Disability, no-powers, and personhood

Book section : Chapter

A legal system may shape and confine the juridical attributes of a subject in order to enhance the subject’s personhood, or the ability to form an identity, to self-govern, and to project one’s ideas and efforts in a coherent fashion to others. A disability curbing or voiding specific legal powers in relation to others can help set boundaries so that one’s remaining powers, rights and liberties are used well. The strategy of legal disability involves a subtraction or privation of legal attributes designed to strengthen or protect or discipline the legal person. The subtraction can be imposed by law, voluntarily adopted by the subject, or may involve a midway implication of law ascribing disability when the subject enters into a typical relationship or situation where holding a full power is inapt. This chapter explores how disability or curbing of powers is found across the gamut of private as well as public law, and how this assists in the constitution of legally recognized persons.

Authors: Getzler, J

• Publication status: Accepted
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Host title: Legal personhood in private law
• Acceptance date: 2026-03-23
• Language: English
• Keywords: legal personality; Hohfeldian analysis; disability; personhood; capacity
• Subtype: Chapter