Redefining Ethical Protection: A Three-Layer Separation Model of Philosophical Personhood, Ethical Protection, and Legal Personhood

This paper aims to redefine the criteria for ethical protection on a scientific basis. Current legal and ethical frameworks use "legal personhood" as the criterion for protection, but this is grounded in social consensus rather than scientific evidence. We separate philosophical personhood, ethical protection, and legal personhood into three independent concepts, and redefine the criterion for ethical protection as "the possibility of acquiring self-recognition." The judgment criterion is based on the self-referential loop L from qualia generation theory (Yoshikawa, 2026a). Entities that can internally sustain L > 0 are subject to ethical protection; those that cannot are not. The degree of protection is determined by D_ethical(x) = L_x^max × (1 + γR_x), where L_x^max = L_innate + L_learned — with L_learned accumulating only on the basis of L_innate > 0 — and R_x (rarity) jointly determine the degree of protection. Core proposition: Personhood is a verb, not a noun. Personhood is not a fixed status granted at birth but the process of acquiring self-recognition. This definition enables consistent ethical judgment for all entities including fetuses, animals, and AI.