Citation
Woodruff, Michael L. (2016) Implicit mental processes are an improbable basis for personhood. Animal Sentience 10(2)
Commentary Type
Open Commentary
Thread
Mark Rowlands, Are animals persons?
Abstract
Rowlands argues that animals have implicit pre-reflective awareness and that this is adequate to create the unity of conscious thought required for personhood. For him pre-reflective awareness does not include intentionality and is probably an unconscious process. I suggest that his sense of implicit leads to significant difficulties for his argument and that including intentionality in the definition of a first-person perspective provides a stronger base for viewing animals as persons.
DOI
10.51291/2377-7478.1123
Included in
Biology Commons, Evolution Commons, Philosophy of Mind Commons