Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Identity, Personhood and the Law

  • Book
  • © 2017

Overview

Authors:
  1. Charles Foster

    1. Green Templeton College, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

  2. Jonathan Herring

    1. Exeter College, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

  • A provocative examination of what it is (if anything) that gives human beings special moral value
  • Practical applications to matters of human rights and legal classification
  • Accessibly and engagingly written
  • Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Law (BRIEFSLAW)

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this book

Log in via an institution
eBook USD 44.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 59.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

Licence this eBook for your library

Institutional subscriptions

Table of contents (5 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-vii
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introducing Identity, Personhood and Authenticity

    • Charles Foster, Jonathan Herring
    Pages 1-19

  3. Theories of Personhood

    • Charles Foster, Jonathan Herring
    Pages 21-34

  4. A Relational Account of Personhood

    • Charles Foster, Jonathan Herring
    Pages 35-42

  5. Identity Theories

    • Charles Foster, Jonathan Herring
    Pages 43-50

  6. Summary and Conclusion

    • Charles Foster, Jonathan Herring
    Pages 51-70
Back to top

Keywords

About this book

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. 

Authors and Affiliations

  • Green Templeton College, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom

    Charles Foster

  • Exeter College, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom

    Jonathan Herring

Bibliographic Information

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Back to top

Search

Navigation