台灣每年產生十餘萬具屍體，與屍體處置相關之現行中央法規亦多達六十餘項，然而，關於屍體法律性質之論述，長久以來一直是法學界相當冷門的議題。但隨著移植醫學與生物科技之快速進步，對於屍體僅侷限於埋葬、祭祀或供養等性質之固有思維已不敷現實需要，因此，對屍體基礎法律性質的探討，遂成為刻不容緩的議題。 本文試建構出屍體上「物權」與「人類尊嚴」之二元權利結構，並說明此結構優於人格權殘存說、物權說以及折衷說等學說之理由，即在於二元結構中，「人類尊嚴」要素能克服物權說之「人性疏離」疑慮，避免人格權殘存說欠缺權利主體之論證矛盾，並可合理解釋人之軀體由生至死過程中權利轉換變動過程，以及說明屍體上權利之取得方式與權利行使之限制緣由。 屍體上二元權利結構之提出，不僅有助於民法學理論上關於「人」與「物」分際架構完整性之建立，吾人即可在「人類尊嚴」上位概念之下，精準而毫不遲疑地論斷屍體之物權要素、進而推及相關之後續法律關係，更可進一步建構出活人體、與人體分離之組織等之權利結構模型，並詳析其間權利轉換之機制。藉由此等法律性質之基礎探討，將有利於與人體組織及其衍生物上相關醫療與生物科技法律之穩健發展。

The advance of organ (or tissue) transplantation technique and biomedical research throughout the latter half of the twentieth century have made possible the surgical replacement of failure organs such as our heart, lung, kidney or even the skin to restore its function and consequently our health. The major source of these organ and tissue herein comes from the human cadaver, or more precisely speaking, the donator’s organ and tissue resectioned soon after he (or she) being announced brain death. Inevitably the modern transplantation- and bio-medicine have enclothed the bared cadaver many to be determined meanings besides the traditional one of burial and sacrament, and thus raised numerous upcoming legal disputes, the core essence in which is the legal nature of cadaver, which urge us to pay more attention and effort to elucidate. This article, in the first place, broadly examined the related contemporary theories regarding the legal nature of the cadaver, only to find on the cadaver vigorous arguments between property rights and personal rights, yet neither of which proved to be really successful. Instead this article proposed a “mankind dignity – property right” dual-element structure to elaborate the phenomenon we observed on the cadaver, that is, when man died, what actually remained on the object cadaver is no more his personal rights, but the mankind dignity. The mankind dignity herein characterized itself as the core value of what human cadavers differ from nonhuman ones in the special “ends-in-themselves” status, i.e. they cannot be used as a mere means to another’s ends, and consequently always confined the property right of the owner of the cadaver to the good purpose. With the dual- element structure on the cadaver, we could further build-up the likewise “mankind dignity” incorporated legal structure on the living body as a whole, the body parts removed, and code well with the transition among. Theoretically this will dodge the traditional disputes and controversies, successfully help to establish and preserve the core value of human being regarding protection on the body and its parts on the way coming.