Rights for Non-Human "Persons"

Transhumanism is not just about transforming humanity. Part of the movement seeks to redefine what it means to be a "person" extending personhood rights to any kind of intelligence, artificial or otherwise. (This, of course, means that humans without a sufficient intelligence, determined by elite minds, would not qualify as persons.)Yale is hosting a conference to discuss non-human personhood. It is called The Personhood Beyond the Human conference and the transhumanist group The Institute of Ethics and Emerging Technologies has the details:Personhood Beyond the HumanDecember 6-8, 2013Yale UniversitySponsors:  Nonhuman Rights Project, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, Yale Animal Ethics Group, Yale Technology and Ethics Working GroupA growing body of research shows that many nonhuman animals, especially great apes, dolphins and whales, and elephants, have self-awareness, intentionality, creativity, symbolic communication, and the other characteristics of “personhood.”  If at least some animals are psychological persons isn’t it time to extend the legal protection of ‘human rights’ from our species to all beings with those characteristics? Given pending advances in genetic engineering and computing having a clear agenda for what criteria are necessary for personhood, and what we owe persons, may soon become even more complicated.The Personhood Beyond the Human conference will tackle these quest...

Source: Mary Meets Dolly - January 30, 2013 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Transhumanism Source Type: blogs