Although we tend to use the terms “person” and “human being” interchangeably, it hasn’t always been the case that all human beings were considered (moral or legal) persons, nor is the case today that all persons are human beings. Here in the United States, corporations are considered legal persons, and in several countries across the world, natural beings (like rivers, lakes, and ecosystems) have also been granted “personhood” status. Many people treat their pets as moral persons. Even when we don’t call out cats and dogs “persons,” we certainly distinguish them from other things (like a toaster!).

Social robots and generative AI have only amplified our confusion about “personhood” recently. Do we need more categories to adequately distinguish our moral and legal obligations to the beings with which we share our world?

In this episode, we discuss the following thinkers/ideas/text/etc.:

• Paczki Day
• Steve Albini, legendary producer and icon of the rock underground, who passed in May 2024
• J.G. Ballard, “The Garden of Time” (short story used as the theme of the 2024 Met Gala)
• Our Season 5, Episode 72 conversation with Stewart Motha entitled “The Rights of Nature”
• Our Season 5, Episode 73 conversation with Regina Rini entitled “Artificial Personhood”
• Immanuel Kant,  Critique of Practical Reason
• Etymology of the term “person”
• Roberto Esposito, Persons and Things: From the Body’s Point of View (Polity, 2015)
• Gaius, Institutes (c. 170 C.E.)
• The history of “corporate personhood”
• Kristi Noem, Governor of South Dakota, who shot her dog
• The grounds of moral status (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
• Environmental personhood in Ecuador
• Kant’s categorical imperative 
• Joanna J. Bryson, “Robots Should Be Slaves” (2009)
• Cartesian individualism and the Christian idea of Imago Dei
• Ubuntu philosophy
• G.W.F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit (1807)
• Philosophical pragmatism
• “Roko’s Basilisk” (the most terrifying thought experiment of all time)
• David Gunkel, Robot Rights (MIT Press, 2018)
• Social robots and human psychology (American Psychological Association)
• The Blake Lemoine/Google Lambda affair
• Leibniz’s identity of indiscernibles
• Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy (1641)
• Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity (1961)
• Our Season 6, Episode 81 conversation with Michael Naas entitled “Hospitality”
• David Gunkel, Person, Thing, Robot: A Moral and Legal Ontology for the 21st Century and Beyond (MIT Press, 2024)
• For an explanation of Leigh and her hatchets, check out Season 8, Episode 107: “Forgiveness”

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