the curious case of ronald mcdonald’s claim to rights: an ontological account of differences in group and individual person rights
;Smith Leonie
structure (london, england : 1993)2018Vol. 4pp. 1-28
101
leonie2018journalthe
Abstract
Performative accounts of personhood argue that group agents are persons, fit to be held responsible within the social sphere. Nonetheless, these accounts want to retain a moral distinction between group and individual persons. That: (1) Group-persons can be responsible for their actions qua persons, but that (2) group-persons might nonetheless not have rights equivalent to those of human persons. I present an argument which makes sense of this disanalogy, without recourse to normative claims or additional ontological commitments. I instead ground rights in the different relations in which performative persons stand in relation to one another.