Abstract
Corporate personhood and corporate rights are co-constitutive in nature, meaning that they are mutually constructed – there is no singular, one-way causal path between a conception of corporate personhood and a conception of corporate rights. Consequently, modes of reasoning that purport to deduce the substance and extent of corporate rights from the mere fact of corporate personhood are logically circular. Although the relationship between corporate personhood and corporate rights is real and significant, this relationship cannot, in and of itself, comprehensively specify the content of corporate rights; their substance can only be specified by reference to external normative criteria. The upshot is that corporate law inevitably remains a socially and politically contingent field. Those advancing particular conceptions of corporate personhood and corporate rights should acknowledge the contingency of corporate law and present their preferred visions by reference to external normative criteria that they are prepared to acknowledge, describe, and defend.
Repository Citation
Christopher Bruner,
Corporate Personhood, Corporate Rights, and the Contingency of Corporate Law
, 16 Transnat'l Legal Theory 9
(2025),
Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/fac_artchop/1773
Previously posted to Taylor & Francis Online.