What is a Person?

What is a person? This seems like an easy question, but appearances can be deceiving. Throughout the long sweep of human history, the answer to the question of what a person is has continually changed. Was a woman a person, or was she a piece of property? Or was she even a liability, something that had to be compensated for with a dowry before a man’s family would agree to take her on? Was a man alien to their immediate culture a person? Not if you were of African descent in the United Sta...