Wednesday, August 10, 2016

What is a person? What are the characteristics of personhood?

Webster's Dictionary defines a person as (1) a human being.  A person is one who has the body and characteristics of a human being.  A person is a noun and can be a man, woman, or a child.  Persons have both a body and a mind. They have the ability to feel pain.  They often possess thoughts and beliefs that differentiate an individual from those around them.  The concept of a person was first articulated...

Webster's Dictionary defines a person as (1) a human being.  A person is one who has the body and characteristics of a human being.  A person is a noun and can be a man, woman, or a child.  Persons have both a body and a mind. They have the ability to feel pain.  They often possess thoughts and beliefs that differentiate an individual from those around them.  The concept of a person was first articulated in the 4th and 5th century Trinitarian and Christological debates.


Personhood is simply having the status of a person.  What beings have the status of a person has not always been defined the same way throughout history.  Throughout American history, there was a time when Blacks only counted as three fifths of a person.  Personhood is often defined in terms of the law, citizenship, liberty, and equality.  Thus, for legal purposes, animals, corporations, sovereign states, and estates in probate can hold the status of a person.  Therefore, the characteristics of personhood are those that are attributed to a person under the law in the society in which one lives.



No comments:

Post a Comment

What is the Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, and Falling Action of "One Thousand Dollars"?

Exposition A "decidedly amused" Bobby Gillian leaves the offices of Tolman & Sharp where he is given an envelope containing $1...