What does the term “Person” (or “Moral Person”) mean in Ethics? What property or properties do you think distinguish a Moral Person from a “mere thing?” Why? What criterion of “personhood” did Kant defend? What criterion do Utilitarian defend? The resolution of several moral dilemmas depends on how Moral Personhood is defined. What are some of these issues? Why exactly does their resolution depend on how we define Moral Personhood?

Answer)

• Within a society or group, morals are known as rule of conduct and they are laws. Ethics defines the principles of right conduct and wrong conduct as well as the actions taken by an individual upon himself so that survival could be improved using logical thought.
• The term “person” is used by some thinkers in such a way that either one is person or not, however, the situation is not that much simple. Individual beings or moral agents are denoted by a moral sense of personhood. Moral agents of a society keep themselves engaged in a behavior that is evaluable as immoral or moral, morally wrong or right, and morally impermissible or permissible. The acts of moral agents are praiseworthy or blameworthy and holding them morally responsible makes sense for their intentional actions (Rachels, 2012).
• Human beings, ordinarily, are considered moral persons and moral agents. Nonhuman animals like cats, birds, fishes, and dogs are held commonly not be moral persons or moral agents.
• A moral person is an individual who used to follow all of the society or groups’ rules of conduct in which he or she lives. Furthermore, a moral person follows the society’s law. An ethical person and a moral person should not be confused with each other because an ethical person seeks to survive to choose between wrong conduct and right conduct using logical thought (Rachels, 2012).
• Using or treating someone “merely as a means” refer to a person that is simply using some other person to achieve what he or she wants out of situation. They are basically doing an action for another action, but exploiting him or her for own purposes. A moral person never follows “merely as a means”.
• To be a moral person, act like you are treating humanity; must respect humanity while using other people and keep it in mind that people are an end to their own selves and not at means to other people.