What makes something a person? I believe that the term ‘person’ is given to a being that has certain attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and is part of a culturally established group of social relations such as kinship, ownership of property, or legal responsibility.
I strongly believe that people are made up of foundational blocks such as reasoning, emotions, intelligence, self awareness and consciousness. Sarah J. Maas quotes ‘Pity those who don’t feel anything at all,’ which conveys the importance of emotions. Emotions are one of the most fundamental principles that can classify whether something is a person. Sabaa Tahir once said that ‘Your emotions make you human. Even the unpleasant ones have a purpose.’ While it can distinguish whether or not you are a person, Shannon L. Alder rebuts that ‘Feelings are something you have; not something you are,’ implying that emotions are just something that you possess, rather than composing who you are.
Furthermore, there has been debates whether or not we can classify other beings such as aliens, AI and animals as people. I believe that because we don’t have the necessary knowledge of whether aliens actually exist, we can’t classify them. I also believe that while studies have shown that animals/plants portray similar characteristics as humans, we still can’t fully classify them as people.