Happy the elephant is suffering as a direct result of her living conditions in the Bronx zoo. Judges in New York accept this, and that there is a moral issue here. Yet they claim they cannot grant her legal relief: she is merely a thing, property like any other possession, and until the legislature recognises her as a legal person their hands are tied. This talk will use Happy’s litigation as a case study to probe the belief that legal systems have absolute discretion to recognise who is and is not a legal person, and will argue that this position presupposes a legal positivist position with regards to the validity of legal rules. It will present both strong and soft natural law arguments that show this assumption to be misguided, and demonstrate that any rule which does not recognise the legal personhood of beings of moral concern cannot be legally valid.

The ANU Law & Philosophy Forum is an interdisciplinary group focused on issues spanning law and philosophy. Its core purpose is to promote research, discussion, and exchanges on various topics in law and philosophy, covering aspects of both private law and public law, and issues within both legal and political philosophy.

The Forum hosts guest speakers, holds workshops, and discusses recent scholarship of note in the field. Meetings are open to faculty members and research students from the College of Law and the School of Philosophy, and friends and colleagues of both. All are welcome to attend.

We look forward to hosting Dr Jowitt at the forum, and hope you will be able to attend.