Over at Oxford’s Practical Ethics, Lena Groegner’s post on the dolphins as “non-human persons” issue is sober and short, but there is one bit that intrigued me:
The word has long been used to refer to non-human entities: in Christianity we find the three persons of the Holy Trinity, or in law we find the notion of “legal person” to refer to organizations like cities, colleges, or (stirring up quite a controversy recently) corporations. It’s commonly acknowledged that not all persons are human beings. But why should we consider dolphins persons, and what would change if we did?
A great point.
PS – how did I not think of the “Chicken of the Sea” pun? Newlyweds joke + uplift = so goooood
