A legal or legal person (Latin: persona ficta; also a legal person) has a legal name and has certain legal rights, protections, privileges, responsibilities and obligations, similar to those of a natural person. The concept of legal person is a fundamental legal fiction. It is relevant to the philosophy of law as it is essential for laws affecting a company (corporate law). I will consider here only fiat money, that is, „[m]oney, which a government has declared legal tender, although it has no intrinsic value and is not guaranteed by reserves“. 4If we apply the second type of essentialism to a legal framework, we could speak of individual legal essentialism. Individual legal essentialism assumes that each entity necessarily belongs to a particular legal form or not. In the case of a corporation, this could mean that some entities are necessarily corporations, but others are not. Unfortunately, individual essentialism can also be considered essentialism via friendly membership (Bird & Tobin 2018). By treating an individual as a single, continuous entity, the law can actually go further than many theories of personality. Think of X1 committing murder without being detected. Later, he is attacked and hit on the head, losing all memory of his former self. In addition, its character changes completely; He becomes a caring man, X2, who dedicates his life to good causes.

Since many theorists associate personal identity with memories and character traits, such theories would imply that X2 is not the same person as X1. However, the court system could very well require X2 to be convicted of murder if it turns out that a man with X2`s DNA and fingerprints committed the murder. X1 and X2 would therefore be treated as the same person by the legal system, but not according to the above-mentioned theories of personal identity. The market classification of the legal person and the company by the Commercial Code results from their legal status, as in the Federal Labour Code, which classifies employees as natural persons who provide personal services and are subordinate to another person (natural or legal) who pays them a salary. Eduardo García Máynez26 reviews Ferrara`s ideas and believes that the recognition of legal personality has a constitutive effect for the right purpose. In other words, legal persons are not created by a legal act, but already exist; The law only recognizes and provokes their existence. The number of skills held by an ordinary human individual usually increases gradually until the age of majority. Babies have no skills and no duties; But as they grow, the legal system usually grants them an increasing number of legal powers.

While children and the mentally handicapped possess skills, they are in most cases limited in number and dependent type. It is important to remember that, in most cases, the justification for these limitations is moral rather than conceptual: limiting the number of skills these people possess is for their own good, as they lack the necessary mental faculties.54 I see no conceptual barrier that would prevent most minors or the mentally handicapped from being able to exercise skills independently. Legal acts include, as a necessary element, the intention to cause a legal consequence. Such intentions presuppose a certain understanding of institutional reality and how to manipulate that reality through the use of symbols. Relatively young children are already beginning to understand these things in a rudimentary way, and most people with disabilities have, to my knowledge, such an understanding. However, it is unlikely that nonhuman animals would be able to form such intentions. In fictional theory, the legal person or company is an exception to the rule that only natural persons can exercise rights and obligations. This exception is facilitated by a legal fiction that recognizes the artificial capacity of a fictitious entity to own or possess property. Savigny defines a legal person as an object of property created artificially37 and that this entity develops its capacity or legal personality only through ownership. Ownership is the means to achieve the purposes for which the legal entity was created. The legal meaning of the natural person (or individual) depends on whether the legal person is a necessary consequence of that person`s characteristics, so that the legal personality of a natural person does not derive from his or her human existence. With regard to the obligations of legal persons, the articles of association of each company serve as a reference for the acts of persons who, as representatives of that legal person, perform (or violate) certain obligations.

This situation, known as a `fictitious attribution`27, makes it possible to consider the legal person as linked to a debt. Formalist theory or theory of technical reality (Francisco Ferrara). The word „person“ has three meanings for Mr. Ferrara: a) biological, referring to a rational being; (b) philosophical, referring to a rational being capable of proposing and achieving goals; and (c) legally, which treats the person as a legal person with rights and obligations.24 Mr. Ferrara considered the latter simply as a status or state of being that includes only societies and social organizations.25 In conclusion, we can say that a „veil“ protecting the legal person can be lifted or „broken“ if it is abused by agents, for their personal gain at the expense of others; or circumvent certain laws to which they would be bound as natural persons. 20My previous statements should not be read too much. In particular, it is not true that a legal positivist cannot accept limitations on the notion of legal person, including limitations on the scope of entities that might be members of the „legal person“. I simply insist that a legal positivist should be wary of metaphysical or conceptual constraints and natural characteristics (just as positivists are wary of moral limits to the content of law).

However, it is almost platitude that there are still pragmatic constraints and reasons for limited application of legal terms, including the notion of legal person. Note that Naffine legalists claim that at least prima facie everything could be a legal entity, and they do so for a very important reason. They note that the legal person „(…) is a strictly formal and neutral legal instrument that allows a being or entity to act legally, to acquire a so-called `legal personality`: the capacity to bear rights and obligations“ (Naffine 2009: 21). A legal positivist might insist that legal institutions are what they are, first, because they perform certain relevant functions (as defined within a society). The assignment of a legal entity to an entity only makes sense if it fulfills a specific relevant function. Unfortunately, giving my last T-shirt legal personality would hardly fulfil a relevant legal function. 7 Given the scope of the concept of legal person, Kurki Ngaire introduces the Nafinian distinction between legalists and realists. As Naffine puts it, „For some legalists, anything is allowed, anyone or anyone can be vested with rights and thus become a legal entity as long as it is compatible with the purpose of a particular law“ (Naffine 2009:21).

On the other hand, the realists „(…) believe that the legal entity is the expression of an important determining attribute of human nature, and that it is therefore important to go beyond the law to discover what that nature is“ (Naffine 2009:22). 19This suspicion could provoke dissatisfaction with Kurki`s theory and call for an alternative. However, one could insist that Kurki reach the positivists by allowing a potentially infinite number of legal platforms that could be introduced by the legislator (Kurki 2019: 128) in accordance with the needs of that legislator.