Which animals are people?

You left out pigs, dogs and parrots. All have a limited degree of reasoning ability.

I think all animals have some awareness and some reasoning ability. The jury is out on plants because our knowledge is limited and they are very different.

Your definition would leave some humans out of the “person” category.

@cyndyh Yes I understand that there are people who don’t have full cognitive ability due to health problems but should still be considered people, so I should incorporate this into my definition.

@DarkScribe Are they aware of their own existence though?

@Marina Plants have no capability to process thoughts since they don’t have brains. They’re just biological growths without consciousness.

All definitions leave some humans out of the “person” category, @cyndyh and @doggywuv. For example, fetuses are genetically human, yet they don’t count as persons (hence the legality of abortion in most places). It would be very tricky to draw a developmental line when fetuses would gain personhood, just as it is (and has proven) hard to draw a line determining the personhood of humans with neurological/developmental disorders which limit cognitive abilities.

Also interesting to note is that the line determining personhood has drastically changed with time – back when slavery was legal in America, it was justified by saying that people of African descent were not truly persons and did not have the cognitive capabilities of caucasians.

Personally I don’t think anything that’s not a human can really count as a person, at least not legally… It would get WAY too confusing. This is certainly not to say, however, that they do not deserve to be treated with respect.

Please disregard my first reply to this question! Some humans ARE left out from my definition of “person” and that is how I intend my definition to be.

I think it mainly lies in our ability to communicate.

I think just about all animals have consciousness and intelligence. “Civilized” humans and their institutions just often say they don’t, to help them avoid thinking about the abuse and pain and suffering and destruction they inflict upon them, etc.

Being a part of some society is definitely not on my list of criteria for “right to live” – especially when the society is one of these responsible for causing extinctions, etc.

Which animals are people? It’s whichever we want to designate. Words and catagories are artificial. They are simply our inventions.

@AstroChuck So which animals would you designate as people?

My baby boy kitty with little man hands.

My Flower pot kitty who can figure out how to get into and out of any door, window, cabinet, etc.

And where do dolphins and androids fit into all of this.

I ask about dolphins for the obvious reason that we (mankind) have made a distinction between them and other types of fish because they can be taught to communicate with us and look much cuter than tuna (hence the usage of dolphin-safe nets being mandated.)

I mention androids because of the memorable exploration of all the ramifications of this issue in the STNG first season episode titled “The Measure of a Man

Because a scientist wanted to experiment with Data’s brain, it was necessary to precisely define where he fit into this very question in order to decide the ethical implications involved. Sound familiar?

I realize that there currently does not yet exist an android of equal capacity to the fictional Data, but someday there may very well be so considering androids in a discussion of this type may not be as far-fetched as it may appear.

I would posit that dolphins would qualify as human according to your categorization description.

But I think there are many implications in the question which should cause mankind to reconsider the attitudes toward the ethics involved in animal experimentation.

What truly is the measure of a man? And just exactly where is that line?

@doggywuv- Humans.

I do realize that dolphins are mammals rather than fish even tho I compared them to other fish. My typing fingers were going faster than my brain for a careless moment.

But it does serve to illustrate how arbitrary our classifications can be.

@Buttonstc I like the android question. In case you all couldn’t tell, I’m quite interested in theories of personhood, especially legal personhood in terms of medical ethics and philosophy. One question I’ve read about is in regards to modified human beings – cyborgs. How much of a person could be replaced by artificial parts before his/her personhood was lost? Or if you could transfer everything indicative of a human brain (like memories, thought patterns, etc.) into some kind of artificial intelligence machine, would they still be a person after the transfer? Technology is soon going to play a very complicated part in this debate about who is a person, and who therefore possesses human rights.

wha?

You should read Phillip K. Dick. He saw a future where androids would be seperated from humans due to there lack of empathy.

@filmfann Oooh, sounds cool. I’m going to make note of him, thanks!

spiders can figure out which side of a porch light to build a web, and the feat of doing so while hanging from a strand thinner than a human hair, yet stronger than a steel wire of the same thickness is accomplished despite wind speeds that sway them all sorts of directions. And they do it every night, until the first frost kills them.

@AstroChuck has it right. People will designate the cute animals as ‘person worthy’, when all it can do is purr and look pretty (and shit in a box) and completely ignore the ones they have a phobia of, even if the marvels that ‘icky’ creature can accomplish are beyond any human skill.

This is why the animal activist people get on my nerves. I feel the need to maintain a reasonable environment for other non-human earthlings, but when someone whines to me about eating meat, yet stomps a perfectly harmless spider flat because of an irrational fear, well then, I am calling foul. Being anthropomorphic brings with it a whole host of problems. I’m tempted to wear a fur coat just to see if someone wants to throw red paint on it. Beating the snot out of them with a baseball bat would feel pretty good after the little paint tossing scenario.

According to most people’s definition, people seem not to need intelligence (otherwise we’d only have 6 or 7 “people” left!).

@filmfann Philip K. Dick was a great writer, one of my favorites.

@Hobosnake people seem not to need intelligence (

Of course. Otherwise fast food suppliers would be bankrupt.

@evelyns_pet_zebra I don’t think spiders, or birds, “figure out” anything. Instinct guides them.

Dolphins
Whales
Elephants
Gorillas
Pigs

I’m probably leaving some off, but that’s off the top of my head.

@DrasticDreamer Just curious….why would you consider them “people”?

@Val123 Well, I don’t actually consider them people, obviously. I’m just answering the question for fun.

All of the animals I mentioned exhibit higher levels of intelligence and self-awareness. They also exhibit higher degrees of emotion than most other animals.

I noticed the similarities of intelligence in the animals you listed…I think I would say a dolphin would be the closest to being “people.” I don’t think we even know how intelligent they are, or even how complex their language is….

@Val, yet, they can adapt to different variations in the environment. We call things instinct that which we don’t understand. Don’t discount lesser creatures simply because you can use power tools. If spiders were as big as housecats, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion.

@evelyns_pet_zebra If spiders were as big as house cats I wouldn’t even be here!!

Oh, one more. Pet zebras are people as well.

I think that one basic criterion of personhood is being social and therefore capable of being socialized into human society.

Dogs, elephants, chimpanzees, parrots, and cetaceans would seem to fit the bill, insofar as they have social groups of their own. Pigs not so much, because they do not naturally congregate in social groups, and also because find it too difficult to use beings we grant person status as food. Prairie dogs, ants, and some herd animals are also naturally social creatures, but they are either too alien (ants, cetaceans) or too skittish (prairie dogs and gazelles), or too stupid (cows, sheep) to socialize as pets.

Also, we tend to consider humans who have been poorly socialized so that they become anti-social to be “animals.” Or fetuses, which have the potential to be human but which do not have consciousness and are not socialized as human beings. On the other hand, we socialize cats on the basis of mutual empathy into our social groups where they enjoy a limited form of personhood.

Another criterion is dignity as in human dignity. Not very long ago, we did not afford women or certain races the full dignity of personhood. Even now we seek to deny dignity to certain classes of people, such as prisoners and young children. The species we grant some modicum of dignity is, of course, based on their amenability to socialization into the human community. This, however, speaks more to our evolving respect for non-human life than it does the evolution of the other species.

@AstroChuck lurve to you for thinking so. Evelyn appreciates it.

@AstroChuck Um, what about wild Zebras? Or Pet Zebra’s who turn wild? Or wild Zebras who are tamed? Are they people too?