The Ego Trick (baggini, Julian) / quote 117 of 254
Person is a functional category
That principle is that ‘person’ is not a biological category, but a functional one. Any creature, or even machine, that has the conscious capacities of a person is a person, irrespective of its species. That is why we recognise as people characters in science-fiction films who are human-like but of another species. Were we to be visited by any such friendly aliens, we would surely treat them as persons, not animals.