Personhood/non-human
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non-human personhood i.e. personhood of non-human beings
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Notes
The problem gets slippery in two directions when applied in this area:
- What, exactly, are the qualities by which we determine whether "personhood" is present?
- What if a person is sufficiently different from "us" that our laws should not be applied without alteration?
- Moral absolutists may hold that "rules are rules" and are valid regardless of the individual's circumstances or constitution, and (further) that any entity which is incapable of adhering to those rules (e.g. a hypothetical alien species whose normal lifecycle involves killing its own kind) is therefore not a person.
As of mid-2026, The question of whether artificial intelligence (AI) can currently be said to possess "personhood" has been settled in the negative – due largely to the fact that existing technology, while often presenting a very good imitation of a self-aware being in many respects, has not been shown to have the underlying thought-processes necessary for true self-awareness. (This rather elides the question of how we can objectively define or detect self-awareness or even "thinking", but the consensus within good-faith discussions has nonetheless been pretty firm on this point so far.) The technology, of course, will almost certainly continue to improve by orders of magnitude over the coming years and decades, so it will be necessary to keep revisiting these questions.