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Modern Moral Problems

Nonhuman Persons

Gerard Elfstrom asks what such creatures, if they exist, would be like and how much it matters morally.

For much of Western history, we have been confident that human beings are persons but no other creatures have that status. These beliefs matter because personhood has often been deemed a necessary requirement for possessing moral value. Recently, an American legal activist group, the Nonhuman Rights Project, has challenged the assumption that only human beings are persons. Their approach is simple. They assume that humans possess particular features that make them persons, then ask whether there is evidence that any nonhuman animals display these same qualities.

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