Thoughts on personhood

[Myles Domini]

Bored, late at night, decided to pen this having spoken about it with friends of mine in the academy. Your thoughts...?
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In our time there is much debate on personhood. What is a person? What makes him a person? How do we determine individual personhood? As one would expect with such a question a myriad of possible answers have been provided by various thinkers however I think the vast majority of these approach the question wrongly.

Take, for instance, philosophers who define personhood as self-consciousness. This seems to be a palatable idea at first glance but a closer look at this idea will highlight its inherent weaknesses. The most sinister and most obvious of which is accepting that the question is valid in and of itself whilst ignoring the further philosophical problems caused by doing so.

If one accepts that an individual can define personhood via predicates upon what basis are we establishing the authority of that individual? Are not all human beings equal? If so, how then can one individual’s opinion on such a question be deemed as weightier than anyone else’s? If not, why not? Is the authority to define personhood democratically conveyed in which case personhood can be said to linger upon the shifting sands of public opinion? What if the people choose to replace their democracy with a different system of government do the rules of arbitration again change? Instances of both these occurrences can be witnessed from the election of the Nazi party in Germany’s 1933 elections, where someone who was acknowledged to hate untermenshen and democracy received the public ‘nod’. By permitting a man to define personhood one must then argue why that man can do that and others cant and this pre-empts a long process of reasoning that is likely to end up in Nietchze’s lap. For the logical conclusion to these debates is not that a reason can be given for allowing an individual arbitration on the issue of personhood but that coercion to agree with what he opines can be forced by the individual’s will to power (I remind the reader that Hitler greatly admired Nietchze).

I for my part reject any notion that an individual can define personhood apart from what it is revealed as in nature. Each science follows the correct method when it permits itself to be moulded and shaped by its object. When the scientist attempts, on the other hand, to mould and shape the object after his own image and likeness he is bound to make serious errors. Words that arise out of nature have far more resonance and reality behind them than any fabricated concept. A natural word as opposed to a word twisted to suit the definition of the definer expresses an aspect of being apprehended and the word ‘person’ is no different. The word ‘person’ does not find its source in sophistry but takes its origin from what humanity was/is able to grasp from nature about its nature. In essence, in nature, humans are people and the word ‘person’ expresses this. Personhood does not subsist in its own right but is a predicate of humanity.

One might at this point say that not every human being is able to appreciate or express their personhood e.g. the infantile, the infirm or ill of mind. However, again we apprehend from nature that humanity is designed and ordered to be able to do so. Humans are not designed to remain babies nor is a cell or synapse in the body designed for the purpose of malfunctioning, indeed in healthy children language theorists have observed that babies begin listening and learning to identify speech from within their mothers’ wombs. If all humans worked according to their biological blueprint then all humans would be able to express their personhood, their apprehension of their nature as persons. Hence, from nature, we can garner that humanity has as a characteristic of its being: personhood. To argue from a privation in a human that he is not a person is like, to employ an unfit analogy, that the absence of fin upon a shark makes it less of a shark. It is observable from nature that a shark is designed to have a certain number of fins and thus we are able to identify it as a shark even when one is absent. Thus humans call this absence (of a fin) a privation (the absence of what should be present) and it strikes us as being unusual.

Humanity has derived from the observation and understanding of itself as object the apprehension that it is by nature personal. Consequently, it is incorrect to hold to the notion that a human being can ever lack personality in essence and that it is right to consider some humans as not being persons at all.

[Thy Geekdom Come]

Read "Selfhood of the Human Person" by Dr. John Crosby

[Myles Domini]

"Consequently, it is incorrect to hold to the notion that a human being can ever lack personality in essence and that it is right to consider some humans as not being persons at all"

Raph I'll look into that Dr Crosby title
btw, the conjunctive in this sentence links the latter part to the first thus everything after 'and' is also being called incorrect.

[scardella]

Interesting food for thought

Crazy Oxford types...

Edited October 14, 2005 by scardella