Law's Meaning of Life: Philosophy, Religion, Darwin and the Legal Person by Ngaire Naffine
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.2010.00832.x |
| Author | Maleiha Malik |
| Published date | 01 November 2010 |
| Date | 01 November 2010 |
REVIEWS
Ngaire Na⁄ne, Law’s Meaning of Life: Philosophy, Religion, Darwin and the
Legal Person,Oxford: Hart Publishing,2009, 208 pp, pb d25.00.
Law’s Meaning of Life: Philosophy, Religion and the Legal Person by Ngaire Na⁄ne
makes an important contribution to our understandingof how law, and lawyers,
exclude important human experiences. Na⁄ne’s unique insight to this debate is
that we can productively move beyond the usual way of framing theoretical
debate around questions such as ‘What is law?’ and‘What is the nature of law?’
towards a more fundamental enquiry about ‘Who is the law for?’ or ‘For whom
is law?’
More speci¢cally, Na⁄ne develops her analysis by examining an impressive
range of theory as well as examples from areas such as criminal law and medical
ethics. She develops a taxonomy of how legal theorists and debates address the
question‘who is a legal person’. First, she argues that the biggest intellectual and
moral battle is ‘between those who say that the law does not and should not oper-
ate with a natural conception of the person and those who say that it does and
should.’ (20) She labels the ¢rst group Legalists and the second group Metaphysi-
cal Realists. Legalists believethat law is sociallyconstructed, andits conception of
the person should not be confused with real human beings. For this group, it is
neither necessarynor desirableto look outsidethe law to understand law’ssubject:
neither tophilosophy forthe subject as moralagent; not toreligion for the subject
as a sacred person; nor to the biological sciences for the subject as a natural being.
Realists, on the other hand, are more willing to accept and examine the connec-
tion between law’s person and‘non-legalontologies’.These Realists canbe placed
into further sub-categories: Rationalists (who prioritise reason); Religionists
(who insist on human sanctity); and ¢nally, Naturalists (who regard humans as
natural, evolved, biological creatures).
Na⁄ne uses this analytical structure to examine a number of themes and legal
cases including, inter alia: criminal law (chapter 4 and 5); Finnis, Dworkin’s Life’s
Dominion and medical treatme ntcas es (chapters 6 and 7); as well as Darwin, Singer
and the identi¢cation of the human versus animal species divide (chapter 8). The
wide-ranging use of theory, law and political debates is impressive. It shows how
Na⁄ne’s re-statement of the ‘what is law’ question as ‘who is the law for’ reveals
crucial aspects of law’s exclusion that often remain hidden from view. For Na⁄ne,
an analysis of these topics con¢rms that the ability to be a certain type of person
‘inside’the law does not depend on ‘free choice’ but rather on legal relations which
are determined by the l aw itself. The analysis does support Na⁄ne’s conclusion that:
Personality has always operated by inclusion and exclusion and the decision as to
who should be included or excluded has depended on social evaluations of who
r2010 TheAuthor.The ModernLaw Reviewr2010The Modern LawReview Limited.
Publishedby BlackwellPublishing,9600 GarsingtonRoad,Oxford OX42DQ,UK and 350 Main Street,Malden,MA 02148,USA
(2010)73(6) 1076^1092
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