Talk:Person

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Definition of a person

The sentence, "the definition of a person may exclude biological human entities (such as human embryos, or deformed human fetuses that lack major portions of the brain, or adult humans lacking higher brain functions)" is both unsupported by quotation, or reference, and dangerously leading towards an acceptance of such a view (which to put it charitably is at least moot). The very use of the word "may" is liable to induce thinking that what follows is allowed under some ideology or moral system. I invite a revision with a more neutral stand. 83.181.255.143 23:45, 25 August 2007 (UTC) Paolo

I have edited tis seciton slightly and added a couple of references. I assure you, this statement is accurate, and i can find plenty more references if you would like them included. Anarchia 01:56, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Being born has long been part of the definition of "Person". I can see wanting to change that, but until now that's been the understanding of the word. AThousandYoung (talk) 09:59, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Merge People into this article

Seems obvious to me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Radiosband (talk • contribs) 10:12, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

The articles seem completely different. Perhaps we need better disambiguators so that readers may find the correct article. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 13:46, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Legal fictions

Perhaps someone can improve the wording and provide a reference for the following, which I've just taken from the page (from a recent addition, that is):

"In regard to all Statutory Legislation (including the Income Tax) a 'PERSON' is a legal fiction and is entirely separate from a 'man-on-the-land' flesh and blood sentient man. You are not a 'PERSON', you have a 'PERSON'."

Best,Anthony Krupp (talk) 12:56, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Character=Person?

In any sense, especially a legal one, is the a precedent for classifying a fictional character or a non-fictional character as a person? Could one say Harry Potter is an actual person? The reason I am asking is I found that the Supreme Court of Canada head McLachlin chose to make this ruling, which has been used as a precedent to convict people. However, this interpretation seems like a jump, and has not been reflected by amending the Criminal Code of Canada to reflect this interpretation of the intentions behind the criminal code. The judgement in question is "Notwithstanding the fact that 'person' in the charging section and in s. 163.1(1)(b) refers to a flesh-and-blood person, I conclude that "person" in s. 163.1(1)(a) includes both actual and imaginary human beings.".

She preceded this statement with the explanation: "Interpreting "person" in accordance with Parliament's purpose of criminalizing possession of material that poses a reasoned risk of harm to children, it seems that it should include visual works of the imagination as well as depictions of actual people." (for source, see paragraph 38) Is it adequate to reinterpret a specific word like person solely for the purpose of following what you perceive to be Parliament's purpose and what you perceive to be a reasoned risk of harm? But moreso, should legal documents which use words like 'person' not follow in parenthesis (including imaginary people) to avoid confusing the public? Especially after such an interpretation you would imagine the Criminal Code would be amended to avoid future hubbubs. As it is, the precedent decision by Judge McLachlin is not even mentioned in the criminal code, meaning many people will not know of that addition. Tyciol (talk) 01:49, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

OR?

There is a literature of "personhood", so this article certainly doesn't need to be and probably isn't OR so I will remove the tag after confirming same or paste the OR here. 74.78.162.229 (talk) 15:46, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

rm "Advocates of alternative positions, such as a biological species or potentiality criterion, would instead need to provide arguments against embodied subjectivity as a basis for personhood. For example, one might argue that property claims are made by immaterial minds on immature material bodies, though any claim as to the nature of such minds would be necessarily speculative and would typically involve an argument for Cartesian substance dualism (see mind-body problem)." Will replace with proper text for Cartesianism coordinate with the Lockean and Kantian ones. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.78.162.229 (talk) 16:13, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

So above only thing removed but did do a substantial overhaul on the article cleaning up a mess of problems. Tag in question moved to section given least attention. 74.78.162.229 (talk) 16:55, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, completed an overall facelift on the article. As an example of OR I might have mentioned that effectively the principle of agency for chattel implicit in the assignment to slaves of fractional personhood has its analogy, magnified thousands fold, in the current real political situation in the US where corporations are effective superpersons who form a network of private tyrannies which together completely countermand the formal freedoms of the state framework in a very effective and rigid but diffuse authoritarian system which effectively suppresses anything outside of the world view expressed in the MSM and low-end working class wage laborers are marginal persons at best and more or less complete ciphers taken in the limit as a class. Lycurgus (talk) 15:39, 7 August 2008 (UTC)