Human, Person, What's the difference?

[Robert Newman]

I am intrigued to hear the thoughts of others in this matter. This is a more philosophical discussion, so here's my question: Is it better to be a good Human, or a good Person.

Edit: This is the problem I've had in the past of being unable to get the correct concept to be conveyed. I should have put more information, but I wanted to see how people fared on their own without preset conditions.

My concept of a Person is one that would be along the lines of the individual that is able to produce clear, cognitive thought.

A Human would be more along the lines of the more Primal nature of humans, which, in itself, is not "Evil" truly, but more instinctual, as well as the focus on self-preservation.

As for the concept of "Good," for this debate, "Productive" would be a closer word to describe.

My Philosophy Professor taught that in order to understand, concepts must be defined, AND we usually have NO idea what we are actually talking about. Keep that in mind, this is not a "contest," instead, it is an exchange of personal thoughts no matter what the viewpoint may be.

Remember, I AM human, so if you think I have made an error in any of this information, please feel free to point out my mistakes, but direct insults are not the answer.

[Hutch Hogan]

I think that it is exceptionally difficult to define what a person is for the very fact that it usually relates to a vested interest in other topics, such as euthanasia and particularly abortion.  

To me a good person is a higher phrase than a good human as the good human pertains to a species specific trait while person could be applied to other species (at least in theory). 

[Abreo]

Here's what happens when I google human and person.

Person - A human being regarded as an individual

Human - A human being, esp. a person as distinguished from an animal or (in science fiction) an alien.

I could spend all day looking at definitions for this like these that don't really provide a possible discussion so before we begin you should probably define the terms for us otherwise this whole thing will just be pointless. 

[Yasmin]

I think it depends on what you mean by "good" and what you need to do to be classified as a good person/human. But also, if you are a good person then wouldn't you also be a good human? To me being a good human looks at the animal aspect of a human being. But being a good person would be looking at someone's personal traits and characteristic's. So I think that while being a good human is important. It is better to be a good person. 

[Abreo]

Perhaps you're a bad human if you don't reproduce, that is how evolution and biology are supposed to work after all. Even if you are a bad human I'd say you can be a good person if you don't reproduce.

[Noah Tate]

Until you can define "Human" and "Person" this discussion can't go anywhere, or at least it'll be hindered.

For now however, i'll use Yasmin's definition of a human being the animal aspect and a person being the personal aspect. Sam Harris describes morality (Good) as limiting suffering. For example: Murder is objectively bad because it causes suffering worse than non murder (I do acknowledge rare cases where perhaps murder would be preferable to the life one is currently living, but those are rare.) So if this is how we define morality, or being a good person, than it seems to me that being a good person would be in correlation with being a good human.

After writing that I realized that to ask this question is to think that there is a difference between our personal "Non-animal" characteristics and our more animal ones. As I have learned from Hank in SciShow, things like lying and altruism actually help our species. These are things that would normally be considered human traits, however they are apparent throughout nature.

The more I grow up the more I realize science has answers for questions we thought it could never answer. I don't think this is any different. 

Forgive me if I left anything out or made any mistakes. I hope that this will get everybody to think about this question from a scientific standpoint as well as its original philosophical standpoint.

[Lori S.]

Well, in terms of how we use the words every day, if somebody said to me, "You are a good person," I'd think I'd just gotten a nice compliment.

If they said, "You are a good human," I'd be unsure what they meant.