Legal Personhood: Introduction

This is the first in a series of posts on legal personhood.

Legal Personhood

Legal personhood takes center stage in important debates about who can (or should) be protected by the law. For instance, the Nonhuman Rights Project has put forward petitions focused on "establishing the legal personhood of Petitioner, a chimpanzee known as Tommy, and granting him immediate release from illegal detention" (The Nonhuman Rights Project, Inc. on behalf of Tommy, Petitioners, v. Patrick C. Lavery, 2013). In particular, legal personhood is often thought to have a special relationship with legal rights. In a press release concerning the previously mentioned petition, Steven Wise, Nonhuman Rights Project President, remarked that "no one has ever demanded a legal right for a nonhuman animal, until now,” suggesting that legal personhood is a prerequisite for the possession of legal rights (Press Release re. NhRP Lawsuit, Dec. 2nd 2013).

Despite its practical import, the concept's contours are unclear. This lack of clarity is likely because no developed theory is needed in ordinary cases where judges deal with paradigmatic legal persons, namely adult humans with sufficient cognitive ability. But, as in the Nonhuman Rights Project's attempt to secure rights for Tommy, theory is needed when dealing with challenging cases. Legal personhood is likely to become a more important issue in the coming years because of increasing concern for animals and impending developments within artificial intelligence. As we move away from an anthropocentric worldview, the law will need to find a proper place for other kinds of beings.

In these cases, it is important to know what we are saying when we seek, ascribe, or deny legal personhood for some entity. Further analysis of the concept might even allow us to resolve debates more easily. For instance, it is often claimed that a lack of legal personhood relegates one to a mere object in the eyes of the law. If this is true, and furthermore, if only human beings can be legal persons, it is clear that our legal system cannot accommodate moral progress. As Judge Fahey states in Nonhuman Rights Project, Inc. ex rel. Tommy v. Lavery (2018), "While it may be arguable that a chimpanzee is not a 'person,' there is no doubt that it is not merely a thing." Legal theory thus has an important role to play in clarifying some of the most important moral debates of our time. 

This series will be composed of three parts:

• In part one, we will survey the history of legal personhood and the traditional bifurcation between persons and property. I aim to clarify the distinctions between legal personhood, personhood simpliciter, and moral standing, the latter two being non-legal notions.

• In part two, we will critically assess the prevailing theory of legal personhood.

• In part three, we will consider alternative legal ontologies.

By the end of the series, I hope for myself (and for any interested readers) to better grasp the origins, nature, and importance of legal personhood.