Human Beings and Homo Sapiens

Abstract

I opened this book with the question: what is it to recognise the reality of another human being — to recognise them as a human being? In having this question at its centre my approach contrasts sharply, in at least two ways, with philosophical discussions which take as their fundamental question ‘What is a person?’ First, my choice of the term ‘human being’ is, of course, closely tied up with the central importance which my discussion gives to the human bodily form. While that point will play an important part in this chapter I want, for the moment, to highlight the other obvious contrast: that between the form of the two questions. (It will make my discussion of this point easier if, for the moment, I use the terms ‘person’ and ‘human being’ fairly interchangeably: that is to say, roughly as we normally use them.)