If the status of legal person is attached to the condition of being human, then why are slaves not legal persons while companies are legal persons. Legal personality is not entirely the result of intellectual rationalization, but a series of phenomena arising from a specific context or background. Correspondence between the legal person and the moral attitude According to Ngaire Naffine, the discourse of the legal person asks,.
It is important to note that this assumption does not equate legal personality with moral standing. In other words, how people organize values and determine which entities have moral standing and deserve to be considered members of the moral community is decisive in shaping the institution of legal personality. The concept of legal personality is influenced by how people organize values and determine which entities are valuable enough to be part of the moral community; therefore they must be considered natural persons.
If the form and concept of legal person is based on how people organize values, it is.
Proposed Solution
Aldo Leopold's Sand County Almanac, which introduced the idea of ecocentrism, again attracted attention,51 the publication of Rachel Carson's book The Silent Spring,52 as well as the introduction of the term deep ecology in the work of Arne Naess,53 and the idea of ecoholism by Fritjof Capra,54 to the phenomenal work ' Should Trees Have' Standing” by Christopher Stone solidified the foundations of the deep ecology tradition.55. She would also learn about the interconnectedness of all living things and the need for a holistic approach to environmental management. The consequences of the reorganization of the moral community affect how the state should be organized as a political organization.
This concept offers a reorganization of the basis of political structures related to values and agency (morality), which is reflected by giving the environment the status of legal personality.
Key Concepts
An imbalance in nature is understood as a sign that there is a mismatch with the intrinsic values of nature. 60. Postmodern epistemology understands that representations of reality are charged with meaning that varies across different cultures and historical periods,61 where every piece of knowledge is relative and contingent. Modern science is one of these knowledges (science is just another story).62 Nevertheless, science acts as if it is the way to conduct all discourses,63 which leads to the projection of the human narrative as the dominant way to describe natural realities. to describe (grand narrative) ).
Rejecting the central importance of human knowledge is a drive for the development of a non-anthropocentric epistemology, which tries to open up possibilities for describing natural realities without depending on the "human narrative".64 While this narrative of nature, independent of humans, provides space for a marginal narrative. Epistemologically, it is argued that knowledge of these facts can only be accessed through intuition and the methods of deep ecology, not through traditional philosophical and scientific reasoning biased towards the human narrative.65. 63 Ben Mylius, "Towards the Unthinkable: Earth Jurisprudence and an Ecocentric Episteme", Australian Journal of Legal Philosophy https://heinonline.org/HOL/.
Given that the life and well-being of any entity within it is determined by its relationship to other natural components, the environment is important and each component should be considered.66 Against this background, Leopold proposed framing the natural world as a single biotic society.67. Ecocentrism rejects the moral separation of values between human and non-human nature68, deviating from its metaphysical and epistemological stance. Like humans, the environment is constructed as a carrier of intrinsic value, has its own interests, and its rights must be protected.
Within the framework of a state, this status is reflected by the recognition of the environment as a legal entity.
Critical Analysis Against Environmental Personhood
The Non-Anthropocentric Epistemology
All knowledge is produced and processed through human perception and interpretation, which is inherently biased and subjective due to the subjective nature of humans' cognitive architecture. Modern science does not necessarily imply a dualistic and mechanistic view of the natural world, as neuroscience and ecology have refuted the dualism of man and the natural world.69 In addition, postmodernism blurs the boundaries between science as a method and an institution. It cannot be denied that science as an institution can be abused, but this criticism is not related to science as a method.
The intrinsic value of the environment Based on the previous explanation, it is known that the concept of moral standing (which determines how people organize legal personality) is an implication of how people organize value through institutions. A sense of value is a mental device that helps people ascribe meaning, importance, significance, or value to various aspects of reality. Value is not an intrinsic property of the natural world that is 'just to be found', but a relational concept constructed in the human mind.
The existence of value depends on the subject, or in other words, there would be no value if no subject perceives it. This is because value is a conceptual reality that exists and depends on the human mind. 69 Thilo Hinterberger, "The Science of Consciousness – Foundations, Models and Visions," Journal of Physiology Paris 109, no.
Wayne Wu, 'The Neuroscience Of Consciousness (Stanford Encyclopedia Of Philosophy/Winter 2018 Edition)', Plato.Stanford.Edu, 2021, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness- neuroscience. Things like meaning, purpose, good and bad never existed and were never attributes or intrinsic properties of any component of the natural world. Humans arbitrarily determine that a certain part of the natural world (humans themselves) has intrinsic value.
Environment’s Subjective Interests
The Environment as Natural Person
A new entity may only be recognized as a person on the basis of its relationships, which are determined by how society distributes value and organizes relationships.75 As explained in the previous section, morality and social institutions that are formed on the basis of of moral values social instruments that society uses to organize itself. Moral values and status are mental tools used to navigate the relationship of individuals with others. In this sense, it is inaccurate to perceive value as a part of objective reality that is discovered, because value is a relationship that arises from human cognition, and its existence is constructed.
It only emerges in relation to others.76 The status of being a person only arises when there is a need to organize relationships between individuals.
Environmental Personhood Reimagined 1. Justifying The Reformulation
Reformulation Model of Environmental Personhood
The way to bridge the gap between interest in environmental protection while maintaining democratic principles is to put the environment on the same playing field as a traditional "constituent" a member may be a viable option. The granting of legal person status should be seriously considered, since one of the principles of a democratic state is the availability of a forum that acts. In practice, the environment will become a member of the democratic community that operates according to the same rules as people - its interests are represented and violations of its rights can be reported.
Just as corporations have no intrinsic interests but can still claim rights for pragmatic interests, the environment can be given the same status—even if that would mean doing away with ecocentrism in the concept of environmental personhood altogether. Thus, it is possible to preserve ideas such as the green constitution and realize the concept of expanding state protection beyond the individual human being by granting legal or constitutional rights to the environment.99. Environmental personhood can be seen as an extension of the human understanding of complexity and our dependent position on the natural world, exercised within the framework of law.
The position of environmental personality is comparable to the recognition of the personality of entities such as companies. To avoid such complexity, the law constructs a legal fiction of the corporation as a legal person, a social technology that designs how people interact and think about such organizations. If the law can do this for corporations or legal entities, why can't the same be applied to the environment.
Can legal experts navigate the complexities of the environmental crisis, which is, after all, another field of study, namely ecology. Correct understanding of the relationship between humans and the environment can only be carried out by ecological experts, given the complexity of the relationship between variables. Personification of the environment in the legal field can be a social technology, a mental tool, to simplify how legal experts should view the relationship.
The Problem with Reformulation
Rights without duties mean nothing, as rights can only be preserved by the existence of duties. However, at the individual level, rights are not a reward for carrying out duties, nor are duties a cost for exercising rights. Duties are the implication of rights, not the rights of the bearer, but the rights of other persons.
Individually, the existence of entities with rights and no duties is logically feasible without jeopardizing the coherence of the idea of legal personality. The existence of entities with rights and no duties is justified as long as there are still rational agents imposed by duties, arising from the assignment of rights to entities with rights but no duties at the institutional level. That framework is not entirely new, as children and fetuses can have rights without duties.
The rights of children and fetuses create duties for rational agents capable of carrying those duties, not for the children or fetuses themselves. The rights of children and fetuses also stand independently, not as a cost for the fulfillment of duties, because at the individual level the relationship between rights and duties is not directly linked. Another problem would be based on the question: "What is the right form or way to recognize the environment as a legal entity?" Is it enough to just amend relevant environmental legislation?
Should we amend the constitution as it is best to treat environmental rights as fundamental rights comparable to human rights.
Conclusion
By reformulating the concept of environmental personality based on artificial personality, this research opens up opportunities for the concept to be defended. Hierarchical models in cognition: Do they have psychological reality?' European Journal of Cognitive Psychology 12, no.
