In Message #424 Felicity wrote:
Ummmmm....why are you not dealing with my direct answer to your direct question?
Namely...
FI's QUESTION:
Is there some universal applicable and accurate description, regardless of physical nature, to distinguish people from mere animals as a
criteria for “personhood?”
FELICITY'S ANSWER:
The nature of the species must have the capacity for.....
Self-will......reasoning....comprehension of the abstract...extrapolation of information....ability to act or not act based upon self-determined reasoning.
That's why human beings are different from animals and are "special" and etc....Can you name another species tha has those characteristics?
Not responding to the relevent stuff and going off in strange directions makes you appear disingenuous in your challenge and in your arguments.
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I generally operate on the assumption that bald statements need to be supported. So I tend to present various sorts of supporting information for the statements I make. If the necessary data is in a strange direction, so be it.
Also, I HAVE been dealing with your suggested Answer, and I've been indicating that it isn't good enough. There is no need to reference a species in order to decide if an individual is a person or an animal, especially if the species uses K-strategy reproduction. And in some cases the word "species" is 100% inapplicable, due to its biological origins. What species is God, for example? Your definition implies that without species, God cannot be a person. And, what species will Artificial Intelligences be? While I know in a prior post you indicated you were not trying to introduce the Potential that an individual may reach, it really seems to me that by invoking species characteristics and applying them to the individual (especially an undeveloped individual), you ARE invoking Potential. For most of a pregnancy at least, an individual unborn human has NONE of these abilities: "Self-will......reasoning....comprehension of the abstract...extrapolation of information....ability to act or not act based upon self-determined reasoning." It merely has the Potential for them.
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ASIDE, TO ALL: Let there be no arguing that Potentials must be fulfilled. There is no such demand for this anywhere in Nature. For example:
Demonstrator outside abortion clinic: "Lady, your unborn child has such potential to help the world solve its problems; why don't you let it?"
Lady to demonstrator: "One of the world's problems is overpopulation. And YOU have such potential to commit truly spectacular suicide; why don't you do it?"
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In Message #425 Felicity: "A human is a person because the species has the characteristics I outlined" {and the list is:}
"Self-will......reasoning....comprehension of the abstract...extrapolation of information....ability to act or not act based upon self-determined reasoning."
Ah, not quite. "Self-will" is an individual characteristic, not something you can ask a species "in totality" to demonstrate, even when all the individuals have it. And
some of those others are doubtful. Mob psychology descriptions do not generally use the word "reasoning"...
In Message #426 Felicity first quoted: " Everyman's human nature is mostly an animal nature"
--and then wrote: "The point is: the stuff OTHER THAN what is man's nature that is equivalent to animal nature is EXACTLY THAT which defines the personhood of man. You tip your hand--that you understand that there is a difference between man and animal by your equivocating word "mostly"."
Heh, regarding hand-tipping, well, I'm pretty sure I've never claimed in any of my posts that adult humans were only animals. I've merely said that the Universe doesn't care either way. Humans matter only to humans, that is (so far as we know), and that subjective perception is part of the problem, because genuine objectivity is required to think about all PEOPLE being equal AS people, regardless of their nature. (Why, over in Piers Anthony's "Land of Xanth" fantasy series, even the zombies are generally nice people.)
Next, in spite of the mostly biological focus that most Messages in this overall Thread have limited themselves to, there does seem to be some valid scientific evidence for a non-biological aspect of humanity. Hard to duplicate as the experiments are, aspects of ESP continue to refuse to be proved not-there. For example, a couple months ago, on the Discovery Channel, there was show a test given to twin girls (aged about 10). One was wired for brain-wave scanning, and the other was taken some distance away into a separate room and subjected to various minor annoyances such as an ice cube down the back. The wired-up twin reacted in unison, every time. And NO ordinary physical explanation exists for this phenomenon.
Therefore, the use of the word "mostly" was strictly for technical accuracy; leaving it out would have not resulted in a completely true statement. NO EQUIVOCATION. Next, nearly all of the mental abilities of humans are also displayed out there in the animal kingdom, but merely to lesser degree than possessed by humans. Chimps and gorillas, for example, can do a certain amount of symbolic/abstract reasoning (and humans to not show much of this ability until nearly three years old). For humans to have a greater degree of traits than animals have does NOT make humans more than animals; it just makes humans animals with specialized characteristics. For humans to be more than animals requires at least one trait that, if any other animal also had it, then that animal also would be more than merely an animal. So far, the likely contender traits are Free Will -- demonstrable by choosing some other course than fight-or-flight when facing certain types of obstacle -- and the ability to see self in the situation of another. Not much else. ESP? I dunno; has anybody ever thought to design some ESP experiments for animals?
