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  • eduardog3000 [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    You define it for species' as a whole, not for individuals. And a definition that fits your criteria already exists: sapience.

    • Rufashaw [he/him,they/them]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Im going to assume you mean wisdom by sapience as they are etymylogical synonyms and I can find no other definition that would seem to fit your case. I doubt many would call young children wise and even if one did are you comfortable saying an unwise human has no moral worth? Can you kill an unwise human? Can you eat them. Also I cant think of a solid reason why one would define personhood on the level of species but if we do take it as fact. What makes you think every single animal species has no sapience? I don't think you have any evidence that they dont beyond a gut feeling. If you're looking at it from a risk perspective youd rather be wrong about them being people than wrong about them not being people. If you're wrong about not killing things that are not people it's no problem if you're wrong about killing something that is a person thats a big problem. And surely if sapience is this magical quality it would exist within the brain. Therefore the safe bet would to avoid eating things with brains yes?

      • eduardog3000 [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        What I mean is something closer to:

        The ability to know things and reason with that knowledge.

        Which is not at all the same thing as the usual definition of "wisdom". The things you "know" don't even have to be correct and the reasoning doesn't have to be very good, it just has to be present. The dumbest person you know is still sapient.

        Again you judge based on the species as a whole, not the individual.

        • Rufashaw [he/him,they/them]
          ·
          4 years ago

          The ability to know things and reason with that knowledge is absolutely present in animals like cows and pigs. Ill choose a relevant example cows have to get pregnant to produce milk and when they do their children are taken away from them. This is obviously very distressing. As this continues cows get more distressed by their children being taken away knowing they are not coming back furthermore when allowed adequate room to do so they will try to protect their children from farmers trying to take them away. They know something( I have just given birth and this is my child, all my other children were taken away by these farmers ergo I must protect my new child being taken away by these farmers) this seems to fit your definition of sapience and is just once example of many