Agnostic.com

2 1

LINK What does it mean to be a "person"? That depends on your culture - Big Think

Ideas often taken for granted in the United States and Europe about what it means to be a person are, quite simply, not shared with other cultures.
Ideas about personhood in U.S. culture are largely a product of Christianity, in which personhood is inextricably tied to the notion of the soul. Only a being who possesses a soul is a person, and personhood is treated as a black-and-white matter: Either a being has a soul or it does not.

Matias 8 July 30
Share

Enjoy being online again!

Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.

Create your free account

2 comments

Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.

1

Slippery slope.

“In Christian-majority societies, it may not always be apparent to what extent our taken-for-granted notions of personhood derive from a Christian foundation, until they’re compared with other religious traditions. From my perspective, to embed these ideas into law – notably by banning abortion or even allowing its prohibition – is to embed theology into legal principle.”

There’s a bit of a Catch-22 here. In Christian-majority societies, it may not always be apparent to what extent our taken-for-granted notions of morality derive from a Christian foundation, until they’re compared with other religious traditions. The idea of law itself is derived from theology. The only way to remove theology completely would be to abandon law altogether.

skado Level 9 July 30, 2022

Because “religion” WAS the first “law”.

@MsKathleen
Exactly.

1

Ummm…SCOTUS jurisprudence has helped establish the popular legal fiction of corporate personhood to confer legal protections via the 14th amendment.

You can include a link to this post in your posts and comments by including the text q:679015
Agnostic does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any content. Read full disclaimer.