Comments on: “New York lawsuit seeks ‘legal personhood’ for chimpanzees”

By: wfjag

wfjag — Thu, 05 Dec 2013 21:02:06 +0000

@Ron Miller:
“The Jon Stewart-type point here is that a chimp has many similarities to a human. It feels suffering. It seems odd they don’t get the person bump up but corporations do.”

Sounds like personhood would be a bump down. There are laws against abuse of animals, and organizations like the Humane Society and PETA that will act to protect animals (or, at least say they will). In contrast, especially after the Westboro Baptist decision, abusing corporations and their owners appears to be only regulated to the extent permitted by the First Amendment.

By: Ron Miller

Ron Miller — Thu, 05 Dec 2013 18:45:04 +0000

A useful fiction? I’m not expert on this. But the question of whether corporate speech and donations are protected under the First Amendment seem to be more than just something that is practical. They get to use their personhood as as sword and a shield that that is hardly uncontroversial. Allan’s point I think is right. These corporate rights should not be grounded in the Constitution.

With apologies to Mitt Romeny, couldn’t we call it something else?

The Jon Stewart-type point here is that a chimp has many similarities to a human. It feels suffering. It seems odd they don’t get the person bump up but corporations do.

By: William Nuesslein

William Nuesslein — Thu, 05 Dec 2013 16:04:38 +0000

Should the chimp that ripped off the face of a woman be arrested for attempted murder?

By: Yoh! WTF? New York lawsuit seeks ‘legal personhood’ for chimpanzees | Reuters | Yoh! WTF?

Wed, 04 Dec 2013 23:07:23 +0000

[…] “New York lawsuit seeks ‘legal personhood’ for chimpanzees” (overlawyered.com) […]

By: Allan

Allan — Tue, 03 Dec 2013 17:03:22 +0000

I have no problem with corporations having rights. However, the rights corporations should have should not be constitutional, but statutory. If corporations are “legal fictions,” as Prof. B. suggests, that means they are a creature of statutes. If states and the federal government want corporations to have rights, so be it. Codify the rights if we want them.

By: MattS

MattS — Tue, 03 Dec 2013 15:11:59 +0000

nl7,

The linked article is not saying that animal rights must be practical first. The author is responding to attempts to ground the arguments for animal personhood in the legal justifications for corporate personhood.

Corporate personhood exists for entirely practical reasons and those reasons are inapplicable to animals.

By: nl7

nl7 — Tue, 03 Dec 2013 05:59:15 +0000

The notion of separate existence for trusts or businesses is the prior assumption that they are distinct from their members or caretakers. Contract law recognizes the distinction people naturally see. It has practical use but probably has more grounding in basic intuition and fairness.

Human civil rights exist to protect human natural rights, not just to be practical. Saying that animal rights must be practical first is assuming the conclusion.