Case Study Where Am I Daniel Dennett

As a continuation to “Where Am I?” by Daniel Dennett, Dennett is now taking NASA to court over whether or not he deserves the right to a new body. Dennett has staked the claim that he is being controlled by two distinct entities; one of them is his actual brain (Yorick) kept inside a vat at a laboratory, and the other is a computer program (Hubert) which was originally designed to think exactly the same as Yorick, but has since diverged from Yorick to form the 2nd distinct entity. My job as a philosophical expert, is to advise the court on various issues related to this case, and the current issue at hand is whether or not Hubert is a person. With some thought experiments, I believe that I can convince the court that Hubert is indeed a person, and help persuade the judge to award Dennett a new body.
When deciding on whether or not Hubert is a person, we must first break down the problem in broader terms. The real question at hand is whether or not a computer can be considered a person. To address this question, we have to define the criteria of what must be satisfied for something to be a …show more content…
The being or system in this case, must have behaviors that are in line with the system’s beliefs, hopes, or desires. If the system meets this criteria, they have first-order intentionality. First-order intentionality alone is not enough to proclaim that something has met the full criteria of personhood though. To have the full status of personhood, something must possess first, second, and third-order intentionality. Second-order intentionality, is when something has beliefs and desires about beliefs and desires. Third-order intentions, which are necessary for communication, and the ability to be conscious about our decisions, is when something has beliefs and desires about second-order intentions of others. Being conscious about our decisions makes people self-conscious, and leads to the ability to make moral