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Structuring Concepts of Legal Personhood : On Legal Personhood as a Cluster Property

Hermansson, Johan LU (2023) In Revus - Journal for constitutional theory and philosophy of law 51.
Abstract
Legal persons have traditionally been understood as entities with legal rights and/or duties. This traditional concept of legal personhood has been challenged during the last decades: In legal practice through the global development in law where previous legal non-persons such as different non-human natural entities, non-human animals, fetuses and artificial intelligences have been ascribed, or been proposed to be ascribed, legal rights and/or status as legal persons; in legal theory through, inter alia, Visa Kurki’s Bundle Theory of Legal Personhood. The purpose of this paper is to critically assess the concept of legal personhood proposed in the Bundle Theory. After discussing the definitional structured traditional concepts of legal... (More)
Legal persons have traditionally been understood as entities with legal rights and/or duties. This traditional concept of legal personhood has been challenged during the last decades: In legal practice through the global development in law where previous legal non-persons such as different non-human natural entities, non-human animals, fetuses and artificial intelligences have been ascribed, or been proposed to be ascribed, legal rights and/or status as legal persons; in legal theory through, inter alia, Visa Kurki’s Bundle Theory of Legal Personhood. The purpose of this paper is to critically assess the concept of legal personhood proposed in the Bundle Theory. After discussing the definitional structured traditional concepts of legal personhood and Kurki’s argument against them, I will focus on the first main tenet of the Bundle Theory: That legal personhood is a prototype structured cluster property which consists of incidents which are separate but interconnected. I will argue that such a concept is untenable since the legal personhood of legal persons in positive law is not structured in this way. Lastly, I will suggest the use of a dual structured concept of legal personhood that maintains the benefits of previous concepts but avoids their major deficiencies. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Rättssubjekt, Rättssubjektivitet, Begreppsstruktur, Rättsfilosofi, Legal persons, Legal personhood, The bundle theory of legal personhood, Conceptual structure, Kurki (Visa), Legal philosophy
in
Revus - Journal for constitutional theory and philosophy of law
volume
51
publisher
Revus Klub
ISSN
1855-7112
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
f7050a2b-592c-4971-a6b3-bc3ea83565dc
alternative location
http://journals.openedition.org/revus/9933
date added to LUP
2023-12-30 12:42:28
date last changed
2024-01-02 10:50:05
@article{f7050a2b-592c-4971-a6b3-bc3ea83565dc,
  abstract     = {{Legal persons have traditionally been understood as entities with legal rights and/or duties. This traditional concept of legal personhood has been challenged during the last decades: In legal practice through the global development in law where previous legal non-persons such as different non-human natural entities, non-human animals, fetuses and artificial intelligences have been ascribed, or been proposed to be ascribed, legal rights and/or status as legal persons; in legal theory through, inter alia, Visa Kurki’s Bundle Theory of Legal Personhood. The purpose of this paper is to critically assess the concept of legal personhood proposed in the Bundle Theory. After discussing the definitional structured traditional concepts of legal personhood and Kurki’s argument against them, I will focus on the first main tenet of the Bundle Theory: That legal personhood is a prototype structured cluster property which consists of incidents which are separate but interconnected. I will argue that such a concept is untenable since the legal personhood of legal persons in positive law is not structured in this way. Lastly, I will suggest the use of a dual structured concept of legal personhood that maintains the benefits of previous concepts but avoids their major deficiencies.}},
  author       = {{Hermansson, Johan}},
  issn         = {{1855-7112}},
  keywords     = {{Rättssubjekt; Rättssubjektivitet; Begreppsstruktur; Rättsfilosofi; Legal persons; Legal personhood; The bundle theory of legal personhood; Conceptual structure; Kurki (Visa); Legal philosophy}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{12}},
  publisher    = {{Revus Klub}},
  series       = {{Revus - Journal for constitutional theory and philosophy of law}},
  title        = {{Structuring Concepts of Legal Personhood : On Legal Personhood as a Cluster Property}},
  url          = {{http://journals.openedition.org/revus/9933}},
  volume       = {{51}},
  year         = {{2023}},
}