Personhood in the Age of Biolegality: Brave New Law (Biolegalities)

This volume showcases emerging interdisciplinary scholarship that captures the complex ways in which biological knowledge is testing the nature and structure of legal personhood. Key questions include: What do the new biosciences do to our social, cultural, and legal conceptions of personhood? How does our legal apparatus incorporate new legitimations from the emerging biosciences into its knowledge system? And what kind of ethical, socio-political, and scientific consequences are attached to the establishment of such new legalities? The book examines these problems by looking at materialities, the posthuman, and the relational in the (un)making of legalities. Themes and topics include postgenomic research, gene editing, neuroscience, epigenetics, precision medicine, regenerative medicine, reproductive technologies, border technologies, and theoretical debates in legal theory on the relationship between persons, property, and rights. Acknowledgements 7 Contents 10 Notes on Contributors 13 Abbreviations 17 Chapter 1 Brave New Law: Personhood in the Age of Biolegality 19 Legality in the Age of Biology 22 The Subject of Personhood 24 Troubling Persons 26 Evidencing Persons 28 Governing Persons 29 The Future of Persons 31 References 33 Part I Troubling Persons 36 Chapter 2 Spectral Personas: Exploring the Constitution and Legal Standing of “Virtual Personhood” 37 Introduction: Concepts and Constructs 37 Algorithmically Defined Selves: The Rise of the Data Revenant 40 Abolishing the Brain/Machine Interface 45 Spectral Personas: Origins and Identity 47 Conclusion 50 References 52 Chapter 3 The Political Economy of Neurolaw: Can Neurolaw Destabilize the Neoliberal Discourse About Human Behavior? 55 Introduction 55 Neuroscience, Neoliberalism and the Law: Sites of Knowledge Coproduction 56 Neurolaw and Contesting the Neoliberal Narrative 61 The Return of Neoliberalism 64 Conclusion 68 Bibliography 68 Chapter 4 Legal Personhood in Postgenomic Times: Plasticity, Rights, and Relationality 71 Introduction 71 Troubled Persons 72 Legal Plasticity in the Age of Global Capital 74 Biological Plasticity and the Postgenomic Body 76 Rights Claims Informed by the New Biologies 78 Critical Notes to Plasticity 81 Conclusion 83 References 84 Part II Evidencing Persons 89 Chapter 5 Translating Proof: Contested Illness, Radiation Exposure, and the Health Claims of Nuclear Test Veterans 90 Introduction 90 Background 91 Crafting Efficacious Proof 92 Translation 93 Epidemiological Proof 95 Genetic Proof 98 Legal Proof 99 Conclusions 101 References 103 Chapter 6 Paradigm Change, Law, and Persons: Producing Legal Responsibility for Pain 106 Introduction 106 “Serious Injury” Claims and Pain and Suffering 108 Paradigms of Pain 111 Understanding “Disentanglement” 113 “Moral Hazard” as Imputed Agency 115 The Coproduction of Dualism 117 Conclusion 120 References 121 Chapter 7 Racial Futurity: Biolegality and the Question of Black Life 123 Introduction 123 Racial Valuation in IVF Technologies 124 The Caesura of Race in Cramblett v. Midwest Sperm Bank 127 Conclusion: Procreation’s Racial Order 132 Bibliography 135 Part III Governing Persons 138 Chapter 8 Phenotypic Personhood: Epigenetics and the Biolegality of Processing Asylum 139 Introduction 139 The Movement from Biometrics to Biomarkers in Border Science 141 Bio-polygraphs and the Suspicious Body of the Unaccompanied Minor 144 Estimated Nationalities, Calculated Politics in Border Science 149 The Molecularization of the Asylum Seeker (The New Technics of Processing) 152 References 154 Chapter 9 CRISPR Cowboys? Genetic Self-Experimentation and the Limits of the Person 160 Introduction: Hacking the Future 160 A Brief History of Self-Experimentation 162 Contesting the Human: Contemporary Self-Experimentation 163 Performing Self-Experimentation 165 An Experiment to End All Aging? 167 Radical Rhetoric 169 Discussion: The Limits of the Person 171 Bibliography 174 Chapter 10 In Genes We Trust: Genetic Privacy in the Age of Precision Medicine 178 Introduction 178 Legal Personhood and Ethical Questions 180 Precision Medicine, Electronic Health Records, and Genetic Testing 181 Genetic Privacy and Precision Medicine: Current Framework 185 Genetic Privacy and Precision Medicine: Open Questions 188 The Right (Not) to Know 188 Access, Use, Consent, and Security 190 Conclusion 191 References 192 Part IV The Future of Persons 195 Chapter 11 “The Obsolescence of Human Beings” and the Non-obsolescence of Law’s Natural Persons: Transformations of Legal Personhood Through the Lens of “Promethean Shame” 196 Introduction 196 From Promethean Pride to Promethean Shame 198 “Promethean Shame” in an Age of Trans- and Post-humanism 201 Legal “Metamorphoses of the Self” in an Age of Promethean Shame 203 The Shame of “Natum Esse” 204 The Body as “Something that Must Be Overcome” 206 The “Human Malaise of Being Unique” 208 The Non-obsolescence of Law’s Natural Persons 209 Bibliography 212 Chapter 12 Distributed Cognition, Distributed Being, and the Foundations of Law 214 Introduction 214 The Order of Life and Law 217 Thinking Life and Law Together 223 Property and Agency 224 Embodied Norms 227 Conclusion 229 References 230 Chapter 13 Nature’s Law or Law’s Law? Community of Life, Legal Personhood, and Trusts 233 Introduction 233 Nature’s Law or Law’s Law? Legal Personality and the Biopolitical Turn 235 Nature Rights, Corporations, and Trusts 239 Trusts and the Separation of Use from Dominion 244 Bibliography 250 Chapter 14 Afterword: After the Great Undoing 254 References 261 Index 263 Front Matter ....Pages i-xx Brave New Law: Personhood in the Age of Biolegality (Marc de Leeuw, Sonja van Wichelen)....Pages 1-17 Front Matter ....Pages 19-19 Spectral Personas: Exploring the Constitution and Legal Standing of “Virtual Personhood” (Bronwyn Parry)....Pages 21-38 The Political Economy of Neurolaw: Can Neurolaw Destabilize the Neoliberal Discourse About Human Behavior? (Delphine Rabet)....Pages 39-54 Legal Personhood in Postgenomic Times: Plasticity, Rights, and Relationality (Marc de Leeuw, Sonja van Wichelen)....Pages 55-72 Front Matter ....Pages 73-73 Translating Proof: Contested Illness, Radiation Exposure, and the Health Claims of Nuclear Test Veterans (Catherine Trundle)....Pages 75-90 Paradigm Change, Law, and Persons: Producing Legal Responsibility for Pain (Seamus Barker)....Pages 91-107 Racial Futurity: Biolegality and the Question of Black Life (Nadine Ehlers)....Pages 109-123 Front Matter ....Pages 125-125 Phenotypic Personhood: Epigenetics and the Biolegality of Processing Asylum (Zsuzsanna Dominika Ihar)....Pages 127-147 CRISPR Cowboys? Genetic Self-Experimentation and the Limits of the Person (Courtney Addison)....Pages 149-166 In Genes We Trust: Genetic Privacy in the Age of Precision Medicine (Dean Southwood)....Pages 167-183 Front Matter ....Pages 185-185 “The Obsolescence of Human Beings” and the Non-obsolescence of Law’s Natural Persons: Transformations of Legal Personhood Through the Lens of “Promethean Shame” (Britta van Beers)....Pages 187-204 Distributed Cognition, Distributed Being, and the Foundations of Law (Margaret Davies)....Pages 205-223 Nature’s Law or Law’s Law? Community of Life, Legal Personhood, and Trusts (Miguel Vatter)....Pages 225-245 Afterword: After the Great Undoing (David Delaney)....Pages 247-255 Back Matter ....Pages 257-261