Personism is an ethical philosophy of personhood as typified by the thought of the utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer. It amounts to a branch of secular humanism with an emphasis on certain rights-criteria. Personists believe that rights are conferred to the extent that a creature is a person. Michael Tooley provides the relevant definition of a person, saying it is a creature that is "capable of desiring to continue as a subject of experience and other mental states".
A worldview like secular humanism is personism when the empathy and values are extended to the extent that the creature is a person, so for example apes get very similar rights while insects get vastly fewer rights. Consequently, a member of the human species may not necessarily fit the definition of "person" and thereby not receive all the rights bestowed to a person. Hence, such philosophers have engaged in arguing that certain disabled individuals (such as those with a mental capacity that is similar to or is perceived as being similar to an infant) are not persons. This philosophy is also supposedly open to the idea that such non-human persons as machines, animals, and extraterrestrial intelligences may be entitled to certain rights currently granted only to humans. The basic criteria for the entitlement of rights, are the intellect (thinking ability, problem solving in real life circumstances, and not mere calculation), and sometimes empathy, although not necessarily, as not all humans are empathetic; however, indifference in the pain of others and crime are certainly criteria for the deprivation of rights. Genuine empathy is not required to achieve acceptable behavior, but a digital limbic system and a dopaminergic pathways alternative, would deliver a more acceptable result for future MPs judging on rights expansion. Personism may have views in common with transhumanism.
