Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Personhood
Some interesting ideas have been raised by the movie on Koko and the introduction of Donna Haraway. Apes (especially cases like Koko) and cyborgs (ie. OncoMouse) are considered border cases by Haraway. She suggests that we should extend personhood to apes and cyborgs. However, I see a possible slippery slope problem. If we extend personhood, where do we stop. Should dogs and cats also get personhood? Also, I think there is a difference between apes and cyborgs. Apes seem as if they would be restricted in their intelligence, whereas cyborgs seem to be able to be upgraded when needed.
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In my read of Haraway, it seems she may suggest 'personhood' for these things, but merely to create a space for critical thinking. I believe she realizes the 'slippery slope', and instead wants us to consider what is meant by 'personhood', and not necessarily stamp out this concept on every device, animal, and pseudo-human.
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