Non-human Persons Research Articles

LEGAL PERSONS AND THE RIGHT TO PRIVACY

Abstract This article examines what the state of the law regarding the tortious protection of the privacy of corporations tells us about the concept of a legal person. Given that non-human persons are capable of having an interest in at least their informational privacy, logic would seem to dictate that they should be recognised such a right protecting their personality. In reality, the law is most hesitant to concede the right to privacy to non-natural persons (the same being true of reputation). This suggests that, for the dominant strand of the law at least, despite the rhetoric, legal persons do not really have rights of personality; in other words, that they are not really persons.

Практические задачи постгуманизма. Размывание внешних границ человечества

This article systematizes practical tasks that can be attributed to the implementation of the ideas of posthumanism. The reader’s attention is drawn to the erosion process on the external boundaries of human society. There are many lawsuits that recognize animal rights. There are several aspects to this process. The fi rst is the recognition of the rights of wild animals and partial bans on their keeping in captivity and the introduction into legal circulation of the category ‘non-human person’. The second is to reduce the number of laboratory animals subjected to lethal experiments in order to obtain new drugs and develop new methods of treating people. Previously, this activity was considered morally justifi ed. Currently, it is under the close attention of animal rights activists and is controlled in the legal sphere. The third aspect of the problem is the emergence of ways to take into account the rights of pets. If previously pets were equated with things, now there is a shift towards external control over the relationship between pets and their owners. Many countries have laws protecting the rights of pets. The fourth aspect of the problem is that new relationships between human society and the world of microorganisms have formed. If previously this world was predominantly interpreted as hostile and predominantly pathogenic microorganisms were studied, in recent decades microorganisms that have a beneficial effect on human health have begun to attract significantly more attention. Finally, the fifth aspect is the emergence and solution of new problems on the external border of humanity and the virtual world created by people. Previously, this world existed in the form of fantasies, religious concepts, art, folklore, etc. But the boundary between this world and real people was not fully realized. In recent years, artificial intelligence, intelligently operating mechanisms and much more have appeared in this virtual world, which makes this world equal to the human one.

Eating, sharing, and mutuality of being among the mentawai on Siberut Island, Indonesia

ABSTRACT This article examines the importance of sharing and eating in constructing personhood, reproducing social institutions, and reenacting social value. Based on 18 months of fieldwork among the Indigenous Mentawai living on Siberut Island (Indonesia), it examines eating and sharing that hint at food’s importance in the Mentawai’s idea of family, kinship, and mutuality. Eating and sharing food are not merely digestive activities; they constitute a process whereby the Mentawai redefine and remake their mutuality with others. At once material, moral, affective, and symbolic, Mentawai sharing and eating reveals how nourishment is shaped not just by food materiality or mode of livelihood but also by how they develop creative social relations with non-human entities. I argue that it is only by pursuing the Mentawai’s mode of thinking and relating with more-than-human beings that one may understand the centrality of sharing in bringing humans and non-human persons together in a shared world.

Contemporary Wolf Hunters in the Taiga of the Sakha Republic (Yakutia)

Abstract This article presents two ethnographic case studies illustrating the practices and perceptions of contemporary wolf hunters (volchatniki) in the Sakha Republic (Yakutia). We aim to show how contemporary volchatniki rely on individual strategies such as self-crafted technologies and hunting magic. Hunting of wolves must be understood in terms of mutual intimate sensory interplay, an exchange that can be perceived as intersubjective communication between human and non-human persons. This personal interaction creates bonds between humans and certain wolves, allowing some wolves to survive. Despite the technocratic attitude of the Soviet era that wolves were a pest species to be exterminated, volchatniki of today perceive wolves as conscious subjects displaying personality and character. Animistic assumptions of non-human agency play an important role in wolf hunting, in combination with technological advances.

"To See With Eyes Unclouded": Nonhuman Selves and Semiosis in "Princess Mononoke"

Responding to a robust archive of ecocritical work on science fiction, this paper argues for fantasy as a genre that can offer powerful tools for ecological thinking. Focusing on Miyazaki Hayao’s 1997 film Princess Mononoke, I argue that fantasy’s portrayal of an animistic natural world provides a framework for recognizing and respecting the subjectivity of nonhuman persons. Drawing on Eduardo Viveiros de Castro’s concept of multinatural personhood, this paper analyzes the ways in which animistic fantasy allows Miyazaki to portray plants, animals, and other nonhumans as agential subjects that must be respected. Further, using Eduardo Kohn’s work on the materiality of semiosis to examine instances of cross-species communication in Princess Mononoke, I argue that the film’s expanded conceptions of personhood and language counter anthropocentric narratives of mastery by portraying human knowledge as necessarily limited and incomplete. In turn, the acknowledgement of epistemological limits encourages an ethical attitude which resonates with Michael Marder’s description of plant-thinking as a mode that acknowledges the importance of the unknown and the unknowable. Ultimately, this paper calls for a consideration of how modes of thought and aesthetic representation that have traditionally fallen outside the purview of the scientific can offer resources for imagining human-nonhuman relations.

‘Even the Stones Will Cry Out’: Native American Cosmology, Theological Anthropology and the Mission of Creation

Based on a unique cosmology Native American theologians propose theological anthropologies which represent humanity as the weakest of all created beings. Accordingly, this paper will advocate reframing humanity’s call to creation care from one of superiority in which humankind cares for creation, to one of humility in which humankind is cared for by creation. This paper will begin by outlining a prominent symbol for a properly ordered cosmos across Native American contexts known as the Sacred Circle. By identifying the origins of Native American contextual theologies in a pan-Native American cosmology popularised by the teachings of Lakota holy man and Catholic catechist Nicholas Black Elk (1863–1950) it will introduce core tenets of Native American cosmology. The most prominent of these is the Sacred Circle’s representation of a cosmological priority for space over time, which is often linked to an egalitarian, interrelated view of the cosmos. By engaging a range of primary source texts from Native American theologians who continue the legacy of Black Elk by contextualising Christian faith in accordance with the Sacred Circle, this paper will recognise land as the locus of a tangible spirituality. Accordingly, non-human beings have spiritual agency and personhood, and human beings must learn to relate to them rightly to participate in cosmological harmony. Human beings may do this by recognising human fragility and dependence on non-human persons for survival. Therefore, humanity’s call to creation care begins and ends with humility, manifested through gratitude and reciprocity towards non-human creatures.

WILL THE GREAT PRIMATES BE RECOGNIZED AS NON-HUMAN PERSONS IN THE 21ST CENTURY?

Great primates have been an endangered species for more than fifty years. The continued pressure that humans make in the habitants and rainforests around the glove have pushed chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans, and gorillas to the very limits of their well-being. Nowadays there exists a big international pressure, which aims to release primates from their captive environments in zoos, or to promote the development of laws that protect these animals from suffering, hunting, and captivity. In order to accomplish this pursuit, it would be a great movement ahead to recognize the four species of great apes (aside of humans) as non-human persons giving them rights under which the law would protect them from human activities in their natural habitats and the captive situation they live in many countries around the globe.

Wolves as Enemy of the Soviet State: Policies and Implications of Predator Management in Yakutia

Abstract This article gives an overview of wolf extermination endeavours in Soviet Yakutia as part of state ideologies of human dominance over nature in the process of modernisation of the Russian North. The proclaimed wolf extermination was a large-scale operation planned and launched by state authorities in Yakutia involving bureaucratic, finance and human contingents, as well as the available infrastructure. Based on ethnographic research among game managers, wolf hunters and Eveny and Evenki hunting-herding communities, as well as archival materials on Soviet Yakutia, we demonstrate how state goals to eradicate wolves were sometimes unsystematic in practice due to the misuse of state resources as well as the difficulty in accomplishing this objective in remote and difficult to access taiga landscapes. Furthermore, while being involved in wolf eradication campaigns Indigenous communities also retained their vernacular notions of wolves as non-human persons with whom they were inclined to maintain neighbourly relations rather than pursue extermination.

Relational nonhuman personhood

AbstractThis article defends a relational account of personhood. I argue that the structure of personhood consists of dyadic relations between persons who can wrong or be wronged by one another, even if some of them lack moral competence. I draw on recent work on directed duties to outline the structure of moral communities of persons. The upshot is that we can construct an inclusive theory of personhood that can accommodate nonhuman persons based on shared community membership. I argue that, once we unpack the internal relation between directed duties, moral status, and flourishing, relations can ground personhood and include nonhuman animals.

Educational Responses to Artificial Intelligence (AI) Applications: Problems and Promise

The recent appearance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications such as Google’s Bard tool and OpenAI’s ChatGPT series has brought forth a flurry of reactions from both academic and popular commentators ranging from doom-laden pessimism to futuristic hyperbolic optimism. Both ends of this spectrum are revealed in the educational literature with the sharp contrast between critical accounts predicting the decline of academic standards and those welcoming the new applications as a means of enhancing teaching and learning. In the attempt to steer a middle way between these extremes, this article examines the merits and demerits of AI applications in education alongside the suggestion of possibilities for working with the new tools in a productive manner. In relation to ethical considerations raised by the recent developments, it is suggested that AI applications are best conceptualised as powerful entities – perhaps ideally regarded as non-human persons – which need to be utilised pragmatically and regulated ethically in partnership with humans in the best interests of all of us. Such a partnership model will be especially important to learners and teachers who are charged with making sense of a rapidly changing educational environment.

More than Humans

Two foundational ethicists of care, Nel Noddings and Eva Feder Kittay, limit the moral community of care to humans. Noddings claims that the reciprocity required for her care ethic cannot be universally present in human relationships with non-humans. Kittay advances that her care ethic requires the cared-for’s assent, or “taking up” of the care, in response to the carer’s actions, which she claims is impossible with non-human cared-fors. But these claims can be disputed. I offer a few examples to contend that ethically meaningful reciprocity is possible in some human relationships with more-than-human entities and that some non-human cared-fors can assent to carers’ actions. Following from the work of Mary Anne Warren and others on moral personhood, “humans” and “persons” can refer to different things: biological organisms and a designation of moral status respectively. There can be persons that are not humans (e.g., legal persons like corporations and chimpanzees, and moral persons like whales and dolphins). Because the concerns of Noddings and Kittay can be addressed and there are non-human persons, I argue that we should reject the human restriction within care ethics. Humans have morally significant relationships with non-human persons and we need to open the realm of care ethics to legitimize and enhance these other relationships in our rich communities.

사물의 내면과 감각의 실천

In the era of the 4th industrial revolution, human senses are transformed and expanded through objects and machines. The era of the reversal of people and things, and the sensual transformation by things, has arrived. This article believes that the overwhelming influence of women of the MZ generation in YouTube's daily vlogs is because they have a tendency to be optimized for objects and senses. They skillfully convey the consumption and sense of things with their unique cultural sense. 1) In ‘ASMR and Structural Change of Intimacy’, we examine the change in the structure of intimacy between human and non-human personality. 2) In 'Flex and the Birth of Object Subjects', objects emerge as independent beings through flex and present the aspect in which humans become witnesses of objects. 3) In 'Things-Hands, Miniature Utopias', we consider the fact that objectified hands enable an alternative utopia in vlogs. In the end, this article seeks to find the inner side of things and the truth in the senses, as well as to confirm the modern signs of shaking the universal historical notion of materials in the past in the Vlogs of women of the MZ generation.

The Gallows Alien: Extending the Concept <Person> to Non-Human Organisms

AbstractImmanuel Kant maintained throughout his life that non-human persons likely exist but he failed to specify how we could recognise them. In this article, I argue (a) that non-human organisms can be considered non-human persons if they can be judged as belonging to a species with a moral vocation, and (b) a species can be judged as having a moral vocation if at least one of its members is able to make what I will call a “moral sacrifice” in which that member sacrifices its physical life for the sake of its moral life.

Marshall Sahlins, where are you? From the intellectual to the existential

Marshall Sahlins, where are you? From the intellectual to the existential

From livestock to nonhuman persons: Property status of animals

Eşit gözetim ilkesi, bir eylemin ahlaki anlamda doğruluğuna karar verirken eylemden etkilenenlerin benzer çıkarlarını gözetmeyi gerektirir. İnsan harici hayvanların da hissedebilir varlıklar olması sebebiyle bu değerlendirmeye dahil edilmesi hayvan etiğinin temellerinden biridir. Ancak bazı kuramcılar insan harici hayvanların gerek yasal anlamda gerekse halihazırdaki toplumsal normlar bağlamında mülk olarak konumlandırılmalarının hayvanların ahlaki bakımdan kayda değer bir biçimde gözetilmelerine engel teşkil ettiğini öne sürmektedir. Buradan yola çıkarak, eşit gözetimin mümkün olabilmesi için insan harici hayvanların mülk statülerinin kaldırılmasını ve “başkasının mülkü olmama hakkı” olarak tanımladıkları hakkın tüm hissedebilir varlıklar için bir temel hak olarak tanınmasını önermektedirler. Bu makalede, insan harici hayvanların mülk statüsünün kaldırılması yönündeki argümanlar ve bu argümanlara getirilen eleştiriler detaylı bir şekilde ele alınacaktır.

‘For You Will (Still) Be Here Tomorrow’: The Many Lives of Intergenerational Equity

AbstractThis article traces the various legal incarnations of the intergenerational equity principle. Despite its silent proliferation in international and constitutional laws over the past five decades, the principle dwelled mostly at the margins of inquiry and practice. Recent efforts to counteract global warming have allowed intergenerational claims to gain new traction. Building on a comparison of ten climate-related lawsuits, I analyze the latest advances in the representation, conceptualization, and remediation of future generations’ interests. Against the backdrop of growing willingness to engage with intergenerational disputes, legal decision makers will need to confront two thorny challenges going forward. Firstly, evolving doctrines of extraterritoriality and legal subjecthood increasingly require the protective scope of the principle to extend to foreign citizens and non-human persons. Secondly, awareness of dispersed and interlocked long-term risks may trigger the application of intergenerational doctrines beyond a narrow environmental frame. Grappling with these challenges implicates larger reflections about the role of law in contriving our collective future.

Environmental Personhood as a Tool to Protect Nature

The escalating global ecological degradation underlines the continued importance of the need of effective nature protection. In recent years a new concept– “environmental personhood” was developed. The article analyses the concept and asks the question if it can help with the efficiency of protecting the nature. It is the attempt to transfer the essence of human rights to animals and ecosystem, so they will no longer be right’-less. This concept has some of its beginning in the idea of “common heritage of mankind”, which means that some places belong to the whole of humanity and that the resources of these places should be available to all. This article outlines the roots, the development and traces current trends in the legal personification of non-human persons. It asks legal-theoretical questions about the limits and possibilities of opening up the concept of legal personhood for non-human legal persons in order to protect the nature and discusses the possibility of creating new institutions that could protect it. The article also shows the importance of creating a new society sensitive to nature’s needs.

‘Poison Rainbows’: The Speculative Jurisdiction of Okorafor's Lagoon

Oil spills in the Niger Delta have been at the centre of both legal and literary imaginings as among the most acute examples of modern environmental degradation. In her novel Lagoon, Nnedi Okorafor responds to what Rob Nixon describes as the ‘slow violence’ inflicted by the oil industry on non-human persons. This article will cast the study of law and literature into the future and show how the speculative jurisdiction of Okorafor's africanfuturist writing provides an ‘alternative discourse’ to legal scholarship and identifies the accordance of legal personhood as a tool with which to build back towards Lagoon's ‘radical futurity’ of posthuman rights and protection.

Ecotheological Community and the Question of Non-Human Animals Understood as Persons

Ecotheological Community and the Question of Non-Human Animals Understood as Persons

“If You Dance Alone, You Cannot Be Healed”: Relational Ontologies and "Epistemes of Contagion" in Salento (Italy)

In this article I focus on neo-animist, relational ontologies that are active within and beyond contemporary Pagan communities in the Salento area of Italy. By addressing case-studies such as "spiritual neotarantismo," the querelle around the Xylella Fastidiosa epidemics that has been affecting olive trees, and NoTAP activism, I argue that many Salentinians today pursue health and well-being by embracing neo-animist attitudes that consider human and non-human persons alike as kin. By analyzing these neo-animist stances in conversation with the work of the philosopher Roberto Esposito, I will offer examples of ways of being in which "contact, relationality, and being in common" are not "liquidated" (Esposito, Welch, and Lemm 2021a), but fostered and put at the center of personal and collective practices of well-being and of political activism.