The Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”[1]

On its face, this principle seems simple. However, when faced with the question, “Who are others?” Society has gotten the answer wrong so many times with respect to enslavement, women, and potentially regarding unborn fetuses with ongoing debates. Defining “others”[2] gets to the heart of who is a subject of justice. It also gets to a backbone of our legal system. 

While corporations cannot even feel pain, they constitute legal persons.[3] Nonhuman animals are sentient and have the ability to suffer, yet they are considered personal property.[4] So, what constitutes legal personhood?

1. Corporations as Persons 

Corporations are granted legal personhood insofar as they are likened to humans.[5] In Providence Bank v. Billings, Justice Marshall describes “The great object of an incorporation is to bestow the character and properties of individuality on a collective and changing body of men.”[6] Although, corporations are not natural persons like human beings, corporations are “artificial persons.”[7] Courts consider corporations persons because natural persons speak through corporations.[8] Therefore, establishing legal personhood for corporations simply reinforce the interests of man. 

2. Non-human Animals as Property 

In Nonhuman Rights Project Inc. v. Breheny, the Non-human Rights Project sued the Bronx Zoo, seeking a habeus corpus on behalf of Happy, an elephant.[9] The court describes legal personhood as “often connected with the capacity, not just to benefit from the provision of legal rights, but also to assume legal duties and social responsibilities.” [10]

Despite the connection to capacity that the court draws, not all humans have this capacity to assume legal duties and social responsibilities. Consider cognitively differentially abled individuals or babies. While an objector may argue that babies have the potential to develop the capacity to assume legal duties, some cognitively differentially abled individuals do not. Therefore, this connection with capacity becomes arbitrary and, instead, a focus on category membership. This is seen in the court’s own language. The capacity to assume legal duties and social responsibilities refers to the capacity of a species, with a habeus corpus applied to “humans because they are humans.” [11]

However, the court’s argument begs the question: why does the capacity to assume legal duties and social responsibility matter to grant legal personhood? Many legal persons lack the capacity to assume social responsibilities. Consider the case of companion animals. Presumably, their owner takes care of them by providing food and shelter. Like in the case of children and some cognitively differentially abled individuals, companion animals have humans who assume legal duties and social responsibilities for them.  In fact, the lack of the same capacity which the court leans on for legal personhood creates a need for stronger legal recognition and protections. The vulnerable deserve more protections, not less. Society acknowledges this when harsher penalties are enforced if the victim of a crime is a child rather than an adult. 

Granting personhood based on the capacity of a species is granting personhood simply based on membership in a biological category. How might recognizing legal personhood based on a biological category membership go wrong? 

3. Iowa Statutes

Consider Iowa’s own animal welfare statutes. Under §717C.1, “A person who performs a sex act with an animal is guilty of an aggravated misdemeanor.” [12]  Recently, Iowa was the last state to pass a statute making animal torture a felony. Under §717B.3A, a person is guilty of animal torture if they “intentionally, willfully, and maliciously mutilate, burn, starve, drown, or cause intensive or prolonged pain or death to a companion animal.”[13] However, there are no provisions banning the ability to readopt, even the same animal that was subjected to torture or sexual abuse. [14] Under a legal framework where significant legal protections are ascribed only to those within a biological category, there is no number of amendments or revisions that can correct the underlying framework of our legal system. 

4. Conclusion

Only in a corporation’s ability to serve the interests of man does a corporation have legal personhood. In contrast, legal personhood of non-human animals would be in the interest of animals themselves. The capacity of a species argument for measuring legal personhood is circular, coming back to a simpler anthropocentric tenant, protecting “humans because they are humans.” [15]

Property law authorizes humans to exercise dominion over animals. [16] It is unlikely that with these anthropocentric legal origins,[17] non-human animals will bear any kind of legal personhood in a legal system which prioritizes a biological category membership. Critics claim that granting legal personhood to non-human animals would be contrary to the in interests of humans.[18] However, is it more contrary to the interests of humans to ascribe legal personhood on a biological category basis?