Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to comment on Section 19 of the Civil Code and explain why a human is considered a person. According to Section 19, this follows from the fact that natural rights that are perceptible by both reason and sense are vested in a human from birth and he/she is therefore considered a person.
The significance of Section 19 lies in the fact that it emphasises the connection between a human and a person - a connection that does not allow to conceive a human as a mere object of rights. This provision was informed by Section 16 of the General Civil Code (ABGB), which was strongly inspired by Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and his concept of a human as "causae finalis".
However, the legal and philosophical reason why we should consider a human to be a person can be twofold. If we want to understand why a human is considered a person based on the applicable law, a deductive approach that follows a priori from the notion of a human is useless.
This is why explication is also provided for the opposite (inductive) approach to a person, which is based on (his/her/its) legal personality and strictly distinguishes between a person, who exists and is thus "valid" only in the virtual world of legal norms, on the one hand, and a human, who actually exists as a real being.