am quite seriously proposing that we give legal rights to forests, oceans, rivers and other so-called ‘natural objects’ in the environment—indeed, to the natural environment as a whole,” Stone writes; at different points in history, our social “facts,” on which law is often based, have changed. We create a collective “myth” of ourselves and the world, he writes, which reflects our present norms, and is enshrined in our laws. But we tend to forget that these norms are fabrications. “We are inclined to suppose the rightlessness of rightless ‘things’ to be a decree of Nature, not a legal
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