Gender and Personhood (Individual, Dividual)

Abstract

In Western philosophy, psychology, politics, and law there has been an extended debate about what constitutes a person. Naturalist philosophers have often focused on the human capacity for consciousness over time and the capacity to make models of the world an􀀁 to plan and act on these models. Other philosophers have suggested that huma􀀃s differ f􀀅o􀀆 nonhuman agents like animals or machines because they attribute meamngs and s1gmficance to things and acts. Western philosophers have often focused on what they see as the human attributes separating persons from animals such as "second-order desires": self-conscious awareness and reflective self-evaluation. Some philos_ophers extend such second-order desires and thus nonhuman personhood to ani­mals hke great apes and this has been enshrined in laws enacted in some countries.