What is Personhood in Law? Animals, AI, and Corporations

Visa Kurki • University of Helsinki

December 4th @ 6pm • Daniel Family Commons

Legal personhood is one of the foundational categories of Western law. Corporations are legal persons; animals are property and nonpersons. Historically, some human beings have been denied legal personhood. Visa Kurki’s research has sought to understand and explain the notion of legal personhood holistically and in its historical context. The talk will address the results of this research and his overall theory of legal personhood. It will also present his new EU-funded research project, "Agency in Law," focused on understanding the emerging paradigm of how law treats agents. For instance, children and persons with disabilities have traditionally been treated as “passive” legal persons, unable to make decisions about their rights, but are increasingly treated as agents in their own right. The new project will seek to explain these developments.

Personhood
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