Theories on Personhood

Personhood tends to be an extremely controversial subject amongst

many people with varying views. One of the most controversial topic
specifically of the past election cycle is the right for women to have an
abortion, this topic tends to stir up large debates and spawns an immense
amount of controversy. Within this essay, I want to discuss various theories
on Personhood written up by scholars, philosophers and regular people.

Philosophers consider Persons to be beings who are part of our moral

community and that they deserve moral consideration. One example that is
mentioned is that Superman isnt technically a human being however seeing
him on a different planet acting human he would seem as if he were a person
to you even though he is Kryptonian being that he is affected by kryptonite
and the sun. In my eyes superman is a person as he has the primary
characteristics of a human being his personality, appearance, ability to learn
and communicate and his ability to feel and empathize for another being.
Those are all characteristics that I personally would classify as primary
criteria of what makes a person. There is a distinct difference between
human and person being that human is what we are biologically but person
being more confined to our personality and the way we interact with another
being.

Another theory and questions is that if it is possible to be a human

however not a person, for instance being a fetus is human but cant
communicate and does not have the before mentioned characteristics of a
person and what truly makes a person a person. Furthermore some people
believe that a person in a vegetative state are no longer human as they
dont have the ability to compute and process information making it
impossible to communicate with them and be able to contribute to society,
they are struck of their person like characteristics. I personally believe that
these both are very controversial topics that have a lot going for them from
both perspectives, however I do lean towards the idea that a fetus while
human is not a person until it can perceive and compute information and
communicate via noises, crying and laughter. Once a baby/fetus shows that
it can compute emotion and information I believe it becomes a person. This
simplified means that once a fetus can show emotion be it kicking in
response to an action thats when it becomes a person. A person in a
vegetative state is a different story being that this person is incapacitated
and going off the assumption that this human will never can receive its think-
ability I find it hard to believe that that human is still a person as it doesnt
really fulfill the criteria in my book as to what defines a person.
 Is a person able to surrender its personhood by an inhumane act such
as murder and rape? My answer in short is yes a person is still a person after
that person has committed the act. This meaning that just because you killed
a person doesnt mean you fulfill the criteria of what makes you a person as
you are still able to communicate and still able to compute and process
information in a sense that is understandable to other persons. Lastly I
believe that this simply turns a person into a bad person and is no longer a
contributing part to society as a whole.

One theory that is named is the Genetic Criterion meaning that you are a
person if you have human DNA and youre not a person if you dont. This in
my eyes is only what defines a human biologically and not what defines a
person due to the points that I mentioned earlier.

The Criteria for Personhood is an interesting theory that closely aligns

with my views and what I believe is the criteria for a being to be a person.
The only issue that I have with this theory is that it rules out younger
children which I do believe are persons as they can show emotion and
communicate with us being in laughter, crying or any other baby like
emotion.

The social Criterion is more forward thinking and will allow most people
to agree with it being that it is broad in its definition allowing nearly anyone
to be a person. The definition that whenever society recognizes you as a
person or whenever someone cares about you is also a primary
characteristic of personhood that I havent explored before. I agree with this
theory but would like to add my own criteria that Ive mentioned various
times throughout this essay.

To conclude I believe that there is no one step theory of what defines

personhood but many as there are many opinions. Furthermore, the
definition of personhood will vary person to person as views are different. If
you can show emotion, communicate with other people in one way or
another and can be cared for by others or are considered a part of society by
other persons then you are a person.