Abstract

ZULLO, Silvia. Body and property rights: critical issues and limits in the balance between individual and collective interests. Rev. Bioética y Derecho [online]. 2018, n.42, pp.143-161. ISSN 1886-5887.

This analysis looks at the way the contemporary debate in ethics and legal philosophy has addressed the problem of justifying and qualifying the right to claim a property interest in the body and its parts. In treating this problem I highlight the tension between individual and collective rights and the challenge of treating something like biological samples as property: since such tissue cannot be reproduced independently of the individual from which it comes, and so is closely bound up with the individual's biological identity, there seems to be something amiss in the idea of using it like any other piece of personal property, or "movable". This makes it necessary to work out the ontology of the relation between the body and property, so as to understand whether this relation normatively supports the notion of a property right in the body, thus rethinking the legal and ethical status of the human body and its parts as subject to ownership.

Keywords : body; law; interest; property rights; ethics.

        · abstract in Italian | Spanish | Catalan     · text in Italian     · Italian ( pdf )