Are we human because of unique qualities that we share neither with animals nor with machines? The definition of "human" is circular: we are human based on the qualities that make us human (ie, different from animals and machines). It is the definition of negation: what separates us from animal and machine is our "humanity."
We are human because we are not an animal or a machine. But such thinking became progressively less tenable with the advent of evolutionary and neo-evolutionary theories that posit a continuum in nature between animals and humans.
Our uniqueness is partly quantitative and partly qualitative. Many animals are able to cognitively manipulate symbols and use tools. Few people are as adept at it as we are. These are easily quantifiable differences – two of many.
Qualitative differences are much more difficult to prove. In the absence of privileged access to animal minds, we cannot and do not know whether animals feel guilt, for example. I love animals? Do they have an idea of sin? What about object permanence, meaning, reasoning, self-awareness, critical thinking? Individuality? emotion? Empathy? Is artificial intelligence (AI) an oxymoron? A machine that passes the Turing test can well be described as "human". But is it really so? And if not - why not?
Literature is full of stories of monsters – Frankenstein, the Golem – and androids or anthropoids. Their behavior is more "humane" than the people around them. This is perhaps what really sets people apart: their unpredictability of behavior. It arises from the interaction between the basic unchanging genetically determined nature of humanity - and the kaleidoscopically changing environment of man.
Constructivists even claim that human nature is merely a cultural artifact. Sociobiologists, on the other hand, are determinists. They believe that human nature—which is the inevitable and inexorable result of our beastly ancestors—cannot be subject to moral judgment.
An improved Turing test would look for confusing and erratic patterns of bad behavior to identify people. Pico della Mirandola wrote in the "Oration on the Dignity of Man" that man is born without form and can mold and reshape—actually create—at will. Existence precedes essence, the existentialists said centuries later.
The defining human characteristic may be our awareness of our mortality. The automatically triggered "fight or flight" struggle for survival is common to all living creatures (and appropriately programmed machines). Not so the catalytic effects of impending death. These are uniquely human. Appreciation of ephemerality is reflected in aesthetics, the uniqueness of our fleeting life breeds morality, and lack of time leads to ambition and creativity.
In infinite life, everything materializes at one time or another, so the concept of choice is false. Realizing our finitude forces us to choose between alternatives. This act of choice is based on the existence of "free will". Animals and machines are assumed to have no choice, they are slaves to their genetic or human programming.
All these answers to the question: "What does it mean to be human" - however, are missing.
The set of attributes we refer to as human is subject to profound change. Drugs, neuroscience, introspection and experience all cause irreversible changes in these traits and characteristics. The accumulation of these changes can in principle lead to the emergence of new properties or to the cancellation of old ones.
Animals and machines are not supposed to have or exercise free will. So what about the fusion of machines and humans (bionics)? At what point does a person turn into a machine? And why should we assume that free will ceases to exist at this – rather arbitrary – point?
Introspection—the ability to construct self-referential and recursive models of the world—is supposed to be a uniquely human trait. What about introspective machines? Sure, critics say, such machines are PROGRAMMED for introspection, unlike humans. To qualify as introspection, it must be FREE, they continue. However, if introspection is wanted - WHO wants it? Self-introspection leads to endless regression and formal logical paradoxes.
Moreover, the notion—if not the formal concept—of "man" rests on many hidden assumptions and conventions.
Political correctness aside - why assume that men and women (or different races) are identical people? Aristotle thought they were not. Many separate males from females – genetically (genotype and phenotype) and environmentally (culturally). What do these two subspecies have in common that makes them "human"?
Can we imagine a person without a body (ie Platonic form or soul)? Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas think not. The soul does not exist apart from the body. A machine-assisted energy field with mental states similar to ours today - would it be considered human? What about someone in a coma - is he or she (or it) fully human?
Is a newborn baby human—or at least fully human—and if so, in what sense? What about a future human race - whose features would be unrecognizable to us? Machine-based intelligence - would it be considered human? If so, when would he be considered human?
In all these considerations, we may be confusing "man" with "person." The first is a private case of the second. Locke's person is a moral agent, a being responsible for his actions. It consists of the continuity of his mental states open to introspection.
Locke's is a functional definition. It easily adapts to non-humans (machines, energy matrices) if the functional conditions are met. An android that meets the prescribed requirements is thus more human than a brain-dead human.
Descartes' objection that one cannot specify the conditions of singularity and identity over time for disembodied souls is correct only if we assume that such "souls" have no energy. Thinkable is an intelligent disembodied energy matrix that retains its form and identity over time. Some artificial intelligence and genetic software programs can already do this.
Strawson is Cartesian and Kantian in his definition of "person" as "primitive". Both bodily predicates and mental state predicates apply equally, simultaneously, and inseparably to all individuals of that entity type. Human beings are one such entity. Some, like Wiggins, limit the list of possible persons to animals - but this is far from strictly necessary and unduly restrictive.
The truth is probably in the synthesis:
A person is any type of basic and irreducible entity whose typical physical individuals (i.e., members) are capable of continuously experiencing a range of states of consciousness and permanently possessing a list of psychological attributes.
This definition allows persons without animals and reco
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