EAN: 9783319534589

SPRINGERBRIEFS IN LAW IDENTITY PERSONHOOD AND...

This book is an examination of how the law understands human identity and the whole notion of
'human being'. On these two notions the law  usually unconsciously  builds the superstructure
of 'human rights'. It explores how the law understands the concept of a human being  and hence
a person who is entitled to human rights. This involves a discussion of the legal treatment of
those of so-called marginal personhood (e.g. high functioning non-human animals  humans of
limited intellectual capacity  and fetuses). It also considers how we understand our identity
as people  and hence how we fall into different legal categories: such as gender  religion and
so on.The law makes a number of huge assumptions about some fundamental issues of human
identity and authenticity - for instance that we can talk meaningfully about the entity that we
call 'our self'. Until now it has rarely  if ever  identified those assumptions  let alone
interrogated them. This failure has led to the law being philosophically dubious and sometimes
demonstrably unfit for purpose. Its failure is increasingly hard to cover up. What should
happen legally  for instance  when a disease such as dementia eliminates or radically
transforms all the characteristics that most people regard as foundational to the 'self'? This
book seeks to plug these gaps in the literature.

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