This Unity of Life and Action: Revisiting the Realist Theory of Group Personality

31 Pages Posted: 22 Feb 2011 Last revised: 25 Apr 2011

See all articles by Victor M. Muniz-Fraticelli

Victor M. Muniz-Fraticelli

McGill University, Faculty of Law; McGill University, Department of Political Science

Date Written: April 22, 2011

Abstract

The recent revival of interest in British political pluralism has not been met with similar interest in reviving the realist theory of group personality, a central tenet of the pluralist argument, which considered (at least some) associations to be actual subjects with autonomous wills. This theory stands opposed to the contract theory of group personality whereby groups are reducible to the aggregate will of their members expressed through a network of reciprocal contracts between them, and to the fiat theory whereby corporations are legal fictions whose very existence depends on the will of the state. Against both of these alternatives, I seek to reconstruct a viable version of the realist theory of group personality. Drawing on Philip Pettit’s work on intentionality and collective persons, and on contemporary theories of collective identity and corporate constitutionalism, I affirm that (at least some) groups have a capacity for agency at least equivalent to that of natural persons which should be similarly recognized in law. This is underscored by a historical analysis of ‘natural’ personality, which shows it to be no less artificial as juridical personality, and by a reflection on the collective self-understanding of precisely those groups that concerned the British pluralists. I conclude by suggesting some currently existing legal mechanisms by which the realist theory may be given institutional form.

Suggested Citation

Muniz-Fraticelli, Victor M., This Unity of Life and Action: Revisiting the Realist Theory of Group Personality (April 22, 2011). Western Political Science Association 2011 Annual Meeting Paper , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1767027

Victor M. Muniz-Fraticelli (Contact Author)

McGill University, Faculty of Law

3644 Peel Street
Montreal, Quebec H3A 1W9
Canada

McGill University, Department of Political Science ( email )

Room 414, Leacock Building
855 Sherbrooke Street West
Montreal, Quebec H3A 2T7
Canada

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