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"The Loss of the Person: The British Debates on the Legal Status of Groups and Individuals, 1880-1930"
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unions to lobby politically. It also offered a formal challenge to the claim of unrivalled sovereignty by the State. The controversy over group personality sparked the political-intellectual movement known as English pluralism, and to the extent that the controversy over group personality is remembered in the canon of political thought it is owing to the key role pluralists such as John Neville Figgis and Harold Laski played in these debates.
Realism, the belief that groups are real Persons, thus became the spark
initiating the larger movement of English pluralism. The pluralists challenged the ultimate or unrivaled sovereignty of the State, arguing for the necessity of an active group life in a society for the realization of individual liberty. The pluralists have been studied mainly for their theory of the state, of groups or of sovereignty.
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But the importance of Realism for the
pluralists has not been studied often, and never with attention to the questions concerning legal recognition. There has been little interest in the context where the pluralist’s insistence upon legal recognition for group’s was made, or who the Pluralists were arguing against and what type of reaction their legal arguments engendered.
This is unfortunate since a full understanding of this debate, distinct
from the other concern of the Pluralists, is vital to a full understanding of the status of the legal subject in a liberal state. Thus, I will limit my discussion to just one element of the pluralist’s creed – the reality of the group personality. Even with that fraction of their theory, I will only address its impact upon the idea of the human being as Person. What were theramifications of the Personhood debate upon the standing – moral and legal – of the individual person?
To that end, there are three questions that I will raise throughout my
account of this debate. The first concerns the nature of recognition of personhood. If to be a person means that the State recognizes a subject as a right-and-duty-bearing unit, does it follow that the State creates the Person through its official act of recognition? Or alternatively, does the State have only the authority to acknowledge the already real, pre-juridical, existence of the Person? This is the central question for the advocates of group
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For contextual background and analysis on the pluralists, see for example, K. C. Hsiao. Political
Pluralism: A Study in Contemporary Political Theory. (London: Kegan Paul, 1927); H. M. Magid. English Political Pluralism. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1941); David Nicholls. Three Varieties of Pluralism. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1974); The Pluralist State. Second Edition (St. Martin’s Press, 1994); Andrew Vincent. Theories of the State. (New York: Basil Blackwell,1987) pp. 181-217; David Runciman. Pluralism and the Personality of the State. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
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unions to lobby politically. It also offered a formal challenge to the claim of
unrivalled sovereignty by the State. The controversy over group personality
sparked the political-intellectual movement known as English pluralism, and
to the extent that the controversy over group personality is remembered in
the canon of political thought it is owing to the key role pluralists such as
John Neville Figgis and Harold Laski played in these debates.
Realism, the belief that groups are real Persons, thus became the spark
initiating the larger movement of English pluralism. The pluralists
challenged the ultimate or unrivaled sovereignty of the State, arguing for the
necessity of an active group life in a society for the realization of individual
liberty. The pluralists have been studied mainly for their theory of the state,
of groups or of sovereignty.
6
But the importance of Realism for the
pluralists has not been studied often, and never with attention to the
questions concerning legal recognition. There has been little interest in the
context where the pluralist’s insistence upon legal recognition for group’s
was made, or who the Pluralists were arguing against and what type of
reaction their legal arguments engendered.
This is unfortunate since a full understanding of this debate, distinct
from the other concern of the Pluralists, is vital to a full understanding of the
status of the legal subject in a liberal state. Thus, I will limit my discussion
to just one element of the pluralist’s creed – the reality of the group
personality. Even with that fraction of their theory, I will only address its
impact upon the idea of the human being as Person. What were the
ramifications of the Personhood debate upon the standing – moral and legal
– of the individual person?
To that end, there are three questions that I will raise throughout my
account of this debate. The first concerns the nature of recognition of
personhood. If to be a person means that the State recognizes a subject as a
right-and-duty-bearing unit, does it follow that the State creates the Person
through its official act of recognition? Or alternatively, does the State have
only the authority to acknowledge the already real, pre-juridical, existence of
the Person? This is the central question for the advocates of group
6
For contextual background and analysis on the pluralists, see for example, K. C. Hsiao. Political
Pluralism: A Study in Contemporary Political Theory. (London: Kegan Paul, 1927); H. M. Magid. English
Political Pluralism. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1941); David Nicholls. Three Varieties of
Pluralism. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1974); The Pluralist State. Second Edition (St. Martin’s Press,
1994); Andrew Vincent. Theories of the State. (New York: Basil Blackwell,1987) pp. 181-217; David
Runciman. Pluralism and the Personality of the State. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
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