In this past reading of Half Brother, we read with our fellow Turnberry students, the main character, Ben, did some thinking. He has a chimp for a “brother”, as he is being used for an experiment by his parents. Ben’s dad says that Zan isn’t a person so they can do what they need to with him. Ben thinks this isn’t right, and decides to look up the definition of a person in the dictionary.
per·son
/ˈpɜrsən/ [pur-suhn]
1. a human being, whether man, woman, or child: The table seats four persons.
2. a human being as distinguished from an animal or a thing.
3. Sociology . an individual human being, especially with reference to his or her social relationships and behavioral patterns as conditioned by the culture.
4. Philosophy: a self-conscious or rational being.
5. the actual self or individual personality of a human being: You ought not to generalize, but to consider the person you are dealing with.
Ben discovers that the dictionary classifies a person as human. Some people think Zan can not be classified as a person, because he is not human. The definition that Ben looks up in the dictionary states this as true. He is not a person because he is an animal. On the other side, some think that Zan is 100% a person. He has feelings, emotions, a family, friends, and favourite things. There is no reason that he can’t be a person. Being an animal doesn’t change the fact that he has human characteristics.
per·son
: a being, such as a human, that has certain capacities or attributes
I don’t agree that Zan is not a person. But I also don’t think he is fully a person. He is still an animal. I believe that to be a person, you need to have feelings and emotions, favourite things, a family and friends, and most importantly, an individual personality. I think that an individual personality and humanity is what makes a person, a person. Zan is mostly a person, in my opinion, because of these things. He is still an animal though, and always will be; he just has the character traits of a human and can then be classified as a person.
The criteria for being a person… are designed to capture those attributes which are the subject of our most humane concern with ourselves and the source of what we regard as most important and most problematical in our lives.
— Harry G. Frankfurt
I found this quote about what a person is very interesting. According to Mr. Frankfurt, it justifies that Zan is a person because he is concerned with Ben; his brother. Ben has always been Zan’s favourite, and gets along with him quite well. We also see that Zan looks out for Ben when he bit Ryan on the finger.
I’m really on the fence with this issue. I’m an 8 on a scale of 1-10; 10 being Zan is totally a person. Have you read this book? If yes, what are you? Do you think Zan is a person? What defines a “person”?
If your interested in the research and the project of teaching a chimp sign language, here are some interesting articles and videos that describe the project in more detail.
‘Project Nim’: A Chimp’s Very Human, Very Sad Life
Project Nim: The chimp that would be human
Frank 