Personhood only makes sense with respect to (pre-existing?) persons. For example: -A person is a human being accepted by other persons for generic social interactions. -Persons are the result of a civilizing process, and can only be civilized by other persons. -Persons must treat other persons as persons. You might find the circularity of these definitions a bit disconcerting, but I will argue that its absolutely essential to the idea of personhood. What the circular/recursive nature of personhood means is that it will be a stable attractor in social-contract space. It also means that personhood is both contagious and sticky in human populations. Once the idea of personhood gets started within a community (more on this in just a minute), most humans will eventually get sucked in. Thats because personhood exhibits network effects — the more the merrier. Person-Person relationships are more productive and mutually beneficial than Person-Nonperson or Nonperson-Nonperson relationships. Thus the economics dictate that personhood will come to dominate the population, so that almost everyone who is able to meet the requirements of personhood is eventually inducted into its sacred order. Anyone who doesnt play along will be left out in the cold. meltingasphalt/personhood-a-game-for-two-or-more-players/
Posted on: Fri, 05 Dec 2014 08:52:21 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015