A person is the whole of 'er body with 'er own mental attributes and relations in addition to the physical characteristics of that body. One such mental relationship is that with a particular normative doctrine or ideology, with a particular system of morals or norms, or rather doxastic 'norms'. It is this morality which determines for the person concerned whether 'e should or should not act in a certain way, or whether 'e does or does not have the right to act in that way. Yet, these duties and rights are of an intrinsic nature. Even when we state what the being concerned should or should not do, has a right to or has no right to do, we do this in the first instance on the basis of our own (first-order) doctrinal principles.

Actually, when people say what another being should do or be on the basis of their normative beliefs, and not on the basis of its own morality (if it has one), and when they try to force this on that other being, they do not treat it as a person. For every being, animal or human being could be said to have to do or to be something on the basis of the speaker's own creed. Only by granting another being the right to do or to be something in accordance with the instructions of its own morality is that other being recognized as a person instead of a mere body or set of bodies (if it is a group of which all members agree with one another). It is this insight that persons, who have or can have their own normative principles, ideas and theories, should be respected equally as persons, which has a metadoctrinal foundation. The discretionary, fundamental right of every person to do or not to do something in agreement with 'er personal opinions, we shall henceforth call "the right to personhood".

The primordial right to personhood generates a whole extrinsic --the fundamental extrinsic-- right-duty constellation. It is not a human right, because it is a right a being has as a person, and persons need not be human beings, nor are all beings which are biologically speaking 'human', necessarily persons. It could be called "a natural right", but it should not. Firstly, the propositions and presuppositions of certain honored natural rights advocates (of later times) are too dubious to spontaneously associate ourselves with. Secondly, the word natural itself is --as already pointed out in 7.3.2-- one of the key terms of philosophical, ideological and everyday opportunism, and its confusion of the factual and the normative and other distinctions has but too often suited the affected speakers and thinkers too well. Thirdly, the right to personhood is not a 'natural' but a cultural right -- 'cultural' in that it concerns the development and use of an individual's or group's intellectual and moral faculties, and in that it concerns their status as persons, not as natural bodies. It is intrinsic rights which may be either cultural or 'natural' in this sense.

As the right of a first party in an extrinsic general right-duty constellation, the right to personhood is not only discretionary or exercisable but also an active right 'against the world at large'. It creates and correlates with the general nonactivating duty of all other individuals or groups not to interfere. Formally speaking, there is an unconditional reciprocity in an extrinsic system, and therefore the other individuals or groups have reciprocally the same right as the first party. Since the content of the right is now personhood itself, individuals or groups can solely have it as persons. Hence, with this specific content of the extrinsic constellation, the coexistent party is entirely a party of people, and of all other people.

The right to personhood is fundamental in that it is not derived from any other right. (One may say tho, that it derives from the normative, metadoctrinal principle regulating the relationship between a person and the doctrine in agreement with which 'e does or does not act.) But, like from every fundamental right, a number of more specific rights may be derived in turn. Such rights which are subordinate to the universal right to personhood we shall call "rights of personhood". (Likewise, 'rights of life' are instances of the superordinate 'right to life', and 'rights of conscience' instances of the superordinate 'right to conscience'. In the right of property, however, only of can be used, if 'property' is defined as a right itself and not as an object to which one has the right.)

It is now quite obvious that a number of alleged rights we have discussed, and which could be classified as general and extrinsic (at least partially), are nothing else than rights of personhood. The 'right to life' is a right of personhood if it is general and extrinsic (and therefore discretionary), and if life is interpreted as personal life and contrasted with personal death. The 'right to liberty' is a right of personhood provided that the liberty claimed does not require someone else's activation. And there are so many other, specific rights of personhood we have encountered before: the right to the pursuit of happiness, to freedom of thought and conscience, of opinion and expression, of peaceful assembly and association, and of movement and residence. As has been stressed before, this does not mean that any particular allegation of a right to life, or to freedom of something, must be the assertion of a right of personhood. It may only be possible to construe it that way.

From a metadoctrinal perspective, the claim that there is a fundamental, human, or moral, or natural, right to life in isolation could be called "nonsense upon stilts" (and as a matter of fact, also from a doctrinal perspective). Fundamental is only the personal, extrinsic right to personhood. It is from this right that the discretionary right to (personal) life and death derives, namely the right to live and to die. It is not until this right is analyzed that we arrive at the subordinate extrinsic right to life, that is, to a person's life, itself. But then, it is immediately joined by the right to death, that is, the right of a person to prefer (the risk of) 'er own death to 'er own life. To decide about one's own life and death, about the continuation or possible cessation of one's own personhood, is the ultimate and most dramatic form of exercising one's right to personhood. This may be the reason why so many have believed that the right to life was itself a fundamental right not expressive of their own, personal, creed.

Since the right to personhood is a discretionary right, there is a twin-right for every right of personhood of the same level (or else this right can be made so specific that it does have a twin). Just as the right to die is the twin-right of the right to live (on), so the right to be 'immoral' (in terms of a particular doctrine), if and insofar as this does not interfere with others, is the twin-right of the right to be 'moral'; the right to discriminate, if and insofar as this does not interfere with others, the twin-right of the right not to discriminate; the right to be punished, the twin-right of the right not to be punished, if and insofar as the punishment does not pertain to one's interference with someone else; and so on and so forth. This is what makes the right active and discretionary, and this is what personhood entails: a body may do things and leave things in accordance with the judgment of the person having this body 'imself. Yet, we must not forget that since the right is general and discretionary, it does not exist in the strictly ontological sense of existence. It is rather the correlative duty not to interfere with other people which is assumed to correspond to an existing norm.

Now, this brief exposition of the extrinsic right-duty constellation fleshed up with a genuine, but perhaps immoral, content may excite some people and shock others, or may both excite and shock them. When we ourselves do recognize and agree with the 'existence' of rights of personhood, it is because personhood is prerequisite for the evolution of normative thought, or of morality. Including ourselves, every person is fallible, and also in this respect we are all equal. On the other hand, when we feel that the view of personhood as outlined is nihilistic in that it does not encompass any social and economic morality, even no civil and political rights and duties in the strict sense, it is because we do already have certain doctrinal normative principles to base this judgment upon. It is on the basis of these principles that no-one has the right to discriminate, even when not interfering with anyone; that no-one has the right to be immoral, even when not interfering with anyone. We may all possess the greatest possible freedom to do or not to do what we want, yet such nonactivating freedom is a mere prerequisite for being able to attain what we should strive for. When the personal liberty inherent in the extrinsic right-duty constellation is contrasted with, and put above, murder, torture, assault, intimidation and violation of free speech, we have all reason to be excited by it; when it is contrasted with, and isolated from, solidarity, equality, nondiscrimination, minimization of suffering and a general duty of beneficence, we have all reason to be shocked by it or to feel disappointed.

By introducing a right to personhood we emphasize every person's autonomy and integrity. It may now also be objected by some theorists that we thus isolate the individual from society or the community in which 'e lives and of which 'e is an integral part. (Particularly those who claim that 'man' is rational, moral and free only as a member of society, or of the state, may not be interested in the autonomy of individual people by any manner of means.) This conclusion is erroneous, however, for in no way is it proposed or presupposed here that the individual's choice of morality or normative doctrine is, can or should be different from those of 'er fellows, or of all 'er fellows -- on the contrary. In a society or community in which everyone agrees, and in which there is a complete harmony between private and public ends (and this in itself is an asset) no individual will have to appeal to the right to personhood in practise. Yet, this does not mean that individuals would not continue to have this right. They do continue to have this right, and it is essential that even real unanimity and equality do not extinguish it -- just in case that.