues in China, Darfur, or the many other places that human rights are being violated. So why shouldn't they instead work to advance their own society further?
I'm a speciesist, so they're nowhere near the same to me.
I have no idea what the human rights situation is in Austria, especially regarding the rights of minority groups which no one ever hears about.
I do know that in America, we're still having lots of problems with race, gender, class, sexuality, and so forth. If you want to advance society, then I think you should start with getting rid of the "-isms" attached to those things.
This was an excellent conversation. Does the fact that we (US) consider Enron, Lockheed, or Comedy Central as persons, legally, change anything about this argument?
Oh, JohnnyBrainwash told me to ask you about the game you're designing.
I don't think it really affects personhood debates- that corporations should not be seen as legal persons is IMO obvious upon even the slightest reflection.
And it's a card game about monster movies, where each player has protagonists and a monster and is trying to wipe out other players' protagonists and monster.
++I don't think it really affects personhood debates- that corporations should not be seen as legal persons is IMO obvious upon even the slightest reflection.++
While I agree with you, the legal system has already upheld rights for corporate Egregores as persons. Based on the ability to Contract, I beleive (tho I still think it's all bullshit, corporations get right to contract from the people running them).
I think it's really telling that they'll consider imaginary social collectives as persons, but not Dolphins, who are self aware and can recognize themselves as individuals in reflections, use tools, and *play* with their environment, or the primates who can be taught sign language, etc, etc.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 05:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 05:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 05:22 pm (UTC)The fears of the people caring for him is that should someone sue the trust and win it as an award for bankruptcy - or whatever, they would then be free to do whatever with the chimpanzee, including selling the chimpanzee outside of Austria.
The legal implications of granting personhood to a chimpanzee from the bench - are staggering. Such a thing needs to be done through legislation, not from the bench, unless his life can be saved no other way.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 05:29 pm (UTC)I can think of nothing more I would like, than to see "personhood" defined by law according to sentient and cognitive capacity/capability, rather than genetic content - as delineated by medical opinion.
The /legal problems it would solve are incredible, vast and diverse/. Social problems, probably not for a while.
Of course, this is because I - for one - welcome our robotic overlords.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 05:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 05:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 06:10 pm (UTC)*grin*
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 06:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 06:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 06:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 07:30 pm (UTC)Not every person has the same sentience or cognitive capabilities. Defining human beings as less human because they happen to have less intelligence (according to our flawed measures of testing intelligence) opens the way for a resurgence in eugenics movements (at the very least) all the way to wholesale exploitation, slavery, or even mass murder at the most.
One of the justifications people have for depriving other people of their human rights is that they're less human. Considering that human rights as we conceptualize them today are fairly recent, I'm not in favor of doing anything that could potentially undo that progress.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 07:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 07:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 07:38 pm (UTC)I'm not happy with the law making genetic humans special - even when they're brain-dead - and other-than-human sentient beings - or potential sentient beings - property.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 07:39 pm (UTC)Yes, I see the point.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 07:45 pm (UTC)However, I'm pretty sure that kind of extreme example isn't what you meant, and I don't like to make my point by hyperbole, so...
How do you prove self-awareness (which is a different concept from both sapience and sentience)? Animals don't have language (at least not one we can understand) so how would we empirically establish their self-awareness? In addition, humans aren't even self-aware until a certain stage in life so would that criterion means babies and toddlers aren't entitled to rights? What about persons with mental disabilities like Alzheimer's? Are they suddenly rightless too?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 07:58 pm (UTC)That's tough. I now hope that medical doctors, psychologists and neurological biologists can find a standard, one not based on mere use of language.
Babies have a potential, a capability. Alzheimer's patients as well. I would suspect that under such a proposal, that rights would be granted based on evidence showing reasonable suspicion of ability, and revoked only on hard medical criteria.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 07:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 08:06 pm (UTC)So...are babies non-persons until they exhibit said potential or capacity? What if they're a bit slow? Also, Alzheimer's is a progressive, degenerative disease. People don't get better from it. You lose potential with no hope of regaining it, so my question remains, are they non-persons after a certain period of time?
What is a reasonable suspicion of ability? What is ability? If you're talking about expanding the definition of personhood in one direction (multi-species) while limiting it in another direction (not all human beings would be eligible) then these concepts become very important.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 08:12 pm (UTC)did anyone else read that story about the Austrian father who kept his OWN DAUGHTER in the basement as a sex slave and breeder cow for decades? plus, their resulting inbred children?
WTF!?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 08:13 pm (UTC)but i thought that was already being done - rich people leaving everything to their cats?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 08:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 08:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 08:32 pm (UTC)These aren't novel arguments. One of the reasons I'm sensitive to abruptly redefining personhood in exclusionary terms is because for centuries (at least in America), huge swaths of the population weren't defined as real persons and were treated accordingly.
That is a time I really don't want to go back to. Instead of coming up with ways to deprive human beings of human rights, I believe we should be more invested in making sure all humans have access to them.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 08:48 pm (UTC)Babies, abused children or those raised in a deprived environment and therefore failing to develop language skills, someone who suffers a brain injury and becomes severely aphasic...
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 08:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 08:58 pm (UTC)And if you'll look at what I'm saying, I'm actually looking at extending such rights beyond what most people are.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 09:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 09:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 09:05 pm (UTC)And I'm extremely leery of people who use "human" as if it meant "person".
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 09:37 pm (UTC)Allegedly.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 09:53 pm (UTC)What you say is, "I think below a certain cognitive capacity a being isn't a person, but it does make sense to extend personhood rights beyond the strict boundaries of persons.
Then you go on to say that cognitive capacity is "Basically the ability to speak and reason.
If cognitive capacity is the ability to speak and reason and if beings who lack these abilities are not persons, then how does that broaden the definition of personhood?
Animals cannot speak. The scientific community is still undecided about the reasoning capacities of certain animals. And we know definitively that there are human beings who cannot speak and/or reason. Therefore, I restate that narrowing the qualifications of personhood to two qualities is not an extension of personhood at all.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 10:01 pm (UTC)I think we're approaching the problem from different starting points but with similar goals. The goal I think we can agree on is the extension of personhood rights to a reasonably maximal set of beings. Where I think we're differing here is that you seem (and please correct me if I'm wrong here, I don't want to put words in your mouth and am simply trying to be sure that I understand your argument properly) to want to accomplish this by maximising the boundaries of the category "persons", while I want to have as sharply drawn as possible boundaries for that category without necessarily denying all those outside it the rights accruing to those within that boundary.
To be a little more succinct, it looks like the disconnect between our arguments is that you see the sets of personhood and personhood-rights-receivers as exactly the same, and I don't. Is that accurate?
(Also, I regard "speech" as being more on the order of language, which as far as I know is necessary for reason. Speech is really more evidence of reason, which I hold to be paramount for personhood, than any kind of extra criterion.)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 10:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 10:10 pm (UTC)Though I have a question...if you're not using the criterion of personhood to define who gets personhood rights, then what criterion are you using? And, in that case, are they no longer personhood rights but some other kind of rights?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 10:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-23 12:13 am (UTC)Although I suppose it's probably necessary to note that I'm a transhumanist, so I often approach these conversation from the perspective of people made from or in some philosophical way descended from humans, but who may be, in a literal sense, nothing more than a computer program.
I truely think the only way forward without society imploding on itself is to gradually broaden the term "human" until its a cladistic description, rather than a species description.
But looking at it from another view, I see no reason why a neandertal would be considered less human than someone with Down's Syndrome. The neandertal wouldn't be Homo sapiens sapiens, but he'd still be HUMAN.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-23 07:51 am (UTC)I'm not really sure why you posted this as you're not disagreeing with me; you're simply telling me something I already know.
Re: Hmm...
Date: 2008-05-23 07:57 am (UTC)Even single-celled organisms respond to stimuli (light, temperature, etc.) which seems ro require some kind of sensory apparatus.
I think that since neither of us are biologists, psychologists, linguists, etc., it'd be pretty ridiculous to start saying which species are self-aware and which aren't. One should stick to what one knows.
I am also a speciesist and I'm perfectly okay with that. It irks me that people would campaign so hard for animal rights when human rights are violated everyday.
Re: Hmm...
Date: 2008-05-23 01:00 pm (UTC)I'm afraid that argument smacks to me as similar to "Even men have their human rights violated, so why are you bothering to fight for rights for women?"
In Austria, I think it's safe to say that human rights are pretty safe. The civilians in Austria doesn't really have a lot of influence in human rights issues in China, Darfur, or the many other places that human rights are being violated. So why shouldn't they instead work to advance their own society further?
Re: Hmm...
Date: 2008-05-23 01:38 pm (UTC)I have no idea what the human rights situation is in Austria, especially regarding the rights of minority groups which no one ever hears about.
I do know that in America, we're still having lots of problems with race, gender, class, sexuality, and so forth. If you want to advance society, then I think you should start with getting rid of the "-isms" attached to those things.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-24 08:30 pm (UTC)Oh, JohnnyBrainwash told me to ask you about the game you're designing.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-24 08:31 pm (UTC)And it's a card game about monster movies, where each player has protagonists and a monster and is trying to wipe out other players' protagonists and monster.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-24 08:37 pm (UTC)++I don't think it really affects personhood debates- that corporations should not be seen as legal persons is IMO obvious upon even the slightest reflection.++
While I agree with you, the legal system has already upheld rights for corporate Egregores as persons. Based on the ability to Contract, I beleive (tho I still think it's all bullshit, corporations get right to contract from the people running them).
I think it's really telling that they'll consider imaginary social collectives as persons, but not Dolphins, who are self aware and can recognize themselves as individuals in reflections, use tools, and *play* with their environment, or the primates who can be taught sign language, etc, etc.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-24 08:41 pm (UTC)