The Tao of Personhood:
The Yin and Yang of the Property-Person Continuum
Linda MacDonald-Glenn, J.D.
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We are going to see the evolution in increments. Just as we are seeing the laws evolve toward recognition of pets and companion animals, we see an evolution in law of fetal personhood. We are going to see an evolution in the law as we merge with machines.
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One of the things I just mentioned earlier was the issue of sentience, the ability. It has been suggested that perhaps all artificial general intelligence should be driven by mammal-origin brains. The reason it has been suggested, that it be driven by mammal-origin brains, is so that we can experience basic pain and pleasure, because pain and pleasure is often described as the basis of empathy, and how can you have empathy unless you know what pleasure or pain is.
Traditionally, you have this person-property dichotomy in law, where non-human animals have been considered property. Women, children, and slaves were merely regarded as chattel until the mid 1800's and early 1900's, and yet nonhuman entities such as corporations and ships have been recognized and given rights as persons.
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The current legal spectrum recognizes that there are natural persons and that there are juridical [1] persons but there is currently no legislative or statutory definition of what it means to be a person, which is precisely why David Koepsell's [2] work in establishing ontology is just so interesting and so exciting. Rachel Fishman [3] uses the term "human being" and "person" interchangeably, suggested that the term "human being" mean any entity possessing more or one of the higher faculties such as the ability to reason, and the list goes on. 
The demonstration of awareness of self or any other higher faculty and any viable creature that is the result of ovum and sperm of parents who are human beings. The language I put here is viability because that is where the law is being drawn right now with regards to legal status. The legal status of personhood is drawn at viability. As viability changes my prediction is that the law will evolve with that, and continue to recognize viability as an important standard.
Some of the issues that we are going to be facing are privacy and confidentiality. One of the things about avatars and augmented cognition is if you are on the internet you can be hacked, so how do we preserve confidentiality and privacy? What obligations do we owe artificial research subjects?
Should we have an IRB [4] for experiments conducted in SecondLife [5], if the results are to be published? In the law, there is this notion of proportional autonomy; the more responsibilities you have, the more rights you have; the more rights you have, the more responsibilities you have. However, for children or for animals you might be entitled to a certain amount of rights but not so much responsibility. I think this idea of proportional autonomy is an important one.
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The military is working on the whole notion of synthetic humans. Again, we face the question of persons or property? We need a new lexicon, a new taxonomy, a new ontology. Are there some basic criteria for personhood? Should it be consciousness? We are grappling the issues of conscientiousness -- on what consciousness is, or maybe we should call sentience. Self-awareness is such a difficult thing to prove, it's not objectively verifiable. I'm not certain I could prove if I was self-aware. I certainly could not prove anyone else was self-aware. Is it just rationality? Then there are Joseph Fletcher's 15 propositions for personhood [6].
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That's kind of scary because I know people walking around, as I'm sure you do, who don't meet all these criteria, especially when it comes to concern for others. Capabilities relating to others. What beings should be considered as persons? As you see, I referenced the personhood for embryos referendum [7]; which I do not think is going to pass. I think most people recognize that that is still a problem in animals and artificial intelligence, but mostly we are going to see developments in categories in between.
There is the corresponding question of responsibilities with 
rights if we give robots or AI rights, what kind of corresponding, capability comes with that. I am the editor for the Women's Bioethics Blog [8] and there's been a bit of discussion about sex and marriage with robots and these are some of the little things that came out. First, AI would have to obtain the status of legal personhood.
I think it was Neil Levy [9] who recently came out with a book predicting that it would be Massachusetts that would have the first recognition of marriage between AI and person in about 50 years. But seriously, what do we, as the creators, as humans, as co-creators owe purpose-built machines who begin to reach awareness? Or to resemble awareness that becomes a selling point? Is it really something we should say is a selling point? In addition, again, would these be capable of experiencing pleasure and pain? The act of creating potentially sentient beings carries with it the corresponding responsibility for their actions and for the impact on the human community, the biosphere of the Earth and, really, the Universe as a whole as we start thinking about it.
Now there have been some really interesting court cases that have started to address the question what it means to be human. The first case, Toy Biz, Inc. v. the United States [10] had to do with U.S. Customs classifying certain action figures as dolls representing human beings. Now, Toy Biz argued in order to get out of paying the tariffs, that these were non-human. They were toys, they were robots and monsters, but they were non-human. In fact, the Court sided with Toy Biz and said that the action figures did not represent human beings because they had robotic features or monster-like features. I think this case will probably be outdated in the not-too-distant future but there it is. There is one of your first precedence.
Footnotes
1. Juridical - also juridic - adj. 1. of or relating to the administration of justice or the office of a judge 2. of or relating to the law or jurisprudence.
Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition. Massachusetts, Merriam-Webster, 2003, 679.
2. David Koepsell – David Koepsell, J.D., Ph.D. - an author, philosopher, attorney, and Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Buffalo whose recent research focuses on the nexus of science, technology, ethics and public policy.
http://www.geocities.com/DRkoepsell/ February 1, 2008 11:58AM EST
3. Rachel Fishman - Director, Parenting.com at Bonnier Corporation
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/2/718/b2b February 1, 2008 12:06PM EST
4. IRB - IRB/IEC (Institutional Review Board or Independent Ethics Committee – also known as an Ethical Review Board) - a group that has been formally designated to approve, monitor, and review biomedical and behavioral research involving humans with the alleged aim to protect the rights and welfare of the subjects. In the United States, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and HHS regulations have empowered IRBs to approve, require modifications in (to secure approval), or disapprove research. An IRB performs critical oversight functions for research conducted on human subjects that are scientific, ethical, and regulatory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_Review_Board January 24, 2008 2:43PM EST
5. SecondLife - Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely created by its Residents. Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by millions of Residents from around the globe.
http://secondlife.com/whatis/ February 1, 2008 1:53PM EST
6. Joseph Fletcher - (1905-1991) was an American professor who founded the theory of situational ethics in the 1960s, and was a pioneer in the field of bioethics. Fletcher was a leading academic involved in the topics of abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, eugenics, and cloning. Ordained as an Episcopal priest, he later renounced his belief in God and became an atheist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Fletcher February 1, 2008 1:55PM EST
7. [Colorado] Personhood for Embryos Referendum – Colorado for Equal Rights is sponsoring a ballot initiative for Colorado’s 2008 election. This proposed constitutional amendment will define a person in Colorado as a human being from the moment of fertilization, the moment when life begins.
http://www.coloradoforequalrights.com/ and http://www.coloradoforequalrights.com/files/cer_info_sheet.pdf February 1, 2008 3:35PM EST
8. Women’s Bioethics Blog – [R]ecruite[s] scholars and public policy analysts from around the world to provide daily news and commentary on the implications of bioethical issues for women.
http://womensbioethics.blogspot.com/ February 1, 2008 3:48PM EST
9. Dr. Neal Levy – Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Principle Research Fellow, University of Melbourne, Australia.
http://www.findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/... February 1, 2008 4:17PM EST
10. Toy Biz, Inc. v. United States, 248 F. Supp. 2d 1234, 1241 (Ct. Int’l Trade 2003)
http://www.cit.uscourts.gov/slip_op/Slip_op03/slip-op%2003-2.pdf February 1, 2008 4:31PM EST
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