COMM 3110 Lecture 3: Modern approaches
Document Summary
For centuries it was generally accepted that the terms "person" and "living human being" were virtually equivalent. But over the last two decades, a number of influential modern philosophers, including peter singer, jonathan glover and john. As we will see, this has led them to some startling conclusions. For peter singer a person is a being who has a capacity for enjoyable experiences, for interacting with others and for having preferences about continued life. John harris a person is any being who is capable of valuing their own life. Once this kind of definition is accepted, there are a number of logical implications. Firstly it is immediately obvious that in order to be regarded as a person, you must have an advanced level of brain function. In fact you must have a completely developed and normally functioning cerebral cortex. Secondly, there must be a significant group of human beings who are non-persons.
