{"id":1052,"date":"2019-01-06T01:30:01","date_gmt":"2019-01-06T01:30:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/?p=1052"},"modified":"2019-01-06T01:30:01","modified_gmt":"2019-01-06T01:30:01","slug":"the-quality-of-mercy-and-the-category-of-person","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/2019\/01\/06\/the-quality-of-mercy-and-the-category-of-person\/","title":{"rendered":"The Quality of Mercy \u2014 and the Category of \u201cPerson\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/weanimals.org\/pub\/blog\/TPS_Oct2011_web-0607.jpg\"><img width='300' height='200' border='0' hspace='5' align='right' src='\/~totl\/skywritings\/uploads\/pig_individual.jpg' alt='' \/><\/a>I\u2019m not really sure what \u201cperson\u201d means, other than people, which currently seems to mean the same thing as human beings, members of the human biological species.<\/p>\n<p>If some human beings are not persons, or some nonhuman beings are, then \u201cperson\u201d is probably a human socially constructed category rather than a natural or biological kind. <\/p>\n<p>And like all socially constructed categories, it can be modified and extended, as in dubbing temples, mountains or corporations formal \u201clegal persons.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But as unsure as I am abut what &#8220;person&#8221; means, I\u2019m sure about what feeling (sentience) means and what a feeling individual, a feeling being is. <\/p>\n<p>And I\u2019m just as sure that nonhuman animals are feeling individuals (sentients) as that other human beings are.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe it will help, somehow, to modify and extend the category \u201cperson\u201d to include nonhuman animals. It\u2019s certainly necessary if personhood is a club that it\u2019s necessary to belong to in order to qualify for mercy from human beings.<\/p>\n<p>Or maybe just being a feeling individual is enough, and knowing that feelings can be hurt.<\/p>\n<p>Whatever it takes to stop the horrors.<\/p>\n<p>Broude, Gwen J. (2016) <a href=\"http:\/\/animalstudiesrepository.org\/animsent\/vol1\/iss10\/5\">Who is a person? Whoever you want it to be<\/a> <i>Animal Sentience<\/i> 2016.112<\/p>\n<p>Harnad, Stevan (2016) <a href=\"http:\/\/animalstudiesrepository.org\/animsent\/vol1\/iss1\/1\">Animal sentience: The other-minds problem<\/a> <i>Animal Sentience<\/i> 2016.001<\/p>\n<p>Rowlands, Mark (2016) <a href=\"http:\/\/animalstudiesrepository.org\/animsent\/vol1\/iss10\/1\">Are animals persons?<\/a> <i>Animal Sentience<\/i> 2016.101<\/p>\n<p>Wise, S. M. (2012). <a href=\"http:\/\/digitalcommons.pace.edu\/cgi\/viewcontent.cgi?article=1736&amp;context=pelr&amp;sei-redir=1&amp;referer=https%3A%2F%2Fscholar.google.ca%2Fscholar%3Fas_ylo%3D2012%26q%3Dauthor%3A%2522wise%2Bsteven%2522%2Bperson%26hl%3Den%26as_sdt%3D0%2C5#search=%22author%3Awise%20steven%20person%22\">Nonhuman rights to personhood<\/a>. <i>Pace Environmenal Law Review<\/i> 30, i.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m not really sure what \u201cperson\u201d means, other than people, which currently seems to mean the same thing as human beings, members of the human biological species. If some human beings are not persons, or some nonhuman beings are, then \u201cperson\u201d is probably a human socially constructed category rather than a natural or biological kind. &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/2019\/01\/06\/the-quality-of-mercy-and-the-category-of-person\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The Quality of Mercy \u2014 and the Category of \u201cPerson\u201d&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3074,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3074"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1052"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1053,"href":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052\/revisions\/1053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}