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Comment by roca | Hacker News Reader

Normally, both natural and artificial persons have responsibilities as well as rights. But a gorilla or a river obviously can't have responsibilities... Therefore at most they can be considered a rather limited kind of person, more like a human infant or an intellectually incapable adult than a regular human or an organisation of regular humans.

Then of course it falls to humans to determine what the best interests of these "persons" are, and to actually pursue those interests, and to judge whether those humans acting on behalf of these "persons" are actually acting in good faith (and what do we do if they aren't?).

Seems to me this "personhood" concept mainly muddies the waters (so to speak) and it would be simpler to pursue conservation ends without it.

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> both natural and artificial persons have responsibilities as well as rights

the problem with legal persons is that we hold them to the same standard as a natural person but their ability to do damage far exceeds anything a natural person can do. terrible decisions are being made by groups that do not reflect the individual. Many crimes are committed by legal persons are only punishable by losing trust from shareholders (lying to investors is much easier to get away with for legal than for natural persons - e.g. they're not crimes for legal persons in the same sense), a natural person would often go to jail for similar actions. Tobacco industry or oil industry would have no executives because they'd all have be doing time. the Sacklers would be hanging from a tree, and Elon Musk would be have to pay taxes.

> Seems to me this "personhood" concept mainly muddies the waters

there is nothing wrong with designating whole regions as off limits to humans. Ban any form of tourism or commercial exploitation etc in parts of the world is the only option IMHO.

On your first point, I agree.

Non-human natural persons absolutely have responsibilities. The plants are responsible for photosynthesizing, the fungi for decomposition, etc. They do their holy work and we all get to stay alive, if we hold up our end of things as well.

Plants aren't responsible for photosynthesis. They just photosynthesise. Fungi aren't responsible for decomposition. They just decompose.

Saying they are "responsible" for those things is like saying that a river is responsible for flowing or the Earth is responsible for rotating.

Perhaps "duties" is a clearer word here.

It is not the duty of plants to photosynthesize. It's just something they do. It is important to distinguish these two concepts, because if you equate them, then for example it is the duty of Exxon to destroy the environment. And this whole discussion presumes that humans and collections of humans like Exxon actually have a duty to not destroy the environment.

Is it really Exxon that’s the problem? Consumption is something we as a species seem evolved to do.

> It is important to distinguish these two concepts, because if you equate them, then for example it is the duty of Exxon to destroy the environment. And this whole discussion presumes that humans and collections of humans like Exxon actually have a duty to not destroy the environment.

Well, this is a true statement. There is a meme "100 companies are responsible for climate change" which implies the companies could change their ways and customers don't have to do anything, but it's not true; we keep them around by buying oil and then we burn it.

The only way it could be different would if they could make carbon-neutral synfuels but it doesn't seem like this is happening.

I agree with you, that meme is highly misleading. To some extent company behavior is just aggregate customer behavior.

However, it's not the whole extent. For example Exxon knowing about the CO2 greenhouse effect in 1982 and keeping quiet about that knowledge is problematic behavior that is not excused by customers' desire to buy fossil fuels IMHO.

I'm not wedded to the Exxon example. If you prefer, substitute any company that willfully breaks environmental protection laws to increase profits.

We downplay the impact systems have on human behavior. Let's look at the claim that people have a need to buy oil, and that oil companies merely meet demand.

In America, most people cannot buy groceries without having access to a car. Car ownership is not required de jure, but it required de facto because of a lack of alternatives. America used to have transportation choice. Anywhere where there was transportation diversity, car, tire, oil companies bought out public transit and shut down the operations. On April 1974, San Francisco mayor and antitrust attorney Joseph Alioto testified that "General Motors and the automobile industry generally exhibit a kind of monopoly evil", adding that GM "has carried on a deliberate concerted action with the oil companies and tire companies...for the purpose of destroying a vital form of competition; namely, electric rapid transit [0].

Oil (and other) companies stimulate demand for their products. When consequences occur, the modus operandi of corporations is to shift blame to their customers. The concept of personal carbon footprints are the result of a PR campaign by British Petroleum [1].

I think the reason 100 companies is a meme is because it resonates. It feels right, but the counter arguments are convenient, easy. It resonates because it hints at phenomena that we can't see directly, but have tremendous influence on our lives.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp...

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/23/big-oi...

Just because they can't market those responsibilities in a format that we are used to doesn't mean they don't do the work. It's just like the quiet worker in an office who does his job but is never noticed because he can't/doesn't care about selling his work to others.

I think I see where you are coming from. I think "responsibility" is a human social construct, but there is a concept that can be generalized for any living system. Plants have a role in the ecosystem with their photosynthesis. So even though they might not have the same kind of agency and volition as humans and photosynthesis is something plants _do_, nevertheless, a plant's relevancy to the ecosystem it belongs to is with their photosynthesis. The ecosystem would not function without it -- or if it does, it would be an entirely different kind of ecosystem.

I think in Carol Sanford's talks on living systems, the unique contribution a living system has for the ecosystem it lives within makes it non-displaceble.

Whether that should be recognized in our legal system, and something that helps humans participate in the ecology ... I don't know. The idea of legal personhood, at least, acknowledges that a living system is its own whole (if we are not just using it as a legal fiction), and it seems to me a stretch to say that a river "wants" legal representation. That sounds like the kind of stuff pre-modern tribal shamans do. That's not necessarily a bad thing in my book, but I don't know if our modern society is ready for that.

On the other hand, it could work as a balance to corporations having legal personhood.

It's a role not a responsibility. Responsibility would imply that they can be hold accountable for not delivering. Such as blaming plants for not taking enough CO2 from the atmosphere.

If my plants ever stop photosynethizing you best believe they're getting a beating

Not in MY garden you don't, you little photosyntard!

smack a leaf with the back of my hand

> Non-human natural persons absolutely have responsibilities. The plants are responsible for photosynthesizing, the fungi for decomposition, etc. They do their holy work and we all get to stay alive, if we hold up our end of things as well.

No, those are not about responsibility. Is a river responsible for someone drowning in it?

and it would be simpler to pursue conservation ends without it.

I doubt it. Look at corporate personhood and how it applies to Citizens United, being able to sue and tax a corporation, etc. Also look at how conservation protections have been put in place over the years compared to corporate protections. Treating corporations as a "person" opened the doors for a lot of simpler legal tools.

It makes sense to say corporations have responsibilities though, unlike animals. Maybe you're saying the responsibility part isn't necessary?

I agree with your thought, but not sure how to make the responsibility part fit in.

> Seems to me this "personhood" concept mainly muddies the waters

As personhood is legally expanded it only follows that other consequences of it will change as well. If it's traditional for personhood to stipulate responsibilities but personhood is too good of a defense for these assets, then I'd bet the responsibilities will shift into a different classification. We already have similar splits between personhood and citizenship.

The term responsibilities is very loaded here. Can you elaborate?

> Then of course it falls to humans to determine what the best interests of these "persons" are, and to actually pursue those interests, and to judge whether those humans acting on behalf of these "persons" are actually acting in good faith (and what do we do if they aren't?).

No it doesn't. All we need to do is to acknowledge that non-humans are not lesser than us, and that our most important responsibility as humans is to not abuse our mental and technological advantages.

Determining what is "abuse" and what not is not a given, this is why this discussion is required.

Indeed, I agree that one of our most important responsibilities as humans (arguably the most important if you take a generous interpretation) is "to not abuse our mental and technological advantages" --- to each other as well as to the natural world.

But we have to be honest that we possess those advantages, and that we have special status as the only species that has responsibilities. In that sense non-humans are indeed lesser than us.

How is this different than Chevron?

I think it would be interesting to do away with the concept of legal personhood for everyone. Alabama got rid of marriage, making it a private spiritual thing. Why not atomic identity in self and the few we really WANT to let in?

I can be a socially amenable person without a legal status. We’d still police and service the usual.

The story of “I did this…” is entirely bullshit these days. 5% hunt still. It’s all modern logistics. Why the redundant finance network? How many distributed ledgers do we need?

Even in paper form, the value of currency is coupled to abstract belief in a national identity.

The fact that you consider infants and intellectually incapable adults as "limited kinds of persons" says enough about the superiority complex that underlies the problem of humanity exploiting all natural resources.

Compared to healthy, functioning adults how are infants not limited?

99.9999% of natural resources in the universe are atoms of hydrogen in stars. We can't say that those atoms of hydrogen are a person, what we are really saying is that our probable intention to "exploit" those atoms of hydrogen makes us a vermin. I'm, of course, terrible opposed to that notion.

This could be turned round - are you implicitly assuming a human with limited ability has less value? Mere skill isn't the same as being a "good person", after all.

No, not at all. I'm a Christian and it's dogma for me that all humans carry the image of God and have intrinsic worth independent of their abilities or utility.

They’re limited in the sense that they don’t have the ability to advocate for themselves in a court of law or in the court of public opinion. They’re entirely dependent on others to advocate for them. That’s what makes them different from a typical adult human.

Person is a legal concept, too.

Of course infants and intellectually incapable adults are limited persons in the legal sense: they have fewer duties, but also fewer options. For example, they won't be accepted to a pilot school.

It's not about a "superiority complex" but about limited responsibility and independence.

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