The task on our slide was to "Draw a Venn diagram to show the relationships between: human beings, mammals and persons." The main purposes were to check how Venn diagrams work and to practice the drawing tool on the presentation app.
It was, however, also a question that I hoped would be interesting. As I said last night, it's OK if we do not agree on the answers.
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| diagram 1. The popular drawing |
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| diagram 2. Also a popular diagram |
Two diagrams tied for second most popular: one was three intersecting circles, none of which fully encloses another; the other was three non-intersecting circles. Both of these Venn diagrams had two supporters each.
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| diagram 3. The other popular Venn diagram |
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| diagram 4. Not a popular drawing |
But controversy is not a bad thing: it shows both that an issue matters people, and that further discussion by formal argument is needed.
I don't want to spend any more class time discussing it, but if you would like to, this blog is an appropriate place to continue that discussion about the relationships between the sets of things that are mammals, humans, and persons.
Diagram 3
My guess was that diagram 3. might have been a misunderstanding about how Venn diagrams work, or perhaps just unfamiliarity with the drawing tool on the slide. Diagram three says that: no humans are mammals or persons, and that no persons are humans or mammals. I think we do all agree that every human being is also a mammal, and that at least some human beings are also persons, which leaves the other three options as possible representations of the relationships between the three sets of things.
Diagram 2
Venn diagram 2. says that some human beings are not mammals, which I suspect we don't really think. Every human being I've ever met or heard of has also been a mammal. But if you think that there has been or could be a human being that is not also a mammal, please make your argument. (This could quickly become complicated, but I think there is an argument to be made for this view. However, if you want to support drawing 2. as the correct representation of the relationships between the three sets of things, you do have to make that argument. It's not something obvious.)
Which leaves diagrams 1. and 4.
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| Diagram 1b The anti-abortion diagram? |
If I had to guess, I would say that most people would agree with diagram 1. or a slight variation on it, 1b., where the circles for the set of humans exactly covers the circle for the set of persons; that is, a popular variation on drawing 1 says that every human being is a person, and that every person is a human being. This Venn diagram represents a common anti-abortion argument which equates abortion with murder, the killing of a human person.
And now we begin to see why it matters which Venn diagram correctly represents the relationships between mammals, humans, and persons. The different concepts behind diagrams 1. or 1b, and 4. reflect what it is thought the law should allow and not allow. Similar considerations apply to debates about the legality of euthanasia, which, like abortion, is literally a life and death issue.
Another area where it matters which is the correct Venn diagram is our diet: if some mammals other than humans are also persons, then killing them for no better reason than to turn them into breakfast or dinner would seem to be morally equivalent to snacking on some human beings, which most human persons tend to think is not in fact OK, even for those humans we might not like very much. Should we really be turning all of those animals into breakfast meat? And a closely related issue: should we really be experimenting on those chimpanzees?
As I said, it does matter which Venn diagram is the right one. So, what do you think? Think about and present your ideas in a comment or two. And as with all such complex, controversial issues, it's not a bad thing to be a unsure, to explore possibilities.
Do you think that Venn diagram 1. or 1b correctly shows the relationships between mammals, human beings, and persons, or will you support diagram 4? And most importantly, can you persuade the rest of us to agree with you? What is your counterargument against the concepts represented by the Venn diagram you disagree with?
(I've assumed diagrams 2. and 3. are no longer popular options, but if you would like to, please support one of them.)
I totally agree with the diagram 1. Genreally no one can not argue that all human being and person are mammals, as everyone has to learn basic science since primary level.
ReplyDeleteAccording to lexico(2021), the source defines person as “a human being regarded as an individual”. I think that this evidence is clear enough to state that every person is a human being. This make me completely disagree that there is a person ,which is not human being,nis mammal. I think it’s not scientifically reasonable thought too.
Thank you Yok for kicking off the discussion.
DeleteI especially like your citing Lexico (Oxford Dictionaries) as a source for a useful definition of what a person is. That and what is commonly taught in schools are points that anyone who wants to support a different answer will need to address in their arguments.
Note that I've only said that Lexico's definition is useful. If anyone would like to argue for a different position, the ideas in "Peter: a K-ripple on the English flood", my summary paragraph which discusses the Oxford English Dictionary, might also be useful.
The reason I like Yok's citing of the Lexico definition of the English noun person is that it pushes us to consider the functions of dictionaries. Specifically:
ReplyDelete- What do dictionaries do? What is their job?
- What don't dictionaries do? What is not their job?
- What can dictionaries do?
- And what can't they do?
To give you more to work with here, you might like to consult the entry for the noun person in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which I've printed as a pdf file. (I didn't include the OED's supporting quotations, which I don't think we need and including which more than doubles the length of the entry.)
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ReplyDeleteHi Peter and Yok, thank you for your useful comments. I think it is worthwhile to spend times to consider which the Venn diagrams explain the relationship of human beings, mammals, and persons and what you have shared your ideas here are a good start. Initially, I agreed with Yok that all persons are human beings because I could not think of any examples that exemplify things that are not human beings, but are persons. However, Peter has left some suggestions that I needed to explore further. Peter's examples on non-human beings that are person-like (corporations, human foetus and chimpanzees), allowed me to think about what other things that have characteristics of a person. In some ways, it triggered this question to me: Is AI (Artificial Intelligence) a person? So I've done some research on the Internet and found that some lawyers think it is, but some think it is not. Because I have read about that issue, I think what we have discussed here is about 'personhood'. Philosopher Mary Anne Warren (1937) provides five common characteristics of things that consider as a person or having personhood: having consciousness or feeling pain, be able to give reasons, 'self-motivated activity', be able to communicate, having 'self-awareness'. Based on the definition of personhood, I support Vann diagram 4.
DeleteReference: Mary Anne Warren. (2021, October 10). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Anne_Warren
DeleteThank you Emma. Whilst I would support a different set of characteristics that contribute to defining something as a person, Warren's idea, which you have useful summarized for us, is the right sort. It gives a set of characteristics that we think are what make human persons matter as moral creatures who must be respected for those characteristics, not merely for having a particular set of chromosomes that chemically define us as human beings.
DeleteI also like your ideas about AIs, which are evolving at a rapidly accelerating rate. I know it's not real, but science fiction can give us helpful examples here. In the movie I, Robot, the robot Sonny appears to be a person, and after initially rejecting such a possibility, the cynical detective (played by Will Smith), comes in the end to see Sonny as a person, with the same set of characteristics that give moral value to human persons.
I don't think it matters whether Sonny is now or ever will be real. If we can imagine such an AI being a person, that is enough to show that being a person does not require being human. Similarly, if we can imagine aliens, also popular in science fiction, having all the features we now associate with human persons, that also shows that being human and being a person are two logically independent concepts, which might not always be the same sets, nor subsets of one another, but I am very sure that every human being is also a mammal, hence my Venn diagram 4.
Venn diagram 2 is in fact close to diagram 4. The difference is that it does not make humans a subset of mammals. It does, however, agree that not all humans are persons and that some persons are not humans. It also says that some non-human mammals are persons.
ReplyDeleteI will let someone else present the arguments that I believe support Venn diagram 4. In one of my classes last term, I used an essay by philosopher Peter Singer, in which he directly addresses the controversial issues brought to light by our competing Venn diagrams.
ReplyDeleteIn "Chimpanzees are people, too" (2014), Singer presents an argument that is essentially what Emma argued in her comment above (2021, October 13, 21:30). At 733 words, it is shorter than most of the readings in Skillful, and since Singer is writing for daily New York newspaper, he avoids the technical language of academic philosophy.
If you think Singer gets something wrong (he won't mind - he encourages readers to find weaknesses in his arguments), present your counterargument, and I will respond on Singer's behalf.
I've also prepared a version of Singer's essay that includes a Quizlet set to help with vocabulary.
DeleteFrom my googling, I found that the main character defined living thing as mammals: first, creatures that have hair growing from their skin, and second, having the ability to produce milk for raising baby, especially in female. So, it is strongly supported that every human is a mammal.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, the definition of person isn't synonymous with human. According to the law, a person is defined as: first, a human being. Second, a corporation is treated as having the rights and obligations of a person. And I have found some sources, maybe from Wikipedia, that telling the charecter of person including having reason, morality, consciousness, self-consiousness, ownership, and legal responsibility.
It showed that the company counted as a person is not a human being, and some humans with disabilities cannot have the same regal rights as normal human. So, I think all humans are actually mammals, but not all humans are counted as person and not all person are human.