Persons, Animals, and Machines
- 1 October 1998
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Science, Technology, & Human Values
- Vol. 23 (4) , 384-398
- https://doi.org/10.1177/016224399802300402
Abstract
What is the relationship between persons, animals, and machines? The author first presents a form of argument against any attempt to reduce biology to mechanism. He then runs a parallel argument for psychology and biology. But although he tries to resist reduction, he insists that to bring into being a person or an animal requires no more than the construction of a certain sort of machine, or causal engine, such that certain normative standards can be applied to its behavior If to call an entity a machine is to forego such commitments, then, trivially, no animal or person could be a machine. If the term "machine" implies no more than the presence of a causal engine, natural or artificial, then machines can be, and some are, animals or people.Keywords
This publication has 6 references indexed in Scilit:
- The Content of Perceptual ExperienceThe Philosophical Quarterly, 1994
- Consciousness ReconsideredPublished by MIT Press ,1992
- The Limitations of PluralismPublished by Oxford University Press (OUP) ,1992
- Explaining BehaviorPublished by MIT Press ,1988
- FunctionsThe Journal of Philosophy, 1987
- Thoughtless BrutesProceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, 1972