Thiruvallore Thattai, Arvind and McMahon, Aisling
(2020)
Commodification, Control and the Contractualisation of the Human Body.
In:
Market Limits The commodification of nature and the body.
Mare & Martin, Paris.
ISBN 978-2-84934-474-3
Abstract
This chapter puts the philosophical debate on commodification in the context of the legal
concept of commodities. In law, commodification is intrinsically connected with
contractualisation, through which contract acquires a central role in structuring social relations.
This link between contractualisation and commodification has two consequences. Firstly, it
gives its objects a legal value, turning them into objects capable of being traded through market
transactions and placing the focus on their commodity-value rather than social perceptions of
their intrinsic worth. Secondly, in a commodified conception of contracts, the standing of
people in their relations with each other is understood in terms of the characteristics of the
contractual transactions linking them—their conformity with the parties’ agreement, their
fitness for the purposes to which they are applied, etc. This excludes values and evaluative
positions other than the contractual values of autonomy and self-ordering. Through an analysis
of the impact of patent law on areas ranging from the patenting of isolated genes to access to
medicines, we show that commodification affects more domains and has deeper effects than
generally assumed. Commodification directs the legal system’s focus towards facilitating the
creation of contractual frameworks of self-ordering, and towards insulating law from the
broader dimensions of the value of human life, well-being, and different forms of human
striving. We argue that the study of commodification must evolve beyond focusing on the limits
of markets, and must also focus on the limits of contracts—which are generally modelled on
an exchange framework as a way of conceiving relations and on private frameworks of
regulation—their aetiology, and on devising ways of ameliorating such limitations.
| Item Type: |
Book Section
|
| Keywords: |
Commodification; Control; Contractualisation; Human Body; |
| Academic Unit: |
Faculty of Social Sciences > Law |
| Item ID: |
17479 |
| Depositing User: |
Aisling McMahon
|
| Date Deposited: |
04 Sep 2023 13:18 |
| Publisher: |
Mare & Martin |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| URI: |
|
| Use Licence: |
This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available
here |
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