Something that (arguably) hasn't and can't have agency and awareness (arguably) can't and shouldn't be recognised as having these things because they don't.
Therefore giving them this in law is meaningless except as a legal device. Whether that's a bad use of law because it is meaningless, or a good use of law because it extends protection to things that need protecting (in our interests not theirs) is an interesting question and one I can't guess at.
That's not quite what's happening here, at least as far as NZ law which I'm most familiar with. I can tentatively extrapolate to UK and US law since the fundaments lie in common. What you say is acknowledged - These things do not have agency and do not have awareness. Yet in allowing them legal personhood there is latitude in providing mechanisms to provide them with exactly that - Agency and awareness - such that their legal rights can be protected. This is where the establishment of a board comes in.
In terms of legal precedent, this is not an entirely new concept. A person born with severe disabilities or entering into a vegetative state, or even murdered... All lack in the present sense (or even ever) agency and awareness. Nevertheless we have established legal rights for them. It follows that such principles might be extended further.
I am uncertain it'll prove to be a beneficial persuit, since a general maxim in the legal world is that laws cannot directly prevent harm, only dis-incentivise future instances of it. For important natural wonders, prevention is key and reparations/justice don't really make sense.
> Yet in allowing them legal personhood there is latitude in providing mechanisms to provide them with exactly that - Agency and awareness - such that their legal rights can be protected
One cannot imbue awareness and agency by human fiat, which is where why my mention of a legal device comes in.
> In terms of legal precedent, this is not an entirely new concept ... such principles might be extended further
Agreed - It's at best a proxy, right? Yet to be shown how well those proxies will deliver an outcome that might be considered beneficial - Either to the subject itself or wider society (which IMO is the true will being manifested).
> Something that (arguably) hasn't and can't have agency and awareness (arguably) can't and shouldn't be recognised as having these things because they don't.
Do you feel the same about corporate personhood in the US?
Well, note that I kept saying arguably. It's possible that a corporation may be a kind of emergent intelligence, ditto in the natural world. Difficult to prove or disprove, but the option needs leaving open.
I'm a brit so I thought that game me a handy get-out from answering you :) but in fact we have similar over here. I have a small company comprising basically a piece of paper and a number entered in a database of UK companies. That company has some kind of personhood such that me tsaking money from it illegally apparently is in law somewhat or fully (not sure) equivalent to stealing from another person.
In answer, I guess as a legal fiction it's useful. As a reflection of reality - pieces of paper and a row in a database aren't people - it's pretty dumb. I'm ok with it as a device.
The article mentions Te Uruwera and the Wanganui river but Tāne Mahuta 'Lord of the Forest' - New Zealand's largest known living kauri tree could be argued to personhood more clear-case (IMO) than any river or forest. It's not yet been granted such status but watch this space as it's somewhat of a no-brainer assuming the old geezer doesn't expire from old age/Kauri dieback beforehand. The cynic in me believes it hasn't yet attained this status only because no individual interests exist to bring the necessary legal precedings.
Concepts of personhood and ownership are difficult to pin down in the context of NZ's bi-cultural society and history. Spend time sympathetically observing and you'll likely come to see everything through a kind of cultural bifocal - The western interpretation as seen in TFA constitute a legal definition of personhood and boards being established to provide a voice for Te Uruwera and the Wanganui river respectively. This might make sense to a western observer but in Maoridom the view is not so prescriptive and any attempt to cement the meaning of (what I understand as) a physical manifestation of the god that birthed mankind itself gets quite weird quite quickly.
We're yet to fully appreciate the ramifications of this approach because the legal groundwork as mentioned in TFA only really sets the stage for legal challenges - eventually case precedents will follow and they will provide clearer groundwork. My hot take is that we're already seeing major flaws with the use of boards to manifest voice and agency - They are vulnerabile to being used to advance the interests of individuals or (at best) whole tribes - These interests don't even represent a consolidated will of Maori peoples as a whole (and if such a viewpoint could ever be gathered, the jury is out).
It's fascinating to see this as a microcosm of fulfilling te tiriti, wherein the duality of interpretation of the founding legal documents of the nation - produced and signed in two different languages, neither of which actually agree with each other (BIG OOF) continue to provide wicked popcorn-fodder even today. At its core as best I can surmise: There is no accurate translation of mana or mauri to be found; all else follows.
Self-ownership by non-intelligent beings could be implemented as collective duty on the society to represent the beings' interest in the best way possible just like we do with humans with severely damaged brains.
Obviously the current law has no mechanisms to implement it and probably shouldn't, although related lawsuits would certainly be interesting.
The article talks about national parks in New Zealand that have been granted personhood, and also mentions some American legislation:
> Although it doesn’t go as far as giving trees and other plants ownership of themselves, the Clean Water Act of 1972 in the United States effectively grants them some rights. Under the ‘natural resource damage’ provisions of the law, trees and other resources have some basic rights. It’s the government, however, that’s entrusted with protecting those rights, although any money earned through litigation must be spent on the resource itself. Essentially, the money belongs to the resource.
This is a fascinating concept, although its implementation would be complicated. What qualifies as 'non-intelligent', just anything non-human? Can we define a spectrum (as a pescetarian, I make special exceptions for octopus and squid as they qualify as sentient on my rudimentary personal sentience/intelligence spectrum)? What defines best interest? I can easily imagine scenarios in which my best interest would be euthanasia or copious painkillers/sedatives, if I had to otherwise live in severe pain or discomfort. But I can't say what other humans would want in that scenario. Interesting topic indeed.
Funny to see an odd quirk from my hometown pop up here. We visited the current tree (Son of...) as school kids and heard the story.
Imho, it's persisted in Athens, GA lore because of the idea's memetic virality rather than legal validity.
In other words, people find the idea of a beloved tree that owns itself just and right, and so do what they can legally and simply play along when legal possibilities are insufficient. Effectively, the tree wins a cultural victory.
The idea also resonates with two major themes in southern heritage and culture, now that I'm looking at this from an older pespective: quasi-religious responsibility to the land and an ethical struggle with slavery of intelligent beings.
The first is fairly self explanatory, in the Teddy Roosevelt-esque mold of being stewards of nature, while using its bounty.
The latter... post-Reconstruction southern culture has a complicated relationship with the idea of slavery in broader form, for obvious reasons, and manifesting in myriad ways (healthy and unhealthy).
So the idea of a living being (undeniably) beloved by its owner (undeniably) being granted freedom from ownership on the owner's death... is about the only just and moral tale you can tell with respect to a tradition of slavery (leaving aside the inconvenient "it took until the owner's death" timing). Note the legend sourcing back to ~40 years pre-Civil War (1820s), although obviously maintained post- as well.
I'm not one to pull current hot button topics into tortured historical analogies, but here I think it's apt.
The concrete idea of a tree owning itself is dumb.
And yet, the people of Athens, GA and visitors want to believe in a world where that's possible. And for ~200 years have acted to support that belief.
As a child, it instilled a belief in me that the legal system existed to codify our desires, not limit them, regardless of how odd they may be. Which probably wasn't the worst lesson for a young child to take away.
I'm curious what your alternative is for corporations to sign contracts and for the speech of a collective of people to be as unrestricted as it is for an individual person.
>> The concrete idea of a tree owning itself is dumb.
> What about a corporation being a person?
What about a group of trees being a corporation?
The difference is that humans can articulate their preferences in ways that other humans can understand. Trees cannot (nor are we equiped to listen to what they can say).
Although the idea of a tree-owned corporation is pretty enticing.
If the county took this seriously it would long ago have billed the tree for property taxes and then seized the tree and its property for failing to pay.
The tree does own itself in the sense it is a free living being just like birds singing on its branches who could care less about human affairs until it affects their own space and freedom.
The fact is the human species has invaded the whole planet and acts as an occupying force imposing on every life forms its own laws, a good chunk of which only serve the purpose of supporting and sustaining the belief in property and its transmission. Even human beings are subject to property (slavery).
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 65.1 ms ] threadTherefore giving them this in law is meaningless except as a legal device. Whether that's a bad use of law because it is meaningless, or a good use of law because it extends protection to things that need protecting (in our interests not theirs) is an interesting question and one I can't guess at.
In terms of legal precedent, this is not an entirely new concept. A person born with severe disabilities or entering into a vegetative state, or even murdered... All lack in the present sense (or even ever) agency and awareness. Nevertheless we have established legal rights for them. It follows that such principles might be extended further.
I am uncertain it'll prove to be a beneficial persuit, since a general maxim in the legal world is that laws cannot directly prevent harm, only dis-incentivise future instances of it. For important natural wonders, prevention is key and reparations/justice don't really make sense.
One cannot imbue awareness and agency by human fiat, which is where why my mention of a legal device comes in.
> In terms of legal precedent, this is not an entirely new concept ... such principles might be extended further
Hmm. This is a good point indeed.
Do you feel the same about corporate personhood in the US?
I'm a brit so I thought that game me a handy get-out from answering you :) but in fact we have similar over here. I have a small company comprising basically a piece of paper and a number entered in a database of UK companies. That company has some kind of personhood such that me tsaking money from it illegally apparently is in law somewhat or fully (not sure) equivalent to stealing from another person.
In answer, I guess as a legal fiction it's useful. As a reflection of reality - pieces of paper and a row in a database aren't people - it's pretty dumb. I'm ok with it as a device.
Concepts of personhood and ownership are difficult to pin down in the context of NZ's bi-cultural society and history. Spend time sympathetically observing and you'll likely come to see everything through a kind of cultural bifocal - The western interpretation as seen in TFA constitute a legal definition of personhood and boards being established to provide a voice for Te Uruwera and the Wanganui river respectively. This might make sense to a western observer but in Maoridom the view is not so prescriptive and any attempt to cement the meaning of (what I understand as) a physical manifestation of the god that birthed mankind itself gets quite weird quite quickly.
We're yet to fully appreciate the ramifications of this approach because the legal groundwork as mentioned in TFA only really sets the stage for legal challenges - eventually case precedents will follow and they will provide clearer groundwork. My hot take is that we're already seeing major flaws with the use of boards to manifest voice and agency - They are vulnerabile to being used to advance the interests of individuals or (at best) whole tribes - These interests don't even represent a consolidated will of Maori peoples as a whole (and if such a viewpoint could ever be gathered, the jury is out).
It's fascinating to see this as a microcosm of fulfilling te tiriti, wherein the duality of interpretation of the founding legal documents of the nation - produced and signed in two different languages, neither of which actually agree with each other (BIG OOF) continue to provide wicked popcorn-fodder even today. At its core as best I can surmise: There is no accurate translation of mana or mauri to be found; all else follows.
Obviously the current law has no mechanisms to implement it and probably shouldn't, although related lawsuits would certainly be interesting.
> Although it doesn’t go as far as giving trees and other plants ownership of themselves, the Clean Water Act of 1972 in the United States effectively grants them some rights. Under the ‘natural resource damage’ provisions of the law, trees and other resources have some basic rights. It’s the government, however, that’s entrusted with protecting those rights, although any money earned through litigation must be spent on the resource itself. Essentially, the money belongs to the resource.
Imho, it's persisted in Athens, GA lore because of the idea's memetic virality rather than legal validity.
In other words, people find the idea of a beloved tree that owns itself just and right, and so do what they can legally and simply play along when legal possibilities are insufficient. Effectively, the tree wins a cultural victory.
The idea also resonates with two major themes in southern heritage and culture, now that I'm looking at this from an older pespective: quasi-religious responsibility to the land and an ethical struggle with slavery of intelligent beings.
The first is fairly self explanatory, in the Teddy Roosevelt-esque mold of being stewards of nature, while using its bounty.
The latter... post-Reconstruction southern culture has a complicated relationship with the idea of slavery in broader form, for obvious reasons, and manifesting in myriad ways (healthy and unhealthy).
So the idea of a living being (undeniably) beloved by its owner (undeniably) being granted freedom from ownership on the owner's death... is about the only just and moral tale you can tell with respect to a tradition of slavery (leaving aside the inconvenient "it took until the owner's death" timing). Note the legend sourcing back to ~40 years pre-Civil War (1820s), although obviously maintained post- as well.
I'm not one to pull current hot button topics into tortured historical analogies, but here I think it's apt.
The concrete idea of a tree owning itself is dumb.
And yet, the people of Athens, GA and visitors want to believe in a world where that's possible. And for ~200 years have acted to support that belief.
As a child, it instilled a belief in me that the legal system existed to codify our desires, not limit them, regardless of how odd they may be. Which probably wasn't the worst lesson for a young child to take away.
What about a corporation being a person?
> What about a corporation being a person?
What about a group of trees being a corporation?
The difference is that humans can articulate their preferences in ways that other humans can understand. Trees cannot (nor are we equiped to listen to what they can say).
Although the idea of a tree-owned corporation is pretty enticing.
The fact is the human species has invaded the whole planet and acts as an occupying force imposing on every life forms its own laws, a good chunk of which only serve the purpose of supporting and sustaining the belief in property and its transmission. Even human beings are subject to property (slavery).
Did the tree give any consent to these laws?