After landing on another world, you meet an alien creature native to that world. If it turns out that this creature is a person, that would affect the moral constraints on your interactions with it. In light of this, the U.S. Space Force’s Philosophical Squad—of which you are a member—has been tasked with determining whether the alien is a person. How would you do so? Justify your proposal
(a) describe which properties you take to be essential to personhood, and
(b) explain how your proposal will identify the presence or absence of those properties in the creature. (Your response should draw on some of the readings from Weeks 1 and 2 of our course.)
Style & Length: 500-600 words. Use a normal font (like Times), not a monstrous font (like Comic Sans). Grading will be done anonymously, so do not put your name on your final submission.
Suggestions: Keep your prose relatively simple. Use paragraphs to help structure your response. In general, think about what you have liked or disliked about the style of the different readings, then apply that to your own writing. This paper is short, but it is a significant part of your grade—spend time proofreading and revising it!
