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Unexpected things that are people

bengoldhaber.substack.com

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Re: Unexpected things that are people

#11

Post by tyre »

robot-wrangler wrote: post #7

Thought provoking. Most people who (quite reasonably) hate corporate personhood would probably have a knee-jerk reaction that personhood for a river can/should be normalized. The thing with temples stems ultimately from fairly practical matters if they hold such treasure, but it's a magnet for strife, and actually kind of surprising that in the case-study mentioned they resisted the opportunity to justify abuse of po…

> Most people who (quite reasonably) hate corporate personhood would probably have a knee-jerk reaction that personhood for a river can/should be normalized.

Why do you think this would be the case? I agree with the former but not the latter.

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#12

Post by eatonphil »

metada5e wrote: post #4

I recommend reading the book 'For Profit' for deeper knowledge on this topic - the book covers the origin of corporations and the ideas lying behind legal personhood. It sounds like a dry read but it is surprisingly well written and as much about history as about law. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60568507-for-profit Criminal and Civil liability are the two topics to focus on - you will find that non-human enti…

Looks interesting, thank you!

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#14

Post by dudeinjapan »

jstanley wrote: post #9
robot-wrangler wrote: post #7

Thought provoking. Most people who (quite reasonably) hate corporate personhood would probably have a knee-jerk reaction that personhood for a river can/should be normalized. The thing with temples stems ultimately from fairly practical matters if they hold such treasure, but it's a magnet for strife, and actually kind of surprising that in the case-study mentioned they resisted the opportunity to justify abuse of po…

> Most people who (quite reasonably) hate corporate personhood would probably have a knee-jerk reaction that personhood for a river can/should be normalized. I would have thought that people who hate the idea of corporate personhood would also hate the idea of any other kind of non-person personhood.

Part of having personhood is that one’s ideas don’t have to have any logical or consistent basis.

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#15

Post by tyre »

Philosopher Martha Nussbaum filed an amicus brief supporting Happy the elephant’s rights as a legal person. She has a wonderful essay about this and personhood more broadly[0]

It seems like there are judges in the US who are sympathetic to the argument that elephants are clearly persons with consciousness, desires, suffering, etc. but that the ramifications of declaring them as such would be too chaotic.

One day.

[0]: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2022/03/10/what-we-owe-our-...

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#16

Post by leeoniya »

Barbing wrote: post #6

>In 2017 the New Zealand Parliament passed the Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Act, which granted the Whanganui river a ‘legal personality’ and endowed it with “all the corresponding rights, duties, and liabilities of a legal person”. Unexpected indeed, interesting!

i wonder how a river would be held liable for propery damage, or wrongful death

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#18

Post by xg15 »

chemotaxis wrote: post #5

Wouldn't personal property in the US fall under the same criteria, in the sense that the government can sue the property itself (civil forfeiture)? But I think the boring answer here is that we sometimes need legal abstractions. If they don't exist, Microsoft is no longer a distinct entity; it's 200,000 people who for some reason talk to each other, and you can't really audit their finances, punish them collectively,…

I think there is a difference between having some sort of legal entity to classify organized groups as - and that legal entity being equivalent of a person.

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#19

Post by robot-wrangler »

tyre wrote: post #11
robot-wrangler wrote: post #7

Thought provoking. Most people who (quite reasonably) hate corporate personhood would probably have a knee-jerk reaction that personhood for a river can/should be normalized. The thing with temples stems ultimately from fairly practical matters if they hold such treasure, but it's a magnet for strife, and actually kind of surprising that in the case-study mentioned they resisted the opportunity to justify abuse of po…

> Most people who (quite reasonably) hate corporate personhood would probably have a knee-jerk reaction that personhood for a river can/should be normalized. Why do you think this would be the case? I agree with the former but not the latter.

Well I think one can justify it emotionally or logically. People identifying as anti-corporate are probably more likely to align as pro-environment. The emotional POV would be that non-person-personhood isn't good or bad intrinsically, it just depends if we approve of the area where the doctrine's applied.

The more logical reason is that if corporate personhood sucks and we have it anyway, then like it or not, now we need to extend it elsewhere just to level the playing field. If anti-environmental interests can hide behind it as a justification that makes their fight easier, then let the environmental interests do the same thing.

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