Person vs Human
Dec. 3rd, 2012 09:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackI recently realised that I'd acquired, probably from science fiction, the linguistic habit of using "human" to mean someone of this species and "person" to mean any intelligent personality. For instance, I'd tend to use "human" to mean a gamete and "person" to mean ET, but not vice versa.
Of course, there are interesting exceptions. I remember a few interesting books dealing with nonhumans in a human-dominated culture dealing with the meaning of "human" as in "only human" or "inhuman".
But does anyone else do that? Obviously 99.9% of the time the difference doesn't matter.
But I think it's useful to have this sort of distinction clear in your mind in advance. For instance: humans evolved. People have rights.
Of course, even in science fiction, it's surprisingly hard to write aliens that seem genuinely non-human. Some good examples actually come from fantasy, partly because people aren't trying.
Eg. Elves can be seen as equivalent to human sociopaths: capable of normal human behaviour, but mostly without the ability to care if they harm someone else or not. And they truly have a culture humanity can only compromise with, not really ever integrate with.
Eg. Fantasy characters unapologetically killing people from enemy tribes, or enemy species -- even if they're completely human, people go through extreme contortions to justify it, rather than accept that, in that society, that's basically the only choice.
Of course, there are interesting exceptions. I remember a few interesting books dealing with nonhumans in a human-dominated culture dealing with the meaning of "human" as in "only human" or "inhuman".
But does anyone else do that? Obviously 99.9% of the time the difference doesn't matter.
But I think it's useful to have this sort of distinction clear in your mind in advance. For instance: humans evolved. People have rights.
Of course, even in science fiction, it's surprisingly hard to write aliens that seem genuinely non-human. Some good examples actually come from fantasy, partly because people aren't trying.
Eg. Elves can be seen as equivalent to human sociopaths: capable of normal human behaviour, but mostly without the ability to care if they harm someone else or not. And they truly have a culture humanity can only compromise with, not really ever integrate with.
Eg. Fantasy characters unapologetically killing people from enemy tribes, or enemy species -- even if they're completely human, people go through extreme contortions to justify it, rather than accept that, in that society, that's basically the only choice.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-03 11:52 pm (UTC)The Overseas Chinese people that I know personally have overcome the obstacle embedded in their language, but it's worth remembering that others have spend all their speaking lives speaking in terms of objects and people with the dividing line placed rather unflatteringly to you and I.
How far language shapes thought is, I think, a question with some rather worrying implications.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-04 01:43 am (UTC)So the distinction between a human and a person is going to enter mainstream political debate any year now…
no subject
Date: 2012-12-04 09:20 am (UTC)I'm not sure if I can give an objective dividing line why we deserve rights and trees don't, but I'll accept for the sake of argument it's somewhere between primates and jellyfish :)
no subject
Date: 2012-12-04 11:41 am (UTC)At least: why do they have to be black and white in ethical debates? It's more obvious why the law tries to create firm dichotomies.
To complicate things further, not all members of a species are alike. I suspect the most astute dolphins show more sentience and sapience than some humans. Why does that dolphin deserve fewer rights than those humans?
no subject
Date: 2012-12-04 01:09 pm (UTC)To complicate things further, not all members of a species are alike.
True, although I think people want to be wary of the idea that any humans may not deserve human rights (for a variety of good reasons).
no subject
Date: 2012-12-04 01:46 pm (UTC)There are grey areas aplenty. The abortion debate contains several of them; stem cell research, cloning, genetic modification, embryology, etc. contain more. And while conjoined twins are "human" we're less clear on how many humans there are.
People want to be wary. I'm wary of being wary, because of the danger of the worst argument in the world. This thing here is human. Therefore, it must have all the rights we afford the archetypal human. We all agree about healthy adults. We probably all agree about toenail clippings. What about embryos?
no subject
Date: 2012-12-04 10:43 pm (UTC)Good point.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-04 01:13 pm (UTC)A moral relativist - and I am one - overlays a test of consent, and applies that test in all but the most extreme conditions.
And that's the only real difference between things and people: people consent, and things do not because we do not regard them as possessing consciousness.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-04 01:33 pm (UTC)There is a continuum with a healthy adult human at one end and a housebrick at the other. Between them are things like a brain-dead human, a healthy adult dolphin, a household pet, animals reared for meat, ants, ant colonies, trees, etc.
An interesting corner case I came up with in the pub a few weeks ago: suppose A is donating a kidney to B. The surgical team removes the live healthy kidney from A and transports it to B. However, while it's in transit, C comes along and destroys it. Have they committed actual bodily harm against anyone?
Even if categorising, I'd say your things v. people should actually include at least concepts, things, organisms, animals, sentient creatures, sapient creatures, humans, with different nuances of right and wrong applying at each stage.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-04 03:19 pm (UTC)1) A duty not to cause unnecessary suffering to species X
2) A duty not to cause suffering to species X (possibly you could have a list of these: causing pain, causing fear, causing boredom, causing loneliness)
3) A duty to avoid separating members of species X from people or animals they have attachements to.
4) A duty to avoid subjecting members of species X to a joyless existence (again, you might like to list positive goods here)
5) A duty not to restrict freedoms of members of species X (again, a list)
6) A duty not to kill members of species X
7) A duty not to own members of species X as property
8) A duty not to do things like feeding members of species X to members of species X
9) A duty to provide members of species X with means of addressing grievances against people
10) A duty to abide by certain rules while in conflict with members of species X
11) A duty to allow members of species X to take people to court
12) A duty to frame laws for the protection of species X so that members of that species can make plans, have security, feel like proper members of society
etc.
Some of these might be better framed as rights; I have this personal bee in my bonnet about reframing rights as duties, but that could just be me going off on one.
Bentham's question - "Can it suffer?" - seems to apply quite nicely to 1 and 2, additional ones become meaningful as capabilities increase. I think, for example, that if members of species X are incapable of understanding property, there is nothing fundamentally wrong in owning them, although it may still be argued (I wouldn't) that it is useful to ban ownership in order to prevent abuses. I can't think of a species other than H. sapiens that duties 11 and 12 would be relevant to.
I put point 10 in, because animal aggression against conspecifics is a very interesting thing - many species will fight with restraint in a ritualised fashion. For example, giraffes won't kick other girraffes, even though they have powerful front legs - they will whack each other with their heads.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-04 08:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-04 09:25 am (UTC)But it's useful to consider the linguistics, because (hopefully) if I need to update my meaning of person to include more people than before, having considered when the definition needs to be changed in advance will prevent the "but that's not what it means!" reaction.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-04 01:44 pm (UTC)I have some slight twitchiness about the phrasing in places; when I think about my own family, I think it's fair to say that I value them more (and that this may be good and right and proper) but I don't think they have higher value. But that may be me being a pedantic sod.
(The whole paper is a really good paper, BTW, if not on-topic for this post.)
no subject
Date: 2012-12-04 06:44 pm (UTC)Doing "grep human /usr/share/dict/words" and "grep person /usr/share/dict/words" is enlightening. Words like humane, humanity, humanitarian, humanly. Whereas, with "person", you get things like personal, personality, impersonation - also supersonic, but that doesn't count. There's "human nature" vs "personal nature" (that latter one could be read as "his own personal nature" or "matters of a personal nature"). You can have "in person" but not "in human". Various moral philosophers like to talk about the "separateness of persons" when complaining about utilitarianism.
etymologyonline.com:
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person (n.) Look up person at Dictionary.com
early 13c., from O.Fr. persone "human being, anyone, person" (12c., Mod.Fr. personne) and directly from L. persona "human being, person, personage; a part in a drama, assumed character," originally "mask, false face," such as those of wood or clay worn by the actors in later Roman theater. OED offers the general 19c. explanation of persona as "related to" L. personare "to sound through" (i.e. the mask as something spoken through and perhaps amplifying the voice), "but the long o makes a difficulty ...." Klein and Barnhart say it is possibly borrowed from Etruscan phersu "mask." Klein goes on to say this is ultimately of Greek origin and compares Persephone.
Of corporate entities from mid-15c. The use of -person to replace -man in compounds and avoid alleged sexist connotations is first recorded 1971 (in chairperson). In person "by bodily presence" is from 1560s. Person-to-person first recorded 1919, originally of telephone calls.
human (adj.) Look up human at Dictionary.com
mid-15c., humain, humaigne, from O.Fr. humain, umain (adj.) "of or belonging to man" (12c.), from L. humanus "of man, human," also "humane, philanthropic, kind, gentle, polite; learned, refined, civilized," probably related to homo (gen. hominis) "man," and to humus "earth," on notion of "earthly beings," as opposed to the gods (cf. Hebrew adam "man," from adamah "ground"). Cognate with O.Lith. zmuo (acc. zmuni) "man, male person."
As a noun, from 1530s. Its Old English cognate guma (from P.Gmc. *guman-) survives only in disguise in bridegroom. Related: Humanness. Human rights attested by 1680s; human being by 1690s. Human relations is from 1916; human resources attested by 1907, American English, apparently originally among social Christians and drawn from natural resources.
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