Can anything be a legal person? Some doubts by Visa Kurki, University of Helsinki

On-line seminar of the Law-Language-Philosophy Research Network via Zoom on 26th November 2020.

ABSTRACT:

It is a commonplace to claim that law can make more or less any entity into a legal person. Legal personhood is, after all, a legal status that can be freely bestowed or taken away by the legislator. Furthermore, corporations – invisible, intangible beings – can be legal persons, so surely anything can be? I will argue that there are indeed limits to what kind of entities can be legal persons. Even if the legislator may purport to endow virtually any entity with legal personhood, a legal scholar or theorist need not take this legislative act at face value. Rather, the scholar may provide an alternative – better – explanation. I will flesh out this argument in the paper, and tackle some arguments to the contrary.

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This seminar is a free event, a part of the project no 2020/36/C/HS5/00600 funded by the National Science Center of Poland (Analysis of the concept of a legal person from an ontological and linguistic perspective; Pricipal Investigator: Paweł Banaś PhD)

Register at: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/llprn-on-line-seminar-can-anything-be-a-legal-person-some-doubts-tickets-130808578981