I remember now why I hated philosophy...

I had to blog for school. The topic assigned was: can animals and robots be persons? Sadly, my first thought to this stimulating academic challenge was "why do I care?" My motivation was not improved by the fact that little gem isn't going to be graded... it simply needs to be submitted.

I am so ready to be out of school.

Anyway, after telling people about this assignment, and after they stopped laughing (at me), they requested to read it. Enjoy the Deep Thoughts. If nothing else, I think you'll enjoy seeing Mr. Rogers pretend to be unafraid by a giant gorilla.


Can animals and robots be persons?

Before we can answer the question of whether an animal or a robot can be a person, we have to ask, “what is a person?”

The question is not easily answerable. Although this subject has been endlessly debated, at least since the time of Aristotle, we don’t seem any closer to coming to a definitive answer.

What is it that makes human beings “special” or “different” from either animals or machines? What is it about us that is distinct, unique to human beings alone, that qualifies us as “persons”?

In trying to answer this question, we’ve discovered only that we are less special than we originally thought.

We are not unique because of our biology or DNA. As science progresses, we have learned that, if anything, we are even more similar to animals than we believed. For instance, at the biochemical level, we share approximately 98% of our DNA with chimpanzees.

We don’t seem to possess any “uniquely human” capacities. Traits we thought were exclusive to us, such as tool-making, culture and logic have, over time, been identified in non-human animals: chimpanzees create spears for hunting, whales have a unique culture, and "Rio" the sea lion understands the principles of symmetry and transitivity. Like us, it even seems possible for animals to learn language and then communicate with their favourite television personalities.

Compared to robots, the simple fact of our being “alive” may not be enough to distinguish human beings from advanced machines. If a computer can trick us into believing it is a person, or has a processor that functions in an identical way to the human brain, how is it different from us? One might say the difference lies in its programming but is programming so unlike from the socialization and learning processes that shape our own brains as we age? How is the learning and adaptation of a computer so different from the processes of education and discovery that we all undergo?

In the end, it seems we are left without a single distinctive feature that human beings can call their own.

This may be for the best. Defining who is and who is not a person can lead to logical consequences that many of us may find objectionable. By using any restrictive definition of personhood it is inevitable that some human beings will be left out while some animals and machines will be included. For example, depending on the criteria used to define “persons”, individuals in persistent vegetative states, or people who rely on technology to keep their bodies alive may cease to be “people”.

Given the seeming impossibility of explaining what makes a “person” and the possible negative effects of any exclusive definition, why not classify an animal or a robot as a person? What is stopping us from extending personhood to non-human entities?

And here we come to perhaps the most interesting question: why do we persist in trying to distinguish ourselves from the entities around us? Is it species arrogance? Is it something deep within our “human-ness” that intuitively knows we are especially unique on this planet?

Perhaps it is something a bit baser: I believe we try to maintain these un-maintainable separations between human beings and animals and human beings and machines because we are afraid of the implications of recognizing non-human life forms as persons. If we are forced to recognize some robots and animals as persons, upon what basis can we then deny them rights? Recognizing non-human beings as “persons” will change our relationship with these entities and will mean, in many cases, we can no longer justify our exploitation of them for our own benefit.