

Scientists say dolphins should be treated as 'non-human persons' - ca98am79
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article6973994.ece

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chc
Did the scientists say why their opinion on moral matters is headline news?

I don't even disagree with them. It's just that whether something should be
treated as a "non-human person" is a matter of values, and I don't think the
common set of values around personhood has anything to do with intelligence.
If you want it to, you need to change _that_ first.

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sigzero
I agree with your first sentence.

I do disagree with them though. I don't think there is such a thing as a "non-
human person" let alone applying it to the animal kingdom.

Edit: PETA must love it though

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chc
Then I think you agree with my entire comment. What I meant to get at is, my
values and these scientists' values are both uncommon and non-normative, so
they're pretty much irrelevant — most people don't care about the intellectual
or emotional qualities of the creature in considering whether it's a person.
The general heuristic is something along the lines of "Is it identifiably H.
sapiens and alive?"

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leed25d
so, uh, would they be able to make contributions to political campaigns?

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jpwagner
previous discussion:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1875014>

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TNO
What does that mean anyway? We can't even come to an agreement on how to treat
human persons.

