Personhood

This note is about the concepts of person and personhood.

Agent

Key Concepts

• Personhood is not only about humans
• Corporations already have personhood
• Other concepts without the baggage of personhood are likely to be better

Beyond Personhood

Personhood has imperial origins and Anthropocentric connotations that cannot be overcome and are thus not helpful strategically even if that can be of use to activists in courts tactically. This type of personhood is not even that good for humans as feminist critique has demonstrated.

Other, more relational notions are needed such as 'beingness' with relationality, vulnerability, etc. promoted by Deckha.

Deckha, Maneesha. Animals as Legal Beings: Contesting Anthropocentric Legal Orders. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2021.

Notes

Ontological and social nature of plants as occupying middle ground between

1. “animals as persons” (Singer 2001; Haraway 2007; Francione 2008; Wolfe 2012; Nonhuman Rights Project 2016) and
2. inanimate agencies if not personhood (Cohen 2014, 2015; Koch 2014; see Horgan 2015).

Nonhuman Personhood

Pain, Nicola, and Rachel Pepper. ‘Can Personhood Protect the Environment? Affording Legal Rights to Nature’. Fordham International Law Journal 45, no. 2 (2021): 315–78.