This work offers a new theory of what it means to be a legal person and suggests that it is best understood as a cluster property. The book explores the origins of legal personhood, the issues afflicting a traditional understanding of the concept, and the numerous debates surrounding the topic.

This article introduces a new formulation of the interest theory of rights. The focus is on ‘Bentham’s test’, which was devised by Matthew Kramer to limit the expansiveness of the interest theory. According to the test, a party holds a right correlative to a duty only if that party stands to undergo a development that is typically detrimental if the duty is breached. The article shows how the entire interest theory can be reformulated in terms of the test. The article (...) then focuses on a further strength of the interest theory, brought to the fore by the new formulation. In any Western legal system, the tortious maltreatment of a child or a mentally disabled individual results in a compensatory duty. The interest theory can account for such duties in a simple and elegant way. The will theory, on the other hand, struggles to explain such compensatory duties unless it abandons some of its main tenets. (shrink)

This edited work collates novel contributions on contemporary topics that are related to human rights. The essays address analytic-descriptive questions, such as what legal personality actually means, and normative questions, such as who or what should be recognised as a legal person. As is well-known among jurists, the law has a special conception of personhood: corporations are persons, whereas slaves have traditionally been considered property rather than persons. This odd state of affairs has not garnered the interest of legal theorists (...) for a while and the theory of legal personhood has been a relatively peripheral topic in jurisprudence for at least 50 years. As readers will see, there have recently been many developments and debates that justify a theoretical investigation of this topic. Animal rights activists have been demanding that some animals be recognized as legal persons. The field of robotics has prompted questions about driverless cars: should they be granted a limited legal personality, so that the car itself would be responsible for damages? This book explores such concepts and touches on matters of bioethics, animal law and medical law. It includes matters of legal history and appeals to both legal scholars and philosophers, especially those with an interest in theories of law and the philosophy of law. (shrink)

The Article analyzes the notion of legal “thinghood” in the context of the person–thing bifurcation. In legal scholarship, there are numerous assumptions pertaining to this definition that are often not spelled out. In addition, one’s chosen definition of “thing” is often simply taken to be the correct one. The Article scrutinizes these assumptions and definitions. First, a brief history of the bifurcation is offered. Second, three possible definitions of “legal thing” are examined: Things as nonpersons, things as rights and duties, (...) and things as property. The first two definitions are rejected as not being very interesting or serving any heuristic function. Conversely, understanding legal things as property is meaningful, useful, and helps to understand what it means to say that animals are legally things. Defining things as property has certain rather important implications, which are analyzed at the end of the Article. For instance, not everything needs to be either a person or a thing: The historical institution of outlawry involved treating individuals neither as legal persons nor as legal things. One must conclude that the person–thing bifurcation is less fundamental than is often assumed. (shrink)

Hillel Steiner has recently attacked the notion of inalienable rights, basing some of his arguments on the Hohfeldian analysis to show that infinite arrays of legal positions would not be associated with any inalienable rights. This essay addresses the nature of the Hohfeldian infinity: the main argument is that what Steiner claims to be an infinite regress is actually a wholly unproblematic form of infinite recursion. First, the nature of the Hohfeldian recursion is demonstrated. It is shown that infinite recursions (...) of legal positions ensue regardless of whether inalienable rights exist or not. Second, the alleged problems that this might pose for the analysis are discussed. The conclusion is that one should not worry about the recursion as long as one understands correctly the role of the Hohfeldian analysis in normative reasoning. (shrink)

Professor Matthew Kramer is one of the most important legal philosophers of our time - even if the label 'legal philosopher' does not do justice to the breadth of his work. This collection of essays brings together esteemed philosophers, as well as junior scholars, to critically assess Kramer's philosophy. The contributions focus on Kramer's work on legal philosophy, metaethics, normative ethics, and political philosophy. The volume is divided into six parts, each focusing on different aspect of Kramer's work. The first (...) part, Rights and Right-holding, contains five essays addressing Kramer's work on rights and right-holding, including the Hohfeldian analysis and the interest theory of right-holding. The four essays in the second part, General Jurisprudence, focus on Kramer's work in general jurisprudence, from the compatibility of legal positivism with universal legal error, to his robust defense of inclusive legal positivism, concluding with reflections on his writings on the rule of law. The third part, General Matters of Ethics, contains two essays addressing Kramer's metaethical work on moral realism as a moral doctrine. The fourth and fifth parts, Freedom and Liberalism, have four essays falling within political philosophy, probing Kramer's work on negative freedom and political liberalism, respectively. The sixth part, Applied Ethics, contains two essays on Kramer's work on capital punishment and freedom of expression. The collection is rounded off by reflections on, and replies to, the contributions by Kramer himself. (shrink)

Obra ressenyada: Visa A. J. KURKI and Tomasz PIETRZYKOWSKI, Legal Personhood : Animals, Artificial Intelligence and the Unborn. Springer International Publishing, 2017.

The chapter argues that the traditional theories of legal personhood, which associate legal personhood with the holding of rights, are outdated and should be reassessed. Many modern theories of rights come into conflict with our convictions regarding who or what is a legal person. For instance, most jurists would agree that foetuses are not natural persons but new-born children are. However, if we apply the so-called interest theory of rights, we will note that foetuses hold various rights, such as rights (...) against certain forms of abortion. If right-holding entails legal personality, then foetuses are already legal persons. On the other hand, if we apply the will theory, which associates right-holding with the power to control others’ duties, then infants do not hold any rights at all – and are consequently not legal persons. This is why the chapter outlines an alternative theory of legal personhood. The main tenets of the theory are: (1) legal personality is not binary but rather a matter of degree, and (2) X’s legal personality involves primarily the endowment of X with incidents of legal personhood, much like ownership can be understood as consisting of separate but interconnected incidents. Rather than being a “solved” theoretical issue, the definition of legal personhood should occupy theorists more in the future. (shrink)

A relatively recent form of animal activism is lawsuits intended to declare some animals as legal persons. A pioneer of this approach is the U.S.-based Nonhuman Rights Project. This organization’s primary strategy has been to invoke the writ of habeas corpus, which protects the right to personal freedom of “persons.” The article criticizes the notion of legal personhood that the NhRP is employing and explains how an alternative understanding of legal personhood could perhaps make nonhuman rights more palatable for courts.

It has been debated whether the so-called attention economy, in which the attention of agents is measured and sold, jeopardizes something of value. One strand of this discussion has focused on so-called attention rights, asking: should attention be legally protected, either by introducing novel rights or by extending the scope of pre-existing rights? In this paper, however, in order to further this discussion, we ask: How is attention already protected legally? In what situations does a person have the right to (...) attention under current law? -/- Unlike (Chomanski, Neuroethics 16:1–11, 2023), who discusses an overall right to attention, or (Puri, Rutgers Law Record 48:206–221, 2021), who discusses an overall right to attentional privacy, in this paper we focus on two types of situations in which a person’s attention is already protected by legal regulation. Sustained attention-requiring tasks can be jeopardized by distractions whereas attentiveness to certain kind of stimuli can be jeopardized by immersive stimuli. That is why distractions are regulated in situations where an agent has what we call a concentration right and immersive stimuli are regulated in situations where an agent has what we call a duty to be attentive. The further analysis of these situations provides an understanding of the legal means by which attention is already regulated, which can be helpful when thinking about how it should be regulated in the future. (shrink)

C'est avec un eclat a la mesure de sa popularite, que se ranime la figure de l'athlete grec lors des Jeux qu'embrase un symbolique flambeau venu d'Olympie. Pourtant, connaissons-nous bien cet athlete si souvent invoque dans notre heritage antique? Pour tenter d'y repondre, cette etude recense tous les textes qui d'Homere a la fin du Ve siecle avant J.-C., y font reference. Or l'athlete, destine a se produire dans un spectacle sportif, est l'objet de bien des regards. a travers donc (...) differents genres litteraires et temoignages artistiques, sur le mode heroique, elogieux ou critique, dans une optique medicale ou sous le masque metaphorique, le voile se leve sur un athlete dont l'image emprunte bien des nuances, suivant la personnalite et la sensibilite de chaque auteur, suivant egalement l'evolution du cadre historique et la progression des pensees. De cette investigation, l'image de l'athlete ressortira-t-elle aussi exemplaire? (shrink)

In this chapter I focus on two problems facing immigration systems around the world, and Australia in particular. The topics addressed are chosen because each one involves important fundamental rights and because significant improvement in these areas is possible even if each state acts alone, without significant coordination with others. First, I examine refugee programmes, focussing specifically on the ‘two- tier’ refugee programmes pioneered by Australia with the introduction of Temporary Protection Visas by the Howard Government in 1999. Next, I (...) look at recent declines in refugee resettlement schemes from already stingy levels and, in relation to Australia in particular, I show how the tying of resettlement numbers to the number of affirmative asylum claims granted is both wrong- headed and counterproductive. The second area of immigration policy explored is family migration, another area where immigration systems around the world have been moving in the wrong direction, often via less than transparent administrative processes. Australia is no exception. While Australia’s family migration system is reasonably good on its face, in practice there are several factors which make the programme significantly less than satisfactory from the perspective of protecting the basic rights of migrants and, arguably more importantly, citizens. These problems can and should be fixed in straightforward ways, and since doing so would be more just, would have few— if any— significant negative consequences, and in fact would have a number of clear benefits, those changes should be made. (shrink)

We inhabit a world in which the market is a dominant institutional form of social organization. This influence is not without its critics, and there is considerable debate amongst political philosophers and policy-makers about whether the range of the market should expand or contract and, further, about the extent to which the market should be subject to constraints and government regulation. The expansion of the market into realms hitherto unknown is the theme of a number of recent books, including Michael (...) Sandel's What Money Can't Buy and Debra Satz's Why Some Things Should Not Be for Sale, which build on earlier work by, amongst others, Elizabeth Anderson, Margaret Jane Radin, and Michael Walzer. (shrink)

O texto visa tratar de uma problemática da Teoria do Conhecimento em correspondência com a Educação. Os problemas que surgem da relação entre o indivíduo pensante e o objeto de seu pensamento (como o solipsismo, a reflexão monológica e o dogmatismo) marcam as bases da produção filosófica tratada a partir de Kant em sua obra "Crítica da Razão Pura" (1787). A prova sobre os juízos sintéticos a priori leva Kant a formular um sistema filosófico, cujo método transcendental se apoia (...) na sensibilidade e no entendimento do sujeito sobre os conceitos. A fenomenologia de Husserl se fortaleceu a partir da filosofia de Kant, e sobre seu prisma existencial-hermenêutico, tratou do problema da dialética do conhecimento a partir do conceito de mundo da vida. O apriorismo subjetivista de Kant e o idealismo transcendental da fenomenologia de Husserl são criticados, atualmente, pelo filósofo Jürgen Habermas. Pela teoria da competência comunicativa, Habermas instaura novas bases para a relação sujeito-objeto e para a construção do conhecimento. O ser humano é um sujeito de potencialidade comunicativa, que desenvolve um novo conceito de emancipação, pela razão comunicativa pela qual a linguagem é considerada na sua dimensão de práxis social. A perspectiva habermasiana é bastante relevante para a educação escolar e para o desenvolvimento humano. (shrink)

Individuals and businesses make numerous payments every day. They sometimes have choices about what forms of payment to make or accept, and at other times are effectively forced to use a particular form. Often there is an asymmetric power relationship between payer and payee that raises the issue of whether one side unfairly exploits the other. Is it unethical exploitation for an employer to pay employees with a fee-laden payroll card over other more convenient forms of payment? Does the fee (...) structure of payment networks such as Visa and MasterCard unfairly exploit merchants? The bitcoin payment system is an ethical as well as technological evolution as it was designed to be an electronic payment system that does not rely upon trust. Can an entire payment system like bitcoin be “evil,” as charged by Krugman? Payment tools as such are ethically neutral, but can be used in an ethical or unethical manner. (shrink)

A number of recent papers have described the successful derivation of egg and sperm precursor cells from mouse embryonic stem cells—so-called “artificial” gametes. Although many scientific questions remain, this research suggests numerous new possibilities for stem cell research and assisted reproductive technology, if a similar breakthrough is achieved with human embryonic stem cells. The novel opportunities raised by artificial gametes also prompt new ethical questions, such as whether same-sex couples should be able to access this technology to have children who (...) are genetically related to them both.THE CREATION OF “ARTIFICIAL” GAMETESOver the past two years, a number of papers have been published detailing the first successful attempts at differentiating mouse embryonic stem cells into egg1 and sperm2 precursor cells. Previously, researchers had used embryonic stem cells to generate tissues such as brain, liver, and pancreatic cells, but not germ cells of any kind. Production of gamete precursor cells was achieved initially through allowing stem cell lines to differentiate more or less randomly, but recent research has focused on identifying the precise ways in which differentiation into gametes can be precipitated and controlled. These breakthroughs make it seem likely that ongoing research on human stem cells will yield similar possibilities,3 raising questions over the practicalities of what might be achieved with such “artificial” gametes. In turn, the novel opportunities presented by artificial gametes raise a number of ethical concerns.The initial breakthrough, namely the obtaining of egg cells from mouse stem cells, was achieved by means of relatively simple science. Rather than coaxing stem cells to develop into eggs using complicated cocktails of growth factors, researchers adopted standard cell culture conditions, but grew the cells at higher density than usual.3–6 Growing the cells in this way led to the formation of ovary-like cell aggregates, which (when separated and stimulated with …. (shrink)

No livro I da Ethica Eudemia, Aristóteles dedica um capítulo a considerações acerca de seu método. No entanto, analisando passagens de outros tratados do autor, é possível concluir que há algo comum que perpassa as diversas considerações acerca de seu método, a saber: que o ponto de partida de toda investigação é dado pelo que é mais cognoscível a nós, e todo o procedimento de investigação visa chegar ao que é mais cognoscível em si mesmo – o conhecimento estrito (...) do objeto, que inclui compreender suas causas. O objetivo deste trabalho é tentar compreender como esse procedimento acontece na investigação moral, que opera no âmbito do discurso e, portanto, das definições. Para isso, pretendemos analisar como acontece a passagem da análise do que é dado na experiência em direção ao conhecimento de suas causas, que é próprio de outros tratados aristotélicos, para a análise das opiniões vagas e imprecisas em direção às definições estritas com as quais a Ethica Eudemia pretende operar. (shrink)

In this article we explore the implications that remuneration,in its various forms, might have for drug-user counselors. A longphilosophical tradition has it that financial reward and altruism aremutually exclusive. Our view is somewhat different. We argue, contrathat tradition, that although financial reward in the guise of eithercommercial profit or wages is not in and of itself morally pernicious,it does confront counselors with ethical hazards. These are hazardsagainst which those involved in drug-user counseling need to beespecially vigilant.

Spinoza’s Ethics must contain some of philosophy’s most baffling statements. All things are animate; the order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things: what would I be committed to in agreeing with these doctrines? His austere mode of exposition, sparing of illustrations and discursive explanations, ensures that any answer must be highly speculative.His weakness for dark sayings seems to have communicated itself to some of his best-known commentators. Of course where a philosopher’s thought (...) is itself opaque one would be unreasonable to expect lucidity in a commentator’s exposition of it. However he has been described as holding puzzling, to my mind unintelligible opinions on subjects concerning which, as far as I can see, his own statements more naturally suggest a much clearer and more comprehensible interpretation. There are problems enough in understanding his thought without adding needlessly to the list. I think there has been such an addition in discussion of his doctrines about the causal relationship between God and finite creatures, and this paper is devoted to suggesting another account of his thought on that topic which combines, I think, the advantages of being more intelligible and a more natural construction to place on his own statements, than the set of opinions generally laid at his door. (shrink)

C. A. J. Littlewood approaches Seneca's tragedies as Neronian literature rather than as reworkings of Attic drama, and emphasizes their place in the Roman world and in the Latin literary corpus. The Greek tragic myths are for Seneca mediated by non-dramatic Augustan literature. In literary terms Phaedra's desire, Hippolytus' innocence, and Hercules' ambivalent heroism look back through allusion to Roman elegy, pastoral, and epic respectively. Ethically, the artificiality of Senecan tragedy, the consciousness that its own dramatic worlds, events, and people (...) are literary constructs, responds to the contemporary Stoical dismissal of the public world as mere theatre. (shrink)

Albert O. Hirschman was a development economist and political theorist whose work is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding how economic life figures in the political worlds we inhabit and the ways in which we give meaning to our lives in market-based societies. Perhaps best known for the distinction between 'exit' and 'voice', Hirschman was a prolific theorist who wrote about the role individual moral virtue and individual self-interest should play in economic activity, how economic growth in the developing (...) world might best be achieved, and the reactionary rhetoric of neo-conservative politicians in the late 1980s, to list but some of the areas he covered. Hirschman's writing was elegant; further, he understood the importance of the well-chosen word. He was, as this new biography by Jeremy Adelman shows, an economist for whom the essays of Montaigne were as important as the writings of Ricardo and Smith. (shrink)

Jason Stanley argues in his new book that propaganda is more prevalent within liberal democracies - and is of far greater concern - than is typically assumed. Indeed, Stanley suggests that the very idea that propaganda only proliferates within authoritarian regimes, which have ministries set aside for its production, is a central tenet of the propaganda of the West. Stanley's aim in this book is to outline the distinctive features of propaganda within a liberal democracy. On his account, the 'flawed (...) ideology' of vested and powerful interest groups undermines the genuinely valuable ideals at the heart of the democratic project; this is what he refers to as 'demagogic propaganda'. Although I am highly sceptical of the argumentative strategies Stanley employs, the book raises significant issues about the extent to which public debates in countries like the United States and Australia involve distorted conceptions of what democratic principles properly entail. Criticisms of the undemocratic and illiberal nature of political processes within liberal democracies are of course common on the left. Two key features set Stanley's work apart from much of that literature. First, he regards democratic principles as genuinely valuable and does not dismiss them as 'mere reactionary claptrap', as many in the New Left did forty years ago. Second, and more significantly, his intellectual background is highly unusual. Stanley is an analytic philosopher whose training was primarily in epistemology and formal semantics rather than in social theory or political philosophy. This is uncommon, since most analytic philosophers who are focused on epistemology and similar issues avoid political questions, a reticence of which Stanley does not approve. Indeed, the book is driven, as he says, by a profound sense of regret that analytic philosophy has surrendered many of its central questions to sociology and social theory. (shrink)

Over the past 50 years, we have witnessed a revolution in the organisation and social understanding of elite sport. Elite sport has been commercialised. Top-level athletes have become professionals who often receive remarkable levels of income and sporting events, such as the World Cup, are multi-billion dollar exercises that attract enormous levels of sponsorship. Many sports, such as cricket, have been substantially revamped in order to make them more appealing to mass audiences and, accordingly, more beneficial to sponsors and many (...) clubs, such as Manchester United, have become corporations in their own right. (shrink)

Invisible Hand accounts of the operations of the competitive market are often thought to have two implications for morality as it confronts economic life. First, explanations of agents economic activities eschew constitutive appeal to moral notions; and second, such moralism is pernicious insofar as it tends to undermine the operations of a socially valuable social process. This is the Mandevillean Conceit. The Conceit rests on an avarice-only reading of the profit-motive that is mistaken. The avarice-only reading is not the only (...) way of characterising the profit-motive, and there are some positive grounds for thinking the benefits of profit pursuit are better attributed to the "lucrephile", and not the avarice-only "lucrepath". (shrink)

This is a surprisingly good book. Published by Longmans in Great Britain as part of a series on "Education Today," it provides a very lucid and cogent first glimpse at the discipline of the philosophy of religion. The author's perspective is derivative of the analytic school, but what makes the book so valuable is that Goodall relates linguistic distinctions to Biblical categories. The author makes it obvious that he is a believer and authenticates the conviction that one can be a (...) believer and still sound like Flew or Ryle. The influence of Ian T. Ramsey comes through loud and clear. Goodall presents his proofs for the validity of religious statements with clarity and vigor. Worth the price of the book alone is Goodall's discussion of Lear's "The pobble who had no toes."--W. A. J. (shrink)

Consider the following dilemma. If it is possible to identify the cause of a person's action and beliefs - causes that are outside the agent's own conscious reasoning - in what sense can we say that the person chooses what she does or she thinks? If the person did not consciously choose, then it is reasonable to ask whether she should be held morally responsible for any of the subsequent consequences of her actions. This is the general territory of the (...) puzzle that Neil Levy's thoughtful and elegantly written new book addresses. He explores what scientific advances in the study of consciousness might tell us about our capacity for choice and, hence, our responsibility for those choices. (shrink)