ONTOLOGY OF LEGAL PERSONHOOD
ONTOLOGY OF LEGAL PERSONHOOD

Summary/Abstract: The recent emergence of novel entities aspiring to legal personhood – including artificial intelligence, non-human animals, and environmental features – has challenged traditional theories of the ontology of legal personhood, which originally centred on corporate personality. This article provides a conceptual roadmap of the ontological views surrounding legal personhood by bridging historical theories of the corporation (Aggregate Theory, Concessionism, and Realism) with contemporary analytical metaphysics. In doing so, the paper identifies and analyses three primary theoretical fault lines. First, it examines the location problem, exploring how legal personhood exists metaphysically through dualist, reductionist, and sceptical frameworks. Second, it addresses the grounding problem, contrasting Legalist perspectives – which view personhood as an unconstrained, freely assignable institutional status – with Realist approaches that demand inherent ontological attributes, such as sentience or rationality, as prerequisites for recognition. Finally, it explores the identity problem through the lenses of essentialism and the Artifact Theory of Law, questioning the necessary features and functional plurality of legal personhood. Ultimately, this framework offers a crucial theoretical foundation for the conceptual reassessment required to navigate the forthcoming challenges of granting legal recognition to non-human entities.

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