Nature Is Becoming a Person

https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/11/24/nature-person-rights-environment-climate-philosophy-law/

by evilsimon • 5 years ago

69 61 5 years ago

This movement to make animals and natural features of the environment (mountains, rivers, lakes etc) fit the definition of a "person" for legal purposes has been gaining a ton of momentum over the last decade and is incredibly important for the future of the environment. It will allow these rivers etc to sue entities for damaging them, and can stop harmful developments that are in the planning stages.

It didn't help this monkey with his selfie though:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_disput...

And out of interest, the Illinois Attorney General essentially ruled that I did not fit the meaning of the word "person" under the law because I was a pretrial detainee being held at a county jail, and the rights I was fighting for (workers' comp) only applied to a "person", not to me.

gumby2• 5 years ago

Why not? The joint stock corporation (a marvelous invention, but just a machine) has, though misunderstanding of Latin, gained all sorts of personhood in US law at least.

It’s only fair that this be extended to animate, and perhaps inanimate, objects as well.

akira2501• 5 years ago

The burgeoning concept of the "Natural Asset Corporation" still leaves me queasy, though. I wonder if this is just groundwork to make it a reality.

zzedd• 5 years ago

good observation. i'm a director of a corporation that has "personhood", but my local creek is more alive, performs more important roles than the corporation (just a stack of paper in a safe or the bank account it controls).

imgabe• 5 years ago

Sure, the river can sue people who pollute it, but if the river floods my house can I sue the river?

visarga• 5 years ago

If you do that does that mean we also have to pay for using its potential energy in hydro plants? Same for fishing, shipping, irrigation or tourism. Could be lucrative for the river. Some countries depend on one or two rivers for their livelihood. The rivers could be the richest persons.

Balero• 5 years ago

Only if you pay back rent for squatting in its flood plain.

zestyping3• 5 years ago

If a river can sue, does it have property rights? What happens to the damages paid? What does it mean for a river to own a bank account? It cannot make decisions. This doesn't make any sense.

How does the concept of personhood provide anything beyond or different from passing a law that protects a river?

musingsole4• 5 years ago

You ask these questions like they can't be answered by a trust for the river. The river being granted personhood allows other legal entities to form around it and make arguments for its interests.

It does make sense. Using "personhood" in this way has been the status quo for half a dozen other types of entities for going on generations now. Your complaints here strike me as similar to complaining about the use of "they" for the genderless out of a "but it's plural!!!"

kingcharles2• 5 years ago

What does it mean for a river to own a bank account?

The river has two banks already! *Zing!*

roca6• 5 years ago

Normally, both natural and artificial persons have responsibilities as well as rights. But a gorilla or a river obviously can't have responsibilities... Therefore at most they can be considered a rather limited kind of person, more like a human infant or an intellectually incapable adult than a regular human or an organisation of regular humans.

Then of course it falls to humans to determine what the best interests of these "persons" are, and to actually pursue those interests, and to judge whether those humans acting on behalf of these "persons" are actually acting in good faith (and what do we do if they aren't?).

Seems to me this "personhood" concept mainly muddies the waters (so to speak) and it would be simpler to pursue conservation ends without it.

aradox66• 5 years ago

Non-human natural persons absolutely have responsibilities. The plants are responsible for photosynthesizing, the fungi for decomposition, etc. They do their holy work and we all get to stay alive, if we hold up our end of things as well.

yakubin• 5 years ago

Plants aren't responsible for photosynthesis. They just photosynthesise. Fungi aren't responsible for decomposition. They just decompose.

Saying they are "responsible" for those things is like saying that a river is responsible for flowing or the Earth is responsible for rotating.

roca6• 5 years ago

Perhaps "duties" is a clearer word here.

It is not the duty of plants to photosynthesize. It's just something they do. It is important to distinguish these two concepts, because if you equate them, then for example it is the duty of Exxon to destroy the environment. And this whole discussion presumes that humans and collections of humans like Exxon actually have a duty to not destroy the environment.

trabant00• 5 years ago

Just because they can't market those responsibilities in a format that we are used to doesn't mean they don't do the work. It's just like the quiet worker in an office who does his job but is never noticed because he can't/doesn't care about selling his work to others.

hosh• 5 years ago

I think I see where you are coming from. I think "responsibility" is a human social construct, but there is a concept that can be generalized for any living system. Plants have a role in the ecosystem with their photosynthesis. So even though they might not have the same kind of agency and volition as humans and photosynthesis is something plants _do_, nevertheless, a plant's relevancy to the ecosystem it belongs to is with their photosynthesis. The ecosystem would not function without it -- or if it does, it would be an entirely different kind of ecosystem.

I think in Carol Sanford's talks on living systems, the unique contribution a living system has for the ecosystem it lives within makes it non-displaceble.

Whether that should be recognized in our legal system, and something that helps humans participate in the ecology ... I don't know. The idea of legal personhood, at least, acknowledges that a living system is its own whole (if we are not just using it as a legal fiction), and it seems to me a stretch to say that a river "wants" legal representation. That sounds like the kind of stuff pre-modern tribal shamans do. That's not necessarily a bad thing in my book, but I don't know if our modern society is ready for that.

On the other hand, it could work as a balance to corporations having legal personhood.

vletal• 5 years ago

It's a role not a responsibility. Responsibility would imply that they can be hold accountable for not delivering. Such as blaming plants for not taking enough CO2 from the atmosphere.

robertlagrant• 5 years ago

Non-human natural persons absolutely have responsibilities. The plants are responsible for photosynthesizing, the fungi for decomposition, etc. They do their holy work and we all get to stay alive, if we hold up our end of things as well.

No, those are not about responsibility. Is a river responsible for someone drowning in it?

0fuchs• 5 years ago

I think it would be interesting to do away with the concept of legal personhood for everyone. Alabama got rid of marriage, making it a private spiritual thing. Why not atomic identity in self and the few we really WANT to let in?

I can be a socially amenable person without a legal status. We’d still police and service the usual.

The story of “I did this…” is entirely bullshit these days. 5% hunt still. It’s all modern logistics. Why the redundant finance network? How many distributed ledgers do we need?

Even in paper form, the value of currency is coupled to abstract belief in a national identity.

unglaublich2• 5 years ago

The fact that you consider infants and intellectually incapable adults as "limited kinds of persons" says enough about the superiority complex that underlies the problem of humanity exploiting all natural resources.

hungryforcodes• 5 years ago

Compared to healthy, functioning adults how are infants not limited?

dsign• 5 years ago

99.9999% of natural resources in the universe are atoms of hydrogen in stars. We can't say that those atoms of hydrogen are a person, what we are really saying is that our probable intention to "exploit" those atoms of hydrogen makes us a vermin. I'm, of course, terrible opposed to that notion.

HPsquared• 5 years ago

This could be turned round - are you implicitly assuming a human with limited ability has less value? Mere skill isn't the same as being a "good person", after all.

chongli• 5 years ago

They’re limited in the sense that they don’t have the ability to advocate for themselves in a court of law or in the court of public opinion. They’re entirely dependent on others to advocate for them. That’s what makes them different from a typical adult human.

inglor_cz• 5 years ago

Person is a legal concept, too.

Of course infants and intellectually incapable adults are limited persons in the legal sense: they have fewer duties, but also fewer options. For example, they won't be accepted to a pilot school.

dgb23• 5 years ago

It's not about a "superiority complex" but about limited responsibility and independence.

ciconia• 5 years ago

Then of course it falls to humans to determine what the best interests of these "persons" are, and to actually pursue those interests, and to judge whether those humans acting on behalf of these "persons" are actually acting in good faith (and what do we do if they aren't?).

No it doesn't. All we need to do is to acknowledge that non-humans are not lesser than us, and that our most important responsibility as humans is to not abuse our mental and technological advantages.

blueflow• 5 years ago

Determining what is "abuse" and what not is not a given, this is why this discussion is required.

roca6• 5 years ago

Indeed, I agree that one of our most important responsibilities as humans (arguably the most important if you take a generous interpretation) is "to not abuse our mental and technological advantages" --- to each other as well as to the natural world.

But we have to be honest that we possess those advantages, and that we have special status as the only species that has responsibilities. In that sense non-humans are indeed lesser than us.

DyslexicAtheist• 5 years ago

both natural and artificial persons have responsibilities as well as rights

the problem with legal persons is that we hold them to the same standard as a natural person but their ability to do damage far exceeds anything a natural person can do. terrible decisions are being made by groups that do not reflect the individual. Many crimes are committed by legal persons are only punishable by losing trust from shareholders (lying to investors is much easier to get away with for legal than for natural persons - e.g. they're not crimes for legal persons in the same sense), a natural person would often go to jail for similar actions. Tobacco industry or oil industry would have no executives because they'd all have be doing time. the Sacklers would be hanging from a tree, and Elon Musk would be have to pay taxes.

Seems to me this "personhood" concept mainly muddies the waters

there is nothing wrong with designating whole regions as off limits to humans. Ban any form of tourism or commercial exploitation etc in parts of the world is the only option IMHO.

roca6• 5 years ago

On your first point, I agree.

dfxm12• 5 years ago

and it would be simpler to pursue conservation ends without it.

I doubt it. Look at corporate personhood and how it applies to Citizens United, being able to sue and tax a corporation, etc. Also look at how conservation protections have been put in place over the years compared to corporate protections. Treating corporations as a "person" opened the doors for a lot of simpler legal tools.

dsizzle• 5 years ago

It makes sense to say corporations have responsibilities though, unlike animals. Maybe you're saying the responsibility part isn't necessary?

I agree with your thought, but not sure how to make the responsibility part fit in.

musingsole4• 5 years ago

Seems to me this "personhood" concept mainly muddies the waters

As personhood is legally expanded it only follows that other consequences of it will change as well. If it's traditional for personhood to stipulate responsibilities but personhood is too good of a defense for these assets, then I'd bet the responsibilities will shift into a different classification. We already have similar splits between personhood and citizenship.

jklinger410• 5 years ago

The term responsibilities is very loaded here. Can you elaborate?

michael1999• 5 years ago

How is this different than Chevron?

unglaublich2• 5 years ago

Humanity has been reaping scarce natural resources for centuries. We have never paid a price to nature, or to future beings that would have wanted to use those resources, because they cannot defend themselves. This is our biggest mistake.

amelius• 5 years ago

Yes, nature is not a single person, it's all future people. We're outnumbered.

Borrible• 5 years ago

Ah, like in the olden days? Back then, when everything we gave a name, thereby got a a soul?

"Myth is already enlightenment, and enlightenment reverts to mythology."

Adorno, T. W., and Max Horkheimer. [1947] 2002. Dialectic of Enlightenment, translated by E. Jephcott. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

FooBarBizBazz3• 5 years ago

That was my first thought too: "We used to call her Gaia".

musingsole4• 5 years ago

Many still do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis

leggomuhgreggo• 5 years ago

I think is potentially more sinister than it seems: https://unlimitedhangout.com/2021/10/investigative-reports/w... >A project of the multilateral development banking system, the Rockefeller Foundation and the New York Stock Exchange recently created a new asset class that will put, not just the natural world, but the processes underpinning all life, up for sale under the guise of promoting “sustainability.”

In and of itself a policy giving legal standing to the environment seem really promising — and no doubt in certain instances, that's probably the case. But we should be careful to distinguish between policy nuances and what tradeoffs may be at play.

ausbah• 5 years ago

next step will to be to put it on a blockchain

dragonelite• 5 years ago

Let me guess now the US can take and interfere under the banner of "human right" because those global south savages can't manage their lands.

salemh• 5 years ago

Its a bit more global then that, but correct: Natural Asset Corporations which is by the largest mega-corps in the world. https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/publications/2021/11/natur... >According to experts, the financial resources needed to protect natural ecosystems face a dramatic shortfall. With the announcement of NACs, the capital markets continue to respond in novel ways, creating financial mechanisms aimed at protecting, restoring and growing natural areas.

Some will say this is a 'conspiracy' site despite all the sourced connecting quotes, and legal outcomes, related to these vehicles. https://unlimitedhangout.com/2021/10/investigative-reports/w...

alangibson• 5 years ago

I'm uncomfortable with the idea of legal personhood, but if we extend it to certain types of businesses then we absolutely must extend it to the environment. Otherwise, get ready to live on Arakis.

It's happening in drips and drabs with domesticated animals anyway.

kenjackz• 5 years ago

Each creature on the Earth has this special role embedded deep within ourselves, a reason that balances our Earth's ecosystem in its special way.

Nature Is Becoming a Person

Related Stories