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In jurisprudence, a natural person (also physical person in some Commonwealth countries, or natural entity) is a person (in legal meaning, i.e., one who has its own legal personality) that is an individual human being, distinguished from the broader category of a legal person, which may be a private (i.e., business entity or non-governmental organization) or public (i.e., government) organization.
There are therefore two kinds of legal entities: human and non-human. In law, a human person is called a natural person (sometimes also a physical person), and a non-human person is called a juridical person (sometimes also a juridic, juristic, artificial, legal, or fictitious person, Latin: persona ficta).
A person (pl.: people or persons, depending on context) is a being who has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of property, or legal responsibility.
A person is recognized by law as such, not because they are human, but because rights and duties are ascribed to them. The person is the legal subject or substance of which the rights and duties are attributes. An individual human being considered to be having such attributes is what lawyers call a "natural person". [26]
A physical person may be compared to a personne morale, in which a group of people in some circumstances is granted a more or less complete judicial capacity (personnalité juridique). Nonetheless, the concept of a personne morale is constructed on the basis of that of a personne physique, and follows similar rules.
In the canon law of the Catholic Church, a person is a subject of certain legal rights and obligations. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] Persons may be distinguished between physical and juridic persons. Juridic persons may be distinguished as collegial or non-collegial, and public or private juridical persons.
Growth and development occur after birth, and include both physical and psychological development, influenced by genetic, hormonal, environmental and other factors. Development and growth continue throughout life, through childhood, adolescence, and through adulthood to old age, and are referred to as the process of aging.
In contrast to a legal minor, a legal adult is a person who has attained the age of majority and is therefore regarded as independent, self-sufficient, and responsible. The typical age of legal majority is 18 years in most contexts, although the definition of majority may vary by legal rights and country.