IB Philosophy 1.4 Personhood Key Definitions

Agency is the capacity of an individual to act intentionally and make choices, exercising control over actions and their consequences.

John Searle's Chinese Room argument challenges the claim that computers can genuinely understand or think. A person in a room follows rules to manipulate Chinese symbols without understanding Chinese, showing that syntax (rule-following) is not sufficient for semantics (meaning).

Compatibilism is the philosophical position that determinism and free will are compatible. Free will, on this view, requires not the ability to have done otherwise in a strict causal sense, but the ability to act in accordance with one's own reasons and rational deliberation, unimpeded by external constraint.

Moral agency is the capacity of a being to understand moral principles, distinguish right from wrong, and be held accountable for its choices and actions.

A moral patient is a being that can be affected by the actions of moral agents and to whom moral consideration is owed, regardless of whether it can itself act as a moral agent.

Moral responsibility is the status of being worthy of praise or blame for one's actions, typically requiring that the agent acted freely, with knowledge of what they were doing, and with the capacity to have done otherwise.

Moral status is the property of being an entity whose interests or wellbeing deserve moral consideration. Debated criteria include sentience, rationality, being the subject of a life, or membership in a biotic community.

Personhood is the status of being a person, typically defined by possessing certain capacities such as self-consciousness, rationality, moral agency, or social recognition, though the criteria vary across philosophical traditions.

Self-consciousness is the capacity of a being to be aware of itself as an existing subject, to reflect on its own thoughts and experiences, and to recognize itself as distinct from its surroundings and other beings.