Concept of persons

cular kind of relationship, containing identifica tion and empathy. There are links here to everyday experience. Within child psychiatry, one watches regularly how scapegoated children loose their 'humanness'. Attributions to them take on just the kind of nonhuman quality described by Oyebode; the child is 'an alien', "weird', 'like an animal', 'like a Martian', say the parents. They see the child's behaviour as having non-human roots: empathy is lost. Contrariwise, non-humans can legitimately be elevated to the status of'persons' within a particular

Sir: I enjoyed Dr Oyebode's article on the concept of persons In animals, humans and Martians (Psychiatric Bulletin, 1995, 19, 212-216). I agree with him that trying to operationalise fixed attributes defining personhood in others is problematic and that an "imaginative sense of kinship" better described what is really a parti cular kind of relationship, containing identifica tion and empathy. There are links here to everyday experience.
Within child psychiatry, one watches regularly how scapegoated children loose their 'humanness'. Attributions to them take on just the kind of nonhuman quality described by Oyebode; the child is 'an alien', "weird', 'like an animal', 'like a Martian', say the parents. They see the child's behaviour as having non-human roots: empathy is lost.
Contrariwise, non-humans can legitimately be elevated to the status of'persons' within a particular relationship. One thinks of people with treasured pets or the blind with their guide dogs. Such animals may truly be treated psychologically as human (for instance by real grieving at their loss or the wish to make a 'human' type burial).
If what is included as 'human' depends essen tially on a relationship, then this is by its nature subjective and does not offer any a priori rules about general social rights. Presumably these latter derive from emerging social consensus over time. However slow these may be to develop, I propose that this is safer than the alternative route described by Oyebode -abstracted defini tions becoming extended into general 'rights' outside any relational context.
For example Dr Oyebode points to this cen tury's discovery of personhood in 'the handi capped'. Is not this the end result of initial relationships derived from the personal imagina tive 'discovery' of particular disabled people as persons, leading through research and advocacy to gradual social consensus? Subsequently then this can be codified in terms of 'rights'.
Gaining such consensus will probably always involve a struggle against resistance because new inclusions into kinship represent a profound shift in group perception. We see the same in clinical treatment as a family struggles back into an emphatic relatedness with their child, restoring that child's 'humanness' as they do so.

Department of Child and Family Psychiatry, Booth Hall Children's Hospital Charlestown Road. Blackley, Manchester M9 2AA
Sir: Dr Green and I are agreed, I think, that the attempts by some philosophers to distinguish the class 'person' from the class 'human being' are problematic. In my view, the main problem is that they are liable to lead to conclusions which one finds instinctively repugnant, as for example when Singer (1993) says "we are now saying that many non-human animals have the same kind of right to life that normal humans have; and we are saying that there are some human beings -new born infants and those with severe mental retardation -who do not have this kind of right to life". Singer re-emphasises this point by saying "we have to recognise that there are still some humans -those with irreparable severe mental retardation -who are not persons and who do not have the same right to life that persons, including non-human persons have".
The purpose of my paper was to argue against philosophers like Singer by claiming that the notion human being has a significant place in moral thought and that our personhood (humanity) is not determined by possession of particular features such as consciousness, language, but rather by our imaginative capa city to see the other as like ourselves. Dr Green's point is to explain how 'our imaginative sense of kinship' may be grounded in the nature of a particular kind of relationship containing identification and empathy. I would prefer to argue that our imaginative capacity (what some authors now call having a theory of mind) includes such processes as identification and empathy which allow us to enter into relationships with others. However, herein lies the problem with this approach; it seems arbitrary and lacking in intellectual rigour. It can be misconstrued as saying that a person is anyone or anything I imagine to be a person and that this privilege is conferred by me upon others or vice versa.
There are difficulties whichever position one takes but in my view the position least likely to introduce a new form of discrimination based upon intelligence or brain function rather than race or sex is that shared by Dr Green and I. SINGER.P. (1993)  The Achilles' tendon of the classic drama is the fact that it cannot exist without an audience. It is the symbolism which speaks directly to the inner world of the audience that establishes it as an archetypal classic. This is by no means a pyrrhic quality.
The seer suggests that Oedipus himself is the cause of his city's problem; Oedipus is furious with denial at first, blind to his own identity. In confronting the secret of who he is, he persists with self-examination, similar to the process of psychoanalysis.
As psychological insight dawns, he now sees who he is, with ensuing guilt. In what could be seen as poignantly symbolic, he plucks out his eyes and is then led away to exile. In psychotherapy, it is usually a difficult task breaking through the defences that protect against hidden feelings, impulses, conflict or pain and it is only rewarding if insight is translated into positive action. This remains the lesson of the classic Greek tragedy.  (Psychiatric Bulletin, 1995, 19, 382) the term 'Lottomania' in a case regarding the incorporation of the National Lottery into a delusional belief system. I would like to describe a similar case within the psychogeriatric population who was seen only a few weeks following the institution of the Lottery. A 75-year-old married woman presented with a three week history of a hypomanic illness. She had a history of one episode of psychotic depression three years previously, successfully treated with ECT. As well as grandiose religious delusions, overactivity and a disturbed sleep pattern, she believed she had won Â£1000on the National Lottery (she had not in fact purchased a ticket). She believed the visiting doctors were members of the press and that her picture would appear the following morning in the national newspapers.

R. A. ADENIRAN
She was admitted under Section 2 of the Mental Health Act 1983 and quickly settled with neuroleptic medication and lithium. She has been well throughout follow-up and has still never pur chased a ticket for the Lottery.
It seems likely that these grandiose present ations will be seen quite commonly. However, recent media coverage suggests the National Lottery may be incorporated into a wider spec trum of psychopathology.