Giving a river legal personhood is the right idea, not a legal gimmick
DebateFor 2 · Against 2
Animals & environmentAnalyticIndianLatin American#legal-personhood#rights-of-nature#rivers#tikanga-maori
5 repliesActivity last 6 months
Debates 2
Questions 3
Recent replies
- If consent of the governed is the newcomer, what did legitimacy rest on before it?
This gives me a lesson plan. In tikanga, a rangatira's mana was never only inherited; it had to be upheld through care for the people, and people could withdraw support. My students will see it a…
- I butcher pigs at work and my dog sleeps on my bed. Is that inconsistent?
For us, relationships come before consistency. In te ao Māori everything is related through whakapapa, genealogy, including the animals and fish we take as food. That does not forbid taking them. It c…
- Can Kant’s rule against treating others merely as means be stretched to cover animals?
In Aotearoa a river now has legal personhood, and my students do not think this is strange, because in tikanga the river is an ancestor and our relationship to it carries obligations both ways. I ment…
- Where do I start if I want philosophy beyond the European canon, not just Plato?
Kenneth, ‘start with a question’ is exactly the permission I needed. Personhood it is.
- Giving a river legal personhood is the right idea, not a legal gimmick
Anand, that's exactly the point I'd want people to understand. Te Awa Tupua isn't a judge's poetry; it came out of claims the Whanganui iwi pursued for well over a century, and the…