MEANING AND TYPES OF PERSONS

A Research Proposal submitted in partial fulfillment of Jurisprudence-II.

Submitted to: Prof. Doctor Manoranjan Kumar

Submitted by : Miss Nidhi
Academic Year: 2018-19
Roll Number: 1632

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INTRODUCTION

The law of personality is fraught with deep ambiguity and significant tension; and the
definitional problem of the person is likely to become more acute with technological and
economic progress. Law first establishes both the necessary and the sufficient conditions of
being a metaphysical person; it then makes further decisions about whether, and if so to what
extent, law should conform with or deviate from this conception of the person when it is devising
its own legal person. This leads to some of the most contentious areas of human rights discourse
on how the notion of the person is deployed. In each the person stands at the center of the legal
controversy- cases of partial persons (children), potential persons (embryos), past persons (brain-
dead patients), patients with multiple personality persons, group persons (corporations and
nation-states).

SCOPE AND LIMITATION

The term “person” is so difficult to nail down because it straddles not only metaphysics, biology,
and religion, but also value theory, such as moral philosophy and the law. Furthermore the
complex legal situations require the term to be used to cover a broad variety of instances- natural
persons, corporations, almost persons, and this has placed a significant strain on the term, so
much so that arriving at a conclusive definition seems like a herculean task.

HYPOTHESIS

 The concept of person is a cluster concept, consequently attempting a definition of the

term is futile.
 The Term Person is a purely normative concept.
 The Term Person is an empty concept.

TENTATIVE CHAPTERS

1. Meaning of the term “Person”- This chapter will give a brief introduction to the
meaning of the term “Person”, the various controversies around the term and the aim of
the project.

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 2. The Naturalistic, Non Naturalistic and Normative Conception of Persons- In this
chapter, the researcher will attempt to broadly discuss the various ideas that exist within
the umbrella concept of the term “Person”. Cases of partial persons (children), potential
persons (embryos), past persons (brain-dead patients), patients with multiple personality
persons, group persons (corporations and nation-states) shall be discussed.

3. The Term Person as an Empty Concept- This chapter will discuss the view that anything
can be a legal person because legal persons are stipulated or defined into existence. All
that is necessary for the existence of the person is that the lawmaker should decide to
treat it as a subject of rights or other legal relations. Once this point has been reached, a
vista of unrestricted liberty opens up before the jurist, unrestricted, that is, by the need to
make a person resemble a man or collection of men. This view is therefore void of any
biological, moral, psychological or social predicates and it is therefore, to that extent, an
empty concept.
4. Cohen’s Transcendental Nonsense and The Concept of Persons- This chapter will
present an alternative view to the previous chapter by debunking the inclination of the
jurists to exist in the metaphysical plane, thereby ignoring the realities. These concepts,
according to Cohen were "infecting" legal theory because they could not be defined
through experience.1 Cohen argued that these metaphysical concepts distract judges from
seeing that their decisions are based on social policy, economics, and other extralegal
considerations. More significantly, though, the metaphysical concepts hold the promise
of what is inevitably an elusive possibility: furnishing a useful explanation for judicial
decisions.
5. Conclusion- This chapter will conclude the entire project and prove or disprove the
hypothesis.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
 V. D. Mahajan, Jurisprudence and Legal Theory, Fifth edition, 2013, Eastern Book
Company.

1
Felix S. Cohen, Transcendental Nonsense and the Functionalist Approach, 35 Colum. L. Rev. 809 (1935).

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 N. V. Paranjape, Studies in Jurisprudence and Legal Theory, 2014, Sixth Edition, Central
Law Agency.
 Jens David Ohlin , Is the Concept of the Person Necessary for Human Rights? Columbia
Law Review, Vol. 105, No. 1 (Jan., 2005), pp. 209-249.
 What We Talk about When We Talk about Persons: The Language of a Legal Fiction,
Harvard Law Review, Vol. 114, No. 6 (Apr., 2001), pp. 1745-1768
 Bryant Smith, Legal Personality: The Yale Law Journal, Vol. 37, No. 3 (Jan., 1928), pp.
283-299.
 Jeremy Waldron, Transcendental Nonsense" and System in the Law: Columbia Law
Review, Vol. 100, No. 1, Centennial Issue (Jan., 2000), pp. 16-53

CHANAKYA NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY, PATNA.