Lost cities / archaeology / ancient history

My own take on it is that it absolutely shouldn't require a designation of 'personhood' to stop animal abuse, although I'm very sympathetic to extending our 'circles of meaningful responsibility' based on similarity, especially to Great Apes. It just strikes me that anchoring it in personhood is a pragmatic idea based on the legal systems that exist, and that even were we to extend it to Great Apes, that would implicitly legitimise the slaughter of animals denied the designation. It might well eventually be extended further outwards, but I'd rather we first understood why animals are worthy of a protected status, and I don't just mean mammals, but also birds, fish, and insects.

Yes it's a very interesting idea is the extension of ethics. There's some provocative thinking around animism that I've been thinking about - It's defined as 'recognising that the world is full of persons, only some of whom are human, and that life is always lived in relationship with others. Animism is lived out in various ways that are all about learning to act respectfully (carefully and constructively)towards and among other persons...Persons are those with whom other persons interact with varying degrees of reciprocity. Persons may be spoken with. Objects by contrast are usually spoken about. Persons are volitional, relational, cultural and social beings. They demonstrate intentionality and agency with varying degrees of autonomy and freedom'. That's a challenging definition of personhood to work with of course !