Posthuman and Personhood: Legal Ambiguity of Robo Spiens, Corporate and Nature in Jeanette Winterson's The Stone Gods

: Posthumanism is frequently associated with the concept that humans are no longer mere biological entities, but rather intricate and multifaceted beings endowed with distinctive characteristics and abilities. Conversely, legal personhood pertains to the status of individuals or organizations as legal entities possessing rights and responsibilities under the law. This encompasses their capacity to engage in contractual agreements, own property, initiate or be subject to lawsuits, and receive specific protections under legal frameworks. Both ideologies emphasize the significance of individual autonomy and agency while simultaneously challenging conventional notions of humanity. What's more, the Stone Gods portrays nature, corporations, and robo sapiens as entities endowed with a certain "legal personhood" during the posthuman era, igniting fervent debates on whether we should bestow such status upon these non-human beings. This article delves into the legal ambiguity surrounding personhood for non-humans in this futuristic era, aiming to further explore the rational potential of dynamic legal personhood for the future.


INTRODUCTION
Posthumanism challenges the conventional humanist perspective that views humanity as a unique and exceptional category with exclusive rights and responsibilities, thereby questioning our very understanding of what it means to be human [1].This challenge can have implications for our understanding of what it means to be a "person" [2] which is often comprehended in terms of consciousness, volition, and affectivity.Certain posthumanists argue that these aforementioned attributes may not be inherently present within posthuman entities [3], potentially necessitating a redefinition of personhood.Conversely, others posit that personhood is a socially constructed concept molded by cultural norms and expectations, which could shift in a posthuman world.
The Stone Gods by Jeanette Winterson presents readers with a posthuman tableau, inviting them to embark on an expedition exploring the complex interplay between legal personhood among robo sapiens, corporate entities and nature itself.The work is divided into four sections (Plant Blue, Easter Island, Post-3 War and Wreck City), each of which tells the story of three individuals: Billie/Billy and Spike.While the first two sections focus on one set of characters apiece, the third and fourth parts weave together their narratives [4].Cross-species love affair between Billie Crusoe, a homo sapien, and Spike, a robo sapien, expresses the audacious hope of intervening in the repeated destruction of our world by human beings with nothing but love [5].The robo sapien Spike not only revels in superior intelligence and human consciousness but also develops an emotional depth that allows him to fall deeply in love with his human counterpart.All these elements raise legal ambiguities regarding whether we should grant them personhood in this posthuman era.

THE POSTHUMAN FEATURES IN JEANETTE WINTERSON'S THE STONE GODS
The study of human beings can be traced back to ancient Greek philosophy, exemplified by Aristotle, who was the first to analyze the nature of humanity from a dualistic perspective encompassing both mind and body.This groundbreaking exploration laid the foundation for subsequent inquiries into this profound subject matter.In the early medieval period, however, theological discourse began to dominate philosophical contemplation on human existence.Prevailing ideologies propagated the notion that humans were divinely created and inherently sinful.However, anthropocentrism came into being when it came to Renaissance and Modern Times, prevailing ethos was to hail human beings as the center of the universe because human beings were capable of creating some magnificent works such paintings, epics, architecture.In particular, Descartes and Spinoza etc. tended to hold that mind outweighed the human body since it was the mind made such excellent works.After moving into the contemporary era, the advancement of technology alters the human body and turn it into a much stronger version and shifts to focus of the way of understanding the human beings from mind to body, from the internal world into the external entity.This shift lays a foundation for enjoying another name called posthuman turn [6] because the technology has already posed significant impact upon human body, identity, eco-system, natural resource, set-up of cyberspace/ cyborg etc [1].
In late 19 th century, Blavatsky created the phrase "posthuman" and Ihab Hassan pointed out in his masterpiece Prometheus as Performer: Toward a Posthumanist Culture?: "human desire and its external performance ...... is undergoing fundamental change... Five hundred years of humanism are coming to an end as humanism transforms into posthumanism" [7].
With the vigorous development of science and technology, the modern and contemporary philosophical trend of thought has begun to criticize humanism [6], that's why, posthumanism was born to be against humanism which had been branded in its nature.In short, a core concept of posthuman is "de-anthropocentrism", emphasizing that man is only a natural individual and can be improved technologically [1], while blurring the boundaries between man and animals, machinery and other entities, that is, man is not the center of the universe.
The trend is irreversible since people in the world has relished and revel in the benefits of tech advancement after World War II.What's more, people are still envisioning the future of human beings with the fantastic assistance of technology and the insidious threat is lurking under our nose as well.In The Stone Gods, the robo sapiens Spike has developed "human affection" with Billie/ Billy in different stories section [4], which means that robo sapiens not only can do what human beings do but manifest consciousness and affection due to the tech advancement which facilitate the "symbiotic relation" between human and non-human [5].Furthermore, the work also pictures the future run by a corporation like MORE-Futures.Thus, in the aftermath of 3 War, MORE-Futures constructs an approximation of the prewar system in which, society having tacitly accepted the inefficacy of the nation-state, the corporation has no competition for rulership [8].In other words, corporation is no longer just an institute which only concentrates on gaining profits but extends its ambition like an conscious entity in posthuman period since its technology is advanced enough to govern the land [1].The natural environment is never absent in posthuman studies, The Stone Gods keeps picturing a ecocide world in which everything but natural resource, eco-system [4], plants & animals have been destroyed by human [9] particularly with the "rampant" development of technology.Hence, the victimhood of nature never stops showing up in posthuman scenes.

THE RATIONALITY OF LEGAL PERSONHOOD AND ITS EXTENSION IN POSTHUMAN PERIOD
The concept of personhood has been the subject of multifaceted inquiry since its inception.In the realm of philosophy, the exploration of personhood has constituted an enduring pursuit spanning centuries.Eminent thinkers such as Aristotle, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau have made indelible contributions to this field by delving into diverse facets of personhood [10], including identity, consciousness, moral responsibility, and rights.Psychology has also been an important area of study in the field of personhood [2].
Research in this area has focused on personality development, self-concept formation, emotional well-being, and social relationships.Some notable psychologists who have contributed to the field include Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, Sigmund Freud, and Erikson.Social science perspectives on personhood have explored the ways in which social structures and institutions impact the development and expression of personhood [2].The research in this domain has primarily focused on the intricate interplay of gender, race, class, and sexuality.Distinguished scholars such as Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, bell hooks, and Angela Davis have made significant contributions to this field.In contrast to these areas that delve into the exploration of personhood, the legal perspective tends to adopt a more conventional or obligatory approach.The question of what defines personhood and whether individuals should be endowed with legal rights has been a subject of extensive deliberation for numerous years [10].Certain legal systems acknowledge personhood upon birth, whereas others confer it at a subsequent stage of development.
The discourse surrounding the concept of personhood and its corresponding legal rights has also been shaped by factors such as eugenics, disability rights, and reproductive rights.
Therefore, personhood can be lifted up to a more "conventional and mandatory" level from the angle of legality.Since there are some countries in the world have enact certain law, regulation or statute to grant certain non-human entities with legal personhood [2], our perception towards personhood has entered the legal turn [10].Conspicuously, it is the advancement of technology that renders the possibility for non-human to obtain legal personhood because if certain statutes do not impose certain "standing and liability" the non-human will go astray or rogue with technology, hence, the legal personhood is "symbiotic" with posthuman.In order to better comprehend the intertwining between legal personhood and posthuman, we need firstly seek out the definition of personhood: Personhood is the status of being a person.Defining personhood is a controversial topic in philosophy and law and is closely tied with legal and political concepts of citizenship, equality and liberty.According to law, only a natural person or legal personality has rights, protections, privileges, responsibilities, and legal liability.
Capacities or attributes common to definitions of personhood can include human nature, agency, self-awareness, a notion of the past and future, and the possession of rights and duties, among others.
Since personhood is deeply associated with "rights and duties", the "legal turn" [2] has made significant sense in posthuman period.As an example, technology has transformed robots into robo sapiens who not only behave like humans but also possess human consciousness and emotions, leading to a significant shift in societal norms.In light of this, philosophical, psychological, and other social science perspectives are inadequate for appropriately governing the posthuman society as legal perspectives since legality is inherently intertwined with conventionality and mandatoriness as previously discussed.Furthermore, corporate entities and nature also experience legal ambiguity during the posthuman era due to their departure from traditional connotations and the transformative role of technology.

THE LEGAL AMBIGUITY IN PERONSHOOD OF CORPORATION IN THE STONE GODS
The corporation has played a pivotal role in the evolution of science fiction, starting from the era of industrial-age German films such as Fritz Lang's iconic masterpiece, Metropolis (1927) to recent Hollywood blockbusters like James Cameron's Avatar (2009) [8].According to legal scholars Alan Dignam and John Lowry, legal personality rendered the corporation "capable potentially of suing and being sued in its own name, of holding property in its own name, and logically, therefore, of making profits and losses that are its own and not those of its members" [11].
The contemporary society has transformed into a perpetual realm of financial and fiscal emergencies, which have been nurtured by neo-liberalism.This is evident in the ever-widening chasm between the affluent and the impoverished, despite the alleged resolution of the economic crisis [8].With the aid of cutting-edge technology, corporations have transformed into a cohesive entity capable of reshaping the very fabric of our society and fundamentally altering humanity's perception of the world.Consequently, corporations are no longer mere institutions that solely produce tangible goods; they now possess the power to reshape both individual lives and human existence as a whole.In this posthuman era, corporations emulate human characteristics to such an extent that is vividly portrayed in the novel.In The Stone Gods, the corporation MORE is depicted like this: Conspicuously, the posthuman era is unlikely to be a mere epoch where corporations function as mere "manufacturers," but rather unified entities with consciousness and subjectivity that govern the intricate "social landscape" and perpetually reshape governance.This distinctive characteristic of personhood necessitates a thorough legal reevaluation; however, equating corporations with human beings in legal terms still engenders legal ambiguity among legislators and law experts.For instance, who should be held accountable if a corporation perpetrate a crime?All employees or just the ones in charge?The ones in charge, some might argue, hold sway over others who are merely striving to make a livelihood; however, their means of sustenance indirectly transgressed the law while their professional conduct remains entirely lawful.Moreover, the gravest peril lies within the realm of governance.
Over the course of three stories told across the novel's four sections, Winterson portrays a series of similar (if not at times virtually indistinguishable) corporation-controlled societies in which humankind's loss of legal personhood has become a de facto way of life.Each of these societies, with its uncannily lifelike parallels to our own world, vividly reveals the ultimate trajectory of a neo-liberal anthropocentrism deeply rooted in global capitalism.Contemporary narrative portrayals of corporations suggest that the adversary is no longer political ideology but economic ideology; it is no longer socialism confined within one nation, but rather the economic world-system encompassing all [13].As the legal definitions of corporate personhood have expanded throughout the past century, transnational corporations -even more so than national rulers and political parties -have increasingly come to occupy this sovereign realm [8]."It is the transnational corporation that eclipses the boundaries of nations and rogue states, irrespective of their political ideologies, and whose financial ties bind American politician to terrorist insurgent" [13].
Certainly, the corporation that controls the near-future portrayed in the second half of The Stone Gods fulfills such a seismic role.The irony of its name, MORE-Futures, is that it has eliminated the possibility of any future in which it does not play a dominant role.Corporations like MORE-Futures were running the world long before "the blow-up"; it just took a world war, in Winterson's novel, to make it official.Thus, in the aftermath of 3 War, MORE-Futures constructs an approximation of the prewar system in which, society having tacitly accepted the inefficacy of the nation-state, the corporation has no competition for rulership.In essence, then, the ascendancy of MORE-Futures enacts the shift in biopower from nation-state to corporation: from a state of exception to an economy of exception.
According to Michel Foucault, the emergence of this "new technology of power" has paved the way for a mode of human existence in which, for those in power, the "multiplicity of men ... must be dissolved into individual bodies that can be kept under surveillance, trained, used, and, if need be, punished" [14].Indeed, the exercise of biopower in the twenty-first century extends well beyond the national boundaries that circumscribed what Foucault originally termed "biopolitics", into the realms of the human genome and even thought itself.According to Vandana Shiva, the concept of effective occupation by Christian princes has been replaced with the notion of effective occupation by transnational corporations, facilitated through patents and intellectual property rights (IPRs), which are supported by contemporary rulers [15].The activities of corporations can be aptly likened to a military occupation, partly due to the frequent assumption of a "usurping" stance towards Indigenous and local communities [15].The promotion of such conduct has been fostered by international treaties, such as the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement, which prioritize private rights over communal rights [16].The novel posits that disregarding the subjectivity of an entity equally deserving legal recognition, namely the environment, by exclusively focusing on either the individual or the corporation as a legal subject is to overlook a crucial aspect.

THE LEGAL AMBIGUITY IN PERSONHOOD OF NATURE IN THE STONE GODS
The perception of the environment has been profoundly transformed by technology, leading us to realize that it is no longer a mere eco-system.In light of this, the concept of a "natural contract" between humanity and nature emerges.By juxtaposing Serres's ideas with those of economic theorist Kenneth Boulding, The Stone Gods urges its audience to reevaluate the intricate relationship between mankind, the environment, and transnational corporations [8].
Despite being set millions of years apart, the novel's three stories resonate with a common theme: that of humankind's organized capacity for both environmental and self-destruction.The circular, repetitive quality of human destructiveness in The Stone Gods is underscored by the fact that all three stories feature, in some form, the main characters Billie Crusoe and her robot companion Spike.In the novel's first section, "Planet Blue," the polluted world of Orbus is largely controlled by the Central Power, a corporate regime that brandishes the slogan "No War" in its opposition to two rival states, the Easter Caliphate and the SinoMosco Pact [12].In this section, Billie and Spike are exiled to a newfound planet that the central Power intends to colonize, Billie for suspected "acts of Terrorism against the State" and Spike as a sex slave for the expedition's male colonists [12].The second section, "Easter Island," re-imagines Billie as a male castaway abandoned during Captain James Cook's 1774 voyage to the Pacific; together with "Spikers," a European apparently marooned on Easter Island (Rapa Nui) some years earlier, the protagonist bears witness to the island's virtual destruction by two warring tribes.The final two sections, "Post-3 War" and "Wreck City," compose a single narrative, set 65 million years after "Planet Blue."In this story, set in a futuristic society not dissimilar from the one depicted in the novel's first section, Billie and Spike traverse several communities of outcasts who live on the periphery--both legally and geographically-of the corporation-controlled Tech City.As Billie's journey brings her into increasing contact with occupants of the ruined landscape that exists beyond corporate rule, she poses an important question about her relationship with nature: "where should I be, in a world so changed as ours?" [12].In what manner, therefore, does the individual position oneself in relation to the environment and the global economic system?And how can this relationship be redefined for the mutual benefit of nature and humankind?
The Stone Gods by Winterson unveils an epic tale of love that transcends time and space, spanning a staggering sixty five million years across the celestial realms of Planet Orbus (Mars), Planet Blue (Venus), and the mystical shores of eighteenth-century Easter Island (Rapa Nui).Each of Winterson's realms details the derailed attempts of humans to leave everything' behind and "begin again" [12].The posthuman era seems to transform nature into a mesmerizing circular entity, allowing for the possibility of rebirth amidst an ecological apocalypse.Consequently, this captivating entity assumes the esteemed status of legal personhood, deserving compensation in accordance with the principles of justice when victimized by human transgressions.However, victimhood remains inherently anthropocentric, leaving us uncertain as to whether it can truly be extended to encompass nature's plight.
Having established a cosmic chronicle that witnesses the perpetual failure of humanity to embark on a fresh beginning, Winterson's novel vividly portrays the progressive stages of deterioration and subsequent rebirth beyond human existence that lie in store for our climate-altered Earth: while Orbus envisions a desolate near-future Earth bereft of polar ice, Planet Blue envisages a rejuvenated distant-future Earth following the posthuman reintroduction of water and biodiversity.Winterson's reader is thus transported from a speculative near-future, to the apex of British colonialism.Moreover, to consider the Earth as the victim of humankind's poisoning is both to posit nature as a valid subject of legal personhood and to shift the very concept of personhood away from the paradoxical meaning with which corporate law has invested it [2].The environment, as a victim of objective violence inflicted by humankind, is also deserving of recognition.Above all else, Billie's realization serves as a testament to the notion that humanity is not condemned to perpetually repeat its mistakes in Winterson's novel with its cyclical nature.This realization marks a significant departure from the Billie Crusoe depicted in the "Planet Blue" section, who was unable to acknowledge her fractured relationship with her surroundings.
The ecological apocalypse pictured by Winterson is not just a rootless hallucination without any trace of human history.In The Stone Gods, Rapa Nui's colonial history is the best recording of human's inhumanely exploitation of nature and "barrening" the land.Scholars have yet to acknowledge the profound impact of Winterson's defamiliarizing techniques, which imbue Rapa Nui's colonial history with an ethereal essence reminiscent of a distant-future.In fact, existing scholarship often overlooks the intricate historical allusions embedded within Winterson's ostensibly speculative futures and consequently misrepresents the novel as a work of science fiction that embodies a postmodernist rejection of referentiality [17].Rapa Nui emerged in the Western imagination as a haunting ecological case study, captivating readers through an abundance of popular scientific literature and even a feature-length film dedicated to the island's pre-colonial history.The preservation of nature may seem trite, for humanity has already come to recognize the cataclysmic repercussions of ecocide.However, emphasizing nature's victimhood foregrounds "the bestowal of personhood."[10] which cause legal ambiguity in the realm of legislators.
Winterson's conflation of Earthly sites with celestial topographies is timely because it registers the sense of collective distress produced by the climatological transformation of the Earth into an 'alien planet' [9].This transformation remind us of not only caring for nature but considering the legal personhood of nature because nature plays a much vulnerable role in posthuman period, human beings are capable of destroying the all eco-system with the aid of rampant development of technology.However, granting nature with legal personhood is not sole a legal incidence, unlike corporations or robo sapiens, the destruction of nature is much severer to human beings hence granting legal personhood upon nature should be viewed from more perspectives (such as sociology, climatology and finance etc.)As a consequence, the early 2000s saw British authors treat climate change as a symptom expressive of converging sociological, climatological, financial, and geopolitical etc. crises [18].

THE LEGAL AMBIGUITY IN PERSONHOOD OF ROBO SAPIENS IN THE STONE GODS
For as long as legal personality is defined as an "artificial construct which may or may not be conferred" [19], the only remaining obstacle lies in the realm of legal semantics, where the mere act of withholding conferral would strip individual human beings entirely of their rightful legal personhood -that is to say, their inherent entitlements under the law.Spike is first introduced to us by the narrator, Billie Crusoe, with these words: a Robo sapiens, incredibly sexy, with that look of regret they all have before they are dismantled.It's policy; all information-sensitive robots are dismantled after mission, so that their data cannot be accessed by hostile forces.She's been across the universe, and now she's going to the recycling unit.The great thing about robots, even these Robo sapiens, is that nobody feels sorry for them.They are only machines.... It's a kind of suicide, a kind of bleeding to death, but they show no emotion because emotions are not part of their programming.Amazing to look so convincing and be nothing but silicon and a circuit -board.[12] At the inception, the robo sapiens were initially programmed devoid of any sentiment, serving as a supremely intelligent instrument capable of emulating human behavior and rationale.However, Billie and Spike have forged an amorous bond, prompting the robo sapiens to harness their extraordinary consciousness in order to unravel perplexing enigmas within a world plagued by ecological devastation.All these arouse people's concerns that robo sapiens, as subjective entities, should be held account for their own deeds since they are clear about what they are doing and it is their own consciousness which "sends" the demand.In the posthuman period, the governance of robo spiens is of paramount importance in that people started worrying about being dominated or even slain by AI from the moment of its being [1].Nevertheless, imposing legal personhood still steps on the sensitive nerves on legislators or law experts due to the fact that the "standing and liability" should only fall on "natural human" or the ones who created robo sapiens not robo sapiens themselves even the misdeeds come from robo sapiens' "mind and hand".
The legal ambiguity surrounding robo sapiens lies in their precise embodiment of human characteristics, both spiritually and physically, or even surpassing human capabilities.However, this alone fails to convince legislators or legal experts due not only to lingering doubts regarding the rationality of personhood in robo sapiens but also the apprehension towards potential dangers that may arise from redefining our understanding of humanity and governing human society.This is precisely what happens in The Stone Gods, where Winterson describes a robot with distinctively human characteristics: "the first artificial creature that looks and acts human, and that can evolve like a human" [12].Thus, if we agree with that "just as a being need not belong to one's own sex, race or tribe to be a person, neither need it be biologically human or of terrestrial origin", and that "personhood is a psychological concept, not a biological one" [2].Seemingly, this compelling argument suggests that personhood transcends biological confines, offering the potential for legal recognition regardless of one's sex, race or tribe to which they belong [6].However, this will surely cause more fear among legislators or law experts if a huge amount of entities who (which) is uncertain with sex, race tribe and so on can enjoy the "standing and liability" as law stipulates.
Robo sapiens are not merely machine-based entities, but rather they can manifest as a harmonious amalgamation of the human form and advanced technology (such as bio-technology) during the posthuman era.Consequently, human beings transcend their natural state through technological augmentation, leading to a certain level of ambiguity surrounding aspects like legal personhood [2] particularly after human beings turned into robo sapiens who (which) are much stronger than human beings spiritually and physically.From this premise, Hawking proposed that genetic engineers should "reconfigure the human body" [6] to withstand lengthy space travel and couple interplanetary colonists with intelligent cyborgs [20].Although Hawking's comments incited wide-ranging criticism, the famed theoretical physicist was not alone in advocating for human multiplanetary expansion.At the turn of the twenty-first century, billionaire business magnates Richard Branson, John Carmack, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk each founded aerospace start-ups.Musk's SpaceX programme, in particular, aimed to facilitate human multiplanetary expansion through the construction of a "self-sustaining" Martian "propellant plant" by 2024 (https://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/personhood#cite_note-APBerlin-82;accessed on June 5, 2023).For Winterson, such multiplanetary aspirations amounted to "a boy's fantasy" along the lines of "not tidying your bedroom because your mother will do it" [21].Winterson goes on to disclose that she wrote The Stone Gods to challenge the efficacy of simply evacuating the Earth after "trash[ing] the place" [12].
After "trashing the earth", human beings are supposed to settle in another planet which requires astronaut-like body and superior intelligence to be chosen to "get on board" [1].This requirement inevitably "makes" human-based robo sapiens and whether their legal personhood varies with that of machine-based robo sapiens swamps us in to a deeper layer of legal ambiguity.Due to the fact that human-based robo sapiens originate from human beings with legal personhood but aided with certain technology (such as genetic tech) [22], the legal ambiguity in their personhood comes from having legal personhood to pending legal personhood.On the contrary, the legal ambiguity of machine-based robo sapiens comes from not-having legal personhood to pending legal personhood.

CONCLUSION
The concepts of posthumanism and personhood are intertwined as they both delve into the profound inquiries regarding the essence of humanity or its negation.Personhood, conventionally defined as the state or condition of embodying human attributes encompassing consciousness, volition, moral agency, and self-awareness [2].The concept of personhood is often intertwined with humanism, which accentuates the intrinsic worth of individuals and underscores the paramount significance of upholding their rights and dignity.Conversely, posthumanism challenges this perspective by positing that conventional humanist notions [23] for instance personhood is based on assumptions about what it means to be human that may not hold true in the future.The posthumanist perspective posits that our comprehension of the essence of humanity has undergone a transformative evolution throughout history [24] and that new forms of life and intelligence may emerge that do not fit neatly into the categories of humanity.
In The Stone Gods, corporation, nature and robo sapiens are portrayed as ambiguous entities with legal personhood against the backdrop of posthuman.This novel render us a scene for better understanding how posthuman society alters our perception of legal personhood for non-humans which assists on better understanding our perception upon "what is the legal personhood for humans".Therefore, posthumanism can be seen as a critique of the traditional humanist concept [3] of personhood and suggests that we should be open to re-imagining what it means to be human in a posthuman world.
No one wanted to talk about the issues.I'm not anti-science -I'm a scientist-but you cannot have a democracy that is in default of its responsibilities.MORE is taking over the Central Power.MORE owns most of it, funds most of it, and has shares in the rest.There was never any debate about the ethics of Genetic Reversal -it just started to happen because MORE figured out how to do it.
[12]E is paying for this trip,' said Spike.'It's a Central Power Mission, but that's for the press to report.In private, MORE pays, in return for concessions on Planet Blue.[12]