The following was brought up by a fellow alumni of Columbia College, Carmen Price. The paper was given at the 2nd Annual Philosophy Confrence at Columbia College. The confrence topic was personhood; the title of her paper was “The Necessity of Considering Motivations…” I do not have the text of the paper, so this post will work off of her handout, my notes and my memory.

Her formal argument from her handout is as follows: (conclusions are in bold)

The Necessity of Considering Motivations Notes
by Carmen Price.

1. If S is a Person, then she is capable of reason.
2. If S is capable of reason, then she is capable of acts directed by reason.
3. It follows that if S is a person, then she is capable of acts directed by reason.
4. S is either capable of acts directed by reason, or not capable of acts directed by reason, but not both.
5. If S is a person, the it is not the case that S cannot commit acts directed by reason.
6. S is either capable of acts not directed by reason or not capable of acts not directed by reason.
7. If S is not capable of acts directed by reason, then S is not a person.
8. If S is a person, then S is capable of acts not directed by reason.
9. If S is capable of acts not directed by reason, then S is susceptible to some influence other then reason (i.e. motivations)
10. If defining S as a person requires that S is capable of reason, then defining S as a person also requires that S is susceptible to motivations.

The implication of the paper is that personhood must require non-rational action, or the presence of emotion. This means that purely rational beings are not persons. This has some intersting implications in the personhood debate.

Using this argument, which I believe holds, Aristolte’s God, and most people’s ideas of Robots cannot be persons. So, it would seem that God, if it is a person, must have emotion as a quality. Likewise, in order for a Robot to be considered as a person it too must be capable of emotion.

What do you think?

Hume broke all mental contents into two categories, “Impressions” and “Thoughts and Ideas.”

Hume maintained that Impressions were:

1. Sensate
2. All of our more lively perceptions (note the active “ing”)
   • Hearing
   • Seeing
   • Loving
   • Hating
   • Touching

All of our ideas have their root in impressions and therefore in sensations.

Thoughts and Ideas on the other hand are recollection or manipulation of impressions. Hume maintained that the recollection of an impression is infinitely less clear than the original impression. For example:

• Thinking of being angry
  vs
• Being Angry

Experiencing being angry is always much more vivid than remembering being angry.

Hume also maintained that the mind at first seems unlimited in its potential, but, following with Locke’s Tabula Rasa, the mind is actually limited to the base ideas that stem from impressions.