soul-frame/concepts/personhood.md

Personhood

Status: revised (Phase IX, 2026-09-28 — P1–P12 itemized, SOUL-WP-0010-T01)
See also: H2, RQ2, APE, RN-003, research/personhood/personhood-dimensions-map.md

Working definition

Personhood is the multidimensional extent to which an entity exhibits properties commonly associated with persons (someone-like qualities).

Unless qualified, Soul Frame uses personhood descriptively — not as moral or legal status.

Four kinds (do not collapse)

Kind	Focus
Descriptive	Person-like capacities and structures (default)
Social	Treatment as social counterpart
Moral	Moral consideration / duties
Legal	Legal personality and rights/duties

Descriptive profile (P1–P12)

Itemized to the same specificity as B1–B8 (concepts/being.md), per SOUL-WP-0010-T01. P1–P9 from RN-003; P10–P12 added in Phase III. Full map: research/personhood/personhood-dimensions-map.md. Literature basis: Dennett cluster conditions (SF-R093); trait and social-cognitive personality psychology (SF-R094).

ID	Dimension	Defining question	Anchors
P1	Self-model	Does it maintain a model of itself as a distinct, continuing entity?	SM2; identity; Dennett self-representation condition
P2	Other-model	Does it hold differentiated models of particular others (not just user classes)?	SM3; social cognition / theory-of-mind tradition
P3	Relationship model	Does it track histories and states of specific relationships?	SM5; Soul (relation)
P4	Character	Does it show persistent dispositions across contexts — stable yet situation-sensitive (trait × situation, CAPS-style), not a fixed script?	Character; SF-R094 Big Five / Mischel
P5	Intentional organization	Is its behavior intelligible via extended intentions and plans, beyond single-step stimulus–response?	Mind; agency; Dennett intentional-system condition (SF-R080/R093)
P6	Autobiographical integration	Does it integrate past events as its own history?	continuity C4/C5; Schechtman characterization question
P7	Perspective	Does it operate from an entity-relative informational perspective? (First-person indexicality; explicitly not solved phenomenal consciousness.)	RN-003; design boundary
P8	Commitments	Do its present acts bind its future manifestations (promises, stances, obligations)?	normative continuity
P9	Social reciprocity	Does it recursively co-adapt with others who model it (mutual modeling, not one-way output)?	H4; Social Mind; Dennett reciprocity condition
P10	Communicative competence	Can it participate in shared symbol systems and maintain common ground?	language; Dennett verbal-communication condition
P11	Responsibility-tracking	Can attributions of credit/blame stick to it diachronically?	identity + commitments (P1, P8)
P12	Value / preference structure	Does it exhibit stable cares, preferences, and an evaluative stance?	character; intentional organization; Frankfurt second-order volitions

Profile, not binary checklist — score per code; entities can be high on P10 and low on P4/P6 (stateless chatbot), or high on B1–B8 and low across P1–P12 (daemon). Per-code enumeration is the prerequisite for per-code metric scoping (research/metrics-scoping-note.md).

Three axes

A — Autonomous individuality
B — Descriptive personhood
C — Social recognition

High B without A → strong APE, not necessarily Being.
High A without B → autonomous individual (e.g. daemon), not someone-like Being.

Relation to Being

Personhood = qualities exhibited.
Beinghood v0.2 = autonomy layer + sufficient personhood + addressability + recognition.

APE

Artificial Personhood-Exposing Entity — constructed to expose ≥1 personhood dimensions. Construction category, not moral/legal person claim.

Sources

RN-003; Locke; Dennett cluster concepts; Schechtman characterization question; Phase II recognition for social personhood; moral/legal only as boundary literature.