Chapter 7
Persons, Minds and Brains
What is a Person?

What is the difference between you
and an orangutan?
The Concept of Person

Concept of personhood
is an essential
component of most
legal and moral
systems because a
person is the holder of
certain rights and
privileges
The Concept of Person (con’t)

How are persons and things differentiated?
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To regard an entity as a person is to include it as a
member of the community of persons, a moral
community and to say that that entity is not a person
is to exclude them in that community
one problem with a broad concept of person is that
it risks overpopulating the world with persons and
the problem with a narrow concept of person is that
it risks depopulating the world of persons
The Concept of Person (con’t)
Locke

defined a person as a “thinking intelligent being,
that has reason and reflection and can consider
itself as itself, the same thinking thing, in
different times and places: which it does only by
that consciousness which is in separable from
thinking”

thus, the mere fact that that an entity has a human
body or human biology does not make it a person

but, this does allow non-humans to be defined as
persons
The Concept of Person (con’t)
Daniel Dennett

identified six basic conditions of personhood
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rationality
conscious mental states and intentionality
being the subject of a special stance or attitude of regard
by other persons
reciprocating this person-regarding stance
the capacity for verbal communication
self-consciousness


like Locke’s definition this allows non-humans to be
classified as persons and can exclude some humans
two of these conditions are social

in Dennet’s view people do not treat living creatures as
persons only after the objective fact of its personhood has
been established

a creature’s treatment of it as a person makes it a person
The Concept of Person (con’t)
Mary Ann Warren
 discussed personhood in the context of
abortion and identified conditions
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consciousness of objects and events and the
ability to feel pain
reasoning and problem-solving ability
the ability to carry out self-motivated activities
the ability to communicate messages of an
indefinite variety of types
the presence of self-concepts and selfawareness

a person does not need to satisfy all of these
conditions to meet personhood
The Concept of Person (con’t)

some argue that Warren’s conditions are too
restrictive because they exclude infants,
developmentally handicap, and those with
brain damage

a response to this may be that these conditions
could include the potential for rationality or
meeting the conditions

but how would potential for consciousness be
established
The Concept of Person (con’t)
Annette Baier

is critical of the above theories as they establish personhood
as a test that some creatures pass and others fail
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says that they often reflect the narrow values of those who
design them
in addition, they stress importance of cognition rather than social
roles

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this implies that people float free of their own history, dependency,
mortality and biology
proposes a naturalist view of persons as embodied,
interpersonally responsive and dependent creatures

“Persons are born to earlier persons, and learn the arts of
personhood from other persons. These arts include the selfconsciousness which follows from mutual recognition, along with the
sort of representation that speech makes possible…the first persons
we recognize as such are those who greet us, call to us, answer our
calls. Our personhood is responsive…”
Personal Identity

despite the changes that occur most
people regard themselves as the same
person over time
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your past self is not numerically different
than your present self just as they are not
different in the same way as you are
distinct from your best friend
your past self is not referred to in the third
person
although their may be qualitative
differences between the selves they are
still one and the same
questions of personal identity are those
that ask what makes you the same you
over time

what is the metaphysical glue that holds us
together
Personal Identity (con’t)
Locke
 believed that it was not the body or
the spirit that tied us to personal
identity
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the body changes over time and the
immaterial soul is not important
the most important component of
personal identity was “continuing
consciousness”

the ability to remember, relive, take
responsibility for past actions, and to
thing of events and actions in relation to
the self
Personal Identity (con’t)

in Locke’s view you remained the same
person as long your consciousness can
place you in the past, thereby enabling you
to relive the past with some of the same
feeling that you had at the time
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if there is a break in your consciousness Locke
argued that you are no longer the same person

if there are two or more consciousness that cannot
communicate with each other then there are two or
more people
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e.g.: sleepwalking and crime
Personal Identity (con’t)
Derek Parfit
 argued that what really mattered
was people’s survival, or their
continued existence, over time, not
their identity over time
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survival is much less metaphysically
demanding a concept than identity
because identity is an all-or-nothing
proposition and survival is a matter of
degree
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one degree of you overlaps with
another at any or other particular time
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these overlaps are psychological links,
like memories, plans and intentions
Personal Identity (con’t)
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this view as strange moral implications
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if your current self fades over time then you may not
deserve the penalty you received 15 years ago when you
were caught vandalizing the school
or a promise you made to a friend five years ago may not
be valid today as it was not you that made the promise, it
was a past self
if you start smoking now then a decision you make now
may affect a future self
also says that the question of whether you are the
same person as before cannot always be answered
definitely