As the world population is growing and government directives tell us to consume more fatty acids, the demand for fish is increasing. Due to declines in wild fish populations, we have come to rely more and more on aquaculture. Despite rapid expansion of aquaculture, this sector is still in a relatively early developmental stage. This means that this sector can still be steered in a favorable direction, which requires discussion about sustainability. If we want to avoid similar problems to the (...) ones we have experienced with livestock farming, we need to generate knowledge of the biology, profitability, environmental aspects, consumer awareness, and product appreciation of particular fish species. However, the discussion about a sustainable aquaculture also raises the question how we should treat fish. This moral question is regularly addressed as a problem of applied ethics with a focus on tailoring ethical principles to practical questions. In this article we do not deny the importance of the practical accounts, but we start from the fundamental question whether and why fish matter in our moral deliberations, i.e., from the discussion on moral status. We elaborate the distinction between moral considerability and moral significance in order to show both the importance and the limitations of the discussion about moral status for practical problems in aquaculture. We illustrate these points with a case-study about the farming of a specific fish species, the African catfish. (shrink)

What moral status should we attribute to stem cells? To answer this neglected question, we look in this essay at the properties of embryos and other entities that could develop into beings who have uncontested moral status, namely, adult humans. Our analysis indicates that those who grant moral status to embryos should also grant it to stem cells. This has implications that verge on absurdity, since even if we were to try to do what (...) we can to protect these entities, we would face the dilemma that the development of any embryo requires the destruction of other potential beings. We respond to objections, including the claim that the destruction of human embryos is wrong not because of the potential of human embryos but because human embryos are actual beings with a rational nature. We conclude that the more plausible position is to deny moral status to embryos, and thus to stem cells as well. (shrink)

Moral status is a vexing topic. Linked for so long to the unending debates about ensoulment and the morality of abortion, it has recently resurfaced in the embryonic stem cell controversy. In this new context, it should benefit from new insights originating in recent scientific advances. We believe that the recently observed capability of somatic cells to return to a pluripotential state (a capability we propose to name 'reversed potency') in a controlled manner requires us to modify the (...) traditional concept of moral status and to consider it as referring not only to intrinsic properties (like 'to possess reason' or 'to be a person'), but also to extrinsic or relational ones. (shrink)

The subject-matter of this essay is the moral status of nature. This subject is dealt with in terms of normative reasons. The main question is if there are direct normative reasons to care for nature in addition to the numerous indirect normative reasons that there are for doing so. Roughly, if there is some such reason, and that reason applies to any moral agent, then nature has direct moral status as I use the phrase. I (...) develop the notions of direct normative reason and direct moral status in detail and identify and discuss the two main types of theory according to which nature has direct moral status: analogy-based nature-considerism and non-analogy-based nature-considerism. I argue for the plausibility of a particular version of the latter, but against the plausibility of any version of the former. The theory that is representative of AN claims that nature has direct moral status in virtue of possessing interests. Proponents of this theory fail to show that nature has interests of the kind that they reasonably want to ascribe to it, and that interests of this kind are morally significant. In contrast to AN, NN comes in a variety of different forms. I elaborate a version of NN according to which there are direct normative reasons to care for nature in virtue of its unique complexity, and its indispensability. I argue that even if these reasons should turn out not to apply to any moral agent, they are still genuine direct normative reasons: there is nothing irrational or misdirected about them. Finally, I show how the question of whether there are direct normative reasons to care for nature is relevant to private and political decision-making concerning nature. This is exemplified with a case from the Swedish mountain region. (shrink)

If we eventually discover extraterrestrial life, do we have any moral obligations for how to treat the life-forms we find; does it matter whether they are intelligent, sentient, or just microbial—and does it matter that they are extraterrestrial? -/- In this paper, I examine these questions by looking at two of the basic questions in moral philosophy: What does it take to be a moral object? and What has value of what kind? I will start with the (...) first of these questions by looking at the most important attempts to answer this question on our own planet and by asking whether and how they could be applied to extraterrestrial life. The results range from a very strong protection of all extraterrestrial life and all extraterrestrial environments, whether inhabited or not, to total exclusion of extraterrestrial life. Subsequently, I also examine whether extraterrestrial life that lacks moral status can have value to human or alien life with moral status, and if that could generate any obligations for how to treat extraterrestrial life. Based on this analysis, I conclude that extraterrestrial life-forms can have both instrumental value and end value to moral objects, which has strong implications for how to treat them. (shrink)

The moral status of human-animal chimeras that have human brain cells is especially concerning. The concern is that such animals have the same high moral status as human beings. Why? Julian Koplin suggests that support for this concern is based on this claim: capacities unique to humans gives one a high or full moral status. Koplin then proceeds to convincingly object this claim. However, I argue that the concern is instead based on a different (...) claim: for those humans who do have a high moral status, it is their (or some of their) mental capacities that confer this high moral status. Since having a human brain that is not too impaired is sufficient for having these mental capacities, and human-animal chimeras -- with brains composed of a sufficient number, type, and structure of human cells -- will have a human brain that is not too impaired, it follows that such animals would have the same moral status as human beings. (shrink)

Gopal Sreenivasan’s “hybrid theory” states that a moral duty is directed toward an individual because her interests justify the assignment of control over the duty. An alternative “plain theory” states that the individual’s interests justify the duty itself. I argue that a strong moral status constraint explains Sreenivasan’s instrumentalization objection to a Razian plain theory but that his own model violates this constraint. I suggest how both approaches can be reformulated to satisfy the constraint, and I argue (...) that a reformulated plain theory can also avoid an insufficiency objection. The hybrid approach consequently has no clear advantage over the plain approach. (shrink)

Prabhpal Singh has recently defended a relational account of the difference in moral status between fetuses and newborns as a way of explaining why abortion is permissible and infanticide is not. He claims that only a newborn can stand in a parent–child relation, not a fetus, and this relation has a moral dimension that bestows moral value. We challenge Singh’s reasoning, arguing that the case he presents is unconvincing. We suggest that the parent–child relation is better (...) understood as an extension of an existing relationship formed during the gestational period. The change in this relation at birth is not sufficient to justify the radical change in moral status required to rule out infanticide while accepting the permissibility of abortion. Given that the moral status of orphans is also problematic under Singh’s account, we conclude that Singh has not shown that a newborn has greater moral worth than a fetus. (shrink)

The potential for healthy development is the key to determining the moral status of mindless and minimally minded organisms. It even provides the basis for a defense of speciesism. Mindless and minimally minded human beings have interests in the healthy development of sophisticated mental capacities, which explains why they are greatly harmed when death, disease, and other events frustrate those interests. Since the healthy development of members of non-human species doesn’t produce the same sophisticated mental capacities, mindless and (...) minimally minded non-human beings lack the interests of mindless and minimally minded human beings. The absence of such interests in developing valuable mental capabilities means non-humans can’t be benefited and harmed to the same degree as human beings. This results in mindless and minimally minded non-humans having lower moral status than human beings. This doesn’t mean that any member of our species is more valuable than any other member of any other possible species. We instead claim that human beings with undeveloped or impaired minds have greater moral status than any member of any other known species that has manifested equivalent mental capacities. (shrink)

ABSTRACT One of the most important as well as most awesome achievements of modern biotechnology is the possibility of cloning human embryonic stem cells, if not human beings themselves. The possible revolutionary role of such stem cells in curative, preventive and enhancement medicine has been voiced and chorused around the globe. However, the question of the moral status of embryonic stem cells has not been clearly and unequivocally answered. Taking inspiration from the African adage that ‘the hand that (...) reaches beneath the incubating hen is not guiltless’, I attempt answering this question, from the background of traditional African moral sensibility and sensitivity. I reach the following conclusions. Stem cells in themselves do not have human status and therefore lack moral worth/value. Embryos do have human status and a morally significant line cannot be drawn between human embryos and other human beings. What is morally at stake in stem cell research is therefore the question of the source of derivation or generation of the cells, not of the cells as such. (shrink)

Debates about the moral status of social robots (SRs) currently face a second-order, or metatheoretical impasse. On the one hand, moral individualists argue that the moral status of SRs depends on their possession of morally relevant properties. On the other hand, moral relationalists deny that we ought to attribute moral status on the basis of the properties that SRs instantiate, opting instead for other modes of reflection and critique. This paper develops and (...) defends a pragmatic approach which aims to reconcile these two positions. The core of this proposal is that moral individualism and moral relationalism are best understood as distinct deliberative strategies for attributing moral status to SRs, and that both are worth preserving insofar as they answer to different kinds of practical problems that we face as moral agents. (shrink)

This paper offers several criticisms of the account of rightholding laid out in S. Matthew Liao’s recent paper “The Basis of Human Moral Status.” I argue that Liao’s account both does too much and too little: it grants rightholder status to those who may not deserve it, and it does not provide grounds for offering such status to those who arguably do deserve it. Given these troubling aspects of his approach, I encourage Liao to abandon his (...) “physical basis of moral agency” account of moral status and instead adopt a position closer to a traditional “speciesist” view. (shrink)

The moral status accorded to an individual (or class of individuals) helps to account for the weight of the moral obligations considered due to an individual (or class of individuals). Strong arguments can be given to indicate that the moral status accorded, justly or unjustly, to individuals with intellectual disabilities is less than that accorded to those considered intellectually able. This paper suggests that such a view of the moral status of intellectually disabled (...) individuals derives from individualism. Ontological and normative components of individualism are identified. It is shown that individualistic, ontological criteria for personhood compromise the integrity of “dependent” individuals. And it is shown that the normative component of individualism further compromises the integrity of intellectually disabled individuals. An alternative view of the self is outlined in which dependence features centrally. It is tentatively suggested that such a view of the self may prove more congenial to enhancing the moral status of individuals with intellectual disabilities. (shrink)

In this article, we discuss Beauchamp and Childress’s treatment of the issue of moral status. In particular, we introduce the five different perspectives on moral status that Beauchamp and Childress consider in Principles of Biomedical Ethics and explain their alternative to those perspectives, raise some critical questions about their approach, and offer a different way to think about one of the five theories of moral status that is more in line with what we believe (...) some of its leading advocates affirm. (shrink)

What is the moral status of animals? What’s the moral status of fetuses? What’s the moral status of the permanently comatose? While questions like these are sometimes asked (also about ‘moral standing’), I have written a few paragraphs where I argue that the term “moral status” shouldn’t be used.

Shelly Kagan has recently defended the view that it is morally worse for a human being to suffer some harm than it is for a lower animal (such as a dog or a cow) to suffer a harm that is equally severe (ceteris paribus). In this paper, I argue that this view receives rather less support from our intuitions than one might at first suppose. According to Kagan, moreover, an individual’s moral status depends partly upon her ‘modal capacities.’ (...) In this paper, I argue that the most natural strategy for justifying Kagan’s theory faces some important challenges. More generally, I argue that philosophers who wish to defend the view that human beings have a higher moral status than that of the lower animals face a dilemma. Either their theory of moral status will imply (unacceptably) that some severely cognitively impaired human beings have a significantly lower moral status than that of typical human beings, or these philosophers will be forced to ground moral status in a set of properties so far removed from a subject’s actual capacities that it will become difficult to see why these kinds of properties should have such moral importance. (shrink)

Underlying President Bush's view regarding stemcell research and cloning are two assumptions: we originate at conception, and we have full moral status as soon as we originate. I will challenge both assumptions, argue that at least the second is mistaken, and conclude that the President's approach is unsustainable.

I show that an overlooked feature of our moral life—moral status—provides a route to vindicating naturalist moral realism in much the same way that the Humean theory of motivation and judgment internalism are used to undermine it. Moral status presents two explanatory burdens for metaethical views. First, a given view must provide an ecumenical explanation of moral status, which does not depend on the truth of its metaethical claims (say, that there are (...) mind-independent facts about moral status). Second, its explanation must be consistent with persistent normative ethical disagreement about what constitutes moral status. I conclude that naturalist moral realism succeeds, while quasi-realism fails because it cannot meet the latter requirement. This argument has three results: we have a new route for metaethical vindication more generally and for naturalist moral realism in particular; quasi-realism's plausibility is undermined by an inability to explain disagreement, but not for the familiar reasons. (shrink)

Derek C Meakin; The Moral Status of Competition: an issue of concern for physical educators, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 20, Issue 1, 30 May 2006.

This chapter contains sections titled: What is Moral Status? The Moral Agency Theory The Genetic Humanity Theory The Sentience Theory The Organic Life Theory Two Relationship‐based Theories Combining these Criteria Principles of Moral Status Human Zygotes, Embryos, and Fetuses Are All Animals Equal? Machines and Artificial Life‐forms Conclusion.

This paper addresses the question: Who or what can have a moral status in the sense that we have direct moral duties to them? It argues for a biocentric answer which ascribes inherent moral status value to all individual living organisms. This position must be defended against an anthropocentric position. The argument from marginal cases propounded by Tom Regan and Peter Singer for this purpose is criticised as defective, and a different argument is proposed. The (...) biocentric position developed here is related to that of Albert Schweitzer and Paul F. Taylor, but rejects their assumption of equal inherent value for all living organisms. It argues instead for equal moral status value for moral persons and agents, and gradual moral status value for nonpersons, depending on their degree of similarity with moral persons. Mary Ann Warren's recent book on Moral Status is also discussed. The argument is constructed as a casuistic argument, proceeding by analogical extension from persons to non-persons. The meta-ethical question of its pragmatic validity is discussed. (shrink)

In Pregnancy and superior moral status: A proposal for two thresholds of personhood, Robinson argues that pregnant women are unique beings with superior moral status (MS) to that of other adult human beings. Robinson’s defence of this view relies on metaphysical and moral claims. The first set of claims concerns the ontological status of the pregnant woman, whom she considers a ‘unique organism’,‘more than just one person’and ‘numerically increased’.1 The second set of claims concerns (...) the ‘superior’ MS of the pregnant woman. In this commentary, we address this second set of claims and argue that Robinson’s view rests on a misunderstanding of the concept of MS and its role in supplying reasons for action (and forbearance from action). While we welcome the conclusion of Robinson’s argument—which we take to be that pregnant women ought to be treated with more consideration—on an appropriate understanding of MS, her argument does not yield that conclusion at all. We feel strongly that medical ethics needs to be grounded in good philosophy and worry that too much of the literature falls short of this ideal. As such, the spirit in which we write this commentary is that of constructive criticism. ### One plus one equals one plus one and the grounds of MS The philosophical literature on the grounds of MS essentially addresses the question of what properties (Ps) determine whether an agent (A) has MS.1 Examples of Ps are: sophisticated cognitive capacities,2 such as the capacity to value, being self-aware or rational, or more controversially, …. (shrink)

Starting from a distinction between intrinsic and final value, I explore the implications of the supervenience of final value on extrinsic properties regarding moral status. I make a case for ‘extrinsic moral status’ based on ‘extrinsic final value’. I show that the assumption of ‘moral individualism’, that moral status supervenes merely on intrinsic properties, is misguided, and results from a conflation of intrinsic with final value. I argue that at least one extrinsic property, (...) namely vulnerability, can be the basis of both final value and moral status, and that dependence on such extrinsic properties is compatible with the requirement of agent-neutrality. (shrink)

Recently at the J. Craig Venter Institute, a microorganism has been created through synthetic biology. In the future, more complex living beings will very probably be produced. In our natural environment, we live amongst a whole variety of beings. Some of them have moral status — they have a moral importance and we cannot treat them in just any way we please —; some do not. When it becomes possible to create artificially living beings who naturally possess (...) moral status, will this artificiality modify their status? Many people contend that it will, but I am not of the same mind and will develop three arguments against it. (shrink)

The chief themes of this discussion are as follows. First, we need a theory of the grounds of moral status that could guide practical considerations regarding how to treat the wide range of potentially conscious entities with which we are acquainted – injured humans, cerebral organoids, chimeras, artificially intelligent machines, and non-human animals. I offer an account of phenomenal value that focuses on the structure and sophistication of phenomenally conscious states at a time and over time in the (...) mental lives of conscious subjects. Second, we need to map a theory of moral status onto practical considerations. I prefer the precautionary framework proposed by many, and fruitfully precisified recently by Birch. I have suggested that in addition to further discussion surrounding the evidential bar for attributing consciousness to different types of entities, more discussion is needed regarding how value and moral status may vary across different entity-types, and regarding the sources of value in an entity’s mental life. (shrink)

This paper addresses the issue of the moral status of non-human animals, or the question whether sentient animals are morally considerable. The arguments for and against the moral status of animals are discussed, above all the argument from marginal cases. It is argued that sentient animals have moral status based on their having interests in their experiential well-being, but that there are degrees of moral status. Two interest-based approaches are presented and discussed: (...) DeGrazia’s view that sentient animals have interests in continuing to live, and that their interests should be granted moral weight; and McMahan’s TRIA which similarly postulates that animals have interests and that in a given situation we should compare the human and animal interests at stake. Finally, the paper concludes that the anthropocentric approach to animal ethics should be abandoned in favour of the biocentric ethics. (shrink)

If we were required to sacrifice our own interests whenever doing so was best overall, or prohibited from doing so unless it was optimal, then we would be mere sites for the realisation of value. Our interests, not ourselves, would wholly determine what we ought to do. We are not mere sites for the realisation of value — instead we, ourselves, matter unconditionally. So we have options to act suboptimally. These options have limits, grounded in the very same considerations. Though (...) not merely such sites, you and I are also sites for the realisation of value, and our interests (and ourselves) must therefore sometimes determine what others ought to do, in particular requiring them to bear reasonable costs for our sake. Likewise, just as my moral status grounds a requirement that others show me appropriate respect, so must I do to myself. (shrink)

INTRODUCTIONThe contemporary debate over the moral status of animals reflects a mixture of traditions. Utilitarianism, which measures moral standing in terms of the ability to suffer, has been used to defend the widening-circle conception of morality. The difference between humans and other animals vis-à-vis moral standing diminishes in its light. Focusing on questions of agency, conscience, and reflective powers, the differences between humans and nonhumans seem greater. Darwinism has been invoked to bridge the gaps between the (...) intellectual and moral capacities of humans and those of other animals. This has led some to argue either that differences in agency, conscience, and the power to reflect are overrated or that they may not be absolute indicators of moral consideration.Debates over the moral status of nonhuman animals have had a long and stormy history. The considerations that drive the current debate – questions of the intellectual capacities of animals, questions about their moral sensibilities, and questions about their sensitive capacities – are ancient. Nonetheless, they first began to assume their modern form in the writings of the eighteenth-century British moral philosophers. Those individuals were struggling with the moral implications of discoveries in the natural sciences and an increasingly secularized approach to philosophical issues. Vivisection experiments and rudimentary anatomical studies not only showed that the bodies of animals were remarkably similar to the bodies of human beings but also showed that the brutes were capable of experiencing pain and suffering. (shrink)

Some people contend that fetuses have moral status but less than that of paradigm persons. Many people hold views implying that sentient animals have moral status but less than that of persons. These positions suggest that moral status admits of degrees. Does it? To address this question, we must first clarify what it means to speak of degrees of moral status. The paper begins by clarifying the more basic concept of moral (...) status and presenting two models of degrees of moral status. It then sketches several significant considerations in favor of, and several against, the assertion of degrees of moral status. The paper concludes by drawing lessons from the discussion. (shrink)

It is an undeniable empirical fact that a human fetus is a member of the species homo sapiens from the moment of conception. There is thus an important sense in which it is a human being in itself, and not simply part of a pregnant woman’s body, despite what defenders of abortion on demand might want us to think. It is also reasonable to suppose that all human beings, and thus human fetuses, are persons, with all that entails, but this (...) is a metaphysical presupposition as opposed to an empirical fact, and is thus contentious. It is argued, however, that this should be of little comfort to the defenders of abortion, because the mere fact that human fetuses have an inherent tendency to become persons is sufficient reason to confer a moral status upon them, which renders abortion morally problematic at best. (shrink)

In this paper, I suggest that, if we are committed to accepting a threshold approach to personhood, according to which all beings above the threshold are persons with equal moral status, there are strong reasons to also recognise a second threshold that would be reached through human pregnancy, and that would confer on pregnant women a temporary superior moral status. This proposal is not based on the moral status of the fetus, but on the (...) moral status of the pregnant woman. It is not only the fetus which is an organism sui generis: the pregnant woman, also, is a unique being. Following almost any view on the moral status of the fetus, the pregnant woman should be regarded, herself, as more than a singular individual. She is, herself, ‘more than one’. Pregnant women are also necessary for the continued survival of the human species, and there are important justice-based reasons to recognise the higher status. Furthermore, the recognition of a superior moral status for pregnant women does not imply that pregnancy should always be viewed as desirable, or imply any position on the permissibility of abortion. My proposal is not as radical as it might seem, as it does not require that pregnant women should always receive superior treatment, but only that they should to some extent. It could have a range of potential positive practical consequences. Finally, my approach does not threaten, but rather promotes, human equality. (shrink)

The prelims comprise: Introduction Why Parts of Organisms Do Not Have Moral Status A Pragmatic Case for the Moral Status of Genes? The Sacred Gene Empirical Arguments Against Sanctiflcation Pragmatic Arguments Against Sanctiflcation Regulation without Sanctiflcation Conclusion.

It matters a great deal whether animals have moral status. If animals have moral status, it may be wrong for us to use them as we currently do – hunting, farming, eating, and experimenting on them. The argument from marginal cases provides us with a reason to think that some animals have moral status that is equal to that of “marginal” humans.

This article begins with an introduction to the biology behind embryonic stem cell research. Next it presents briefly four views of moral status, based on four different criteria: biological humanity, personhood, possession of interests, and having a future-like-ours. On two of these views, embryos clearly lack moral status, but they most likely do not have moral status on the FLO account either. Only the biological humanity criterion combined with the view that life begins at (...) conception results in the conclusion that very early extracorporeal embryos have full moral status, making ESC research that destroys embryos morally wrong. This explains why even some who are anti-abortion are not against ESC research: they do not view the very early, extracorporeal embryo as having the same moral status as the fetus. (shrink)

Some have argued that embryos and fetuses have the moral status of personhood because of certain criteria that are satisfied during gestation. However, these attempts to base personhood during gestation on intrinsic characteristics have uniformly been unsuccessful. Within a secular framework, another approach to establishing a moral standing for embryos and fetuses is to argue that we ought to confer some moral status upon them. There appear to be two main approaches to defending conferred (...) class='Hi'>moral standing; namely, consequentialist and contractarian arguments. This article puts forward a consequentialist argument for the conferred moral standing of preembryos, embryos, fetuses, and infants. It states and defends an original version of the commonlyheld view that moral standing increases during gestation. It also explores the implications of this viewpoint for several issues: what is involved in showing ‘respect’ for preembryos; and whether it is permissible to create preembryos solely for research. (shrink)

The idea of moral status has been examined in various applied ethical discourses such as medical ethics and environmental ethics. However, little has so far been done in terms of appraising these fundamental disciplines from an African philosophical perspective. I venture into this fairly novel area of African environmental ethics as I seek to examine an African understanding of the moral status of nature. As I take a pluralist approach to the idea of moral (...) class='Hi'>status of nature in African environmental philosophy, I seek to argue that both living and non-living beings in the environment ought to be granted moral status. I make use of the teleological view of existence to provide various reasons why nature should be considered as having moral or ethical standing such that human beings should have ethical obligations that are independent of their duties and obligations towards fellow human beings. Overall, I seek to espouse a uniquely African view of the moral status on nature, one that fundamentally differs from other views dominant much of Western philosophical thinking. (shrink)

Chapters One through Three present the following view: I explain moral status as follows: something has moral status just in case we have, reasons not to cause harms to it simply in virtue of the badness of the harms for it. Moral status is not a matter of degree. A living thing has moral status just in case it is ever conscious. If something has moral status, then the strength of (...) a moral reason not to harm it is proportional to the severity of the harm. ;In this view, all humans and animals that are ever conscious have moral status. Future consciousness is sufficient for present moral status. An embryo of any species that will actually be conscious in the future, presently has moral status. Living humans who were conscious but are not and never will be again do have moral status. Any being that dies before it is ever conscious lacks moral status, regardless of its potential. Mere potentiality to be a person is not sufficient for moral status. However, a being's potential future affects the severity of certain harms. There are stronger reasons to avoid causing the deaths of humans than to avoid causing the deaths of cats, because humans lose more in death than cats do. ;Chapters One through Three present the above view. I argue that this view can resolve certain apparent tensions within two different attractive combinations of views, and on this basis I argue that the above view should be adopted. ;Chapter Four, "Can We Harm and Benefit in Creating?" proposes a solution to the puzzle of actions that appear to be wrong in virtue of harming a particular individual, but where the individual would not have existed if the action had not been performed, so the individual is not made worse off by the action. ;Chapter Five, "Ethics Without Ethical Theory," defends part of the methodology of Chapters One through Four by defending the view that we can justifiably reach important substantive ethical conclusions without commitment to a particular ethical theory, or to a particular meta-ethical view. (shrink)

In this article I offer a philosophical review of (1) leading theories of the moral status of animals, (2) pivotal theoretical issues on which more progress needs to be made, and (3) applications to the setting of animal research. Such an examination demonstrates, I believe, that the practical implications of leading theories converge far more than might be expected. In addition, I hope this review helps to clarify particularly troubling issues that remain so they can be treated adequately.

This article discusses what is involved in having full moral status, as opposed to a lesser degree of moral status and surveys different views of the grounds of moral status as well as the arguments for attributing a particular degree of moral status on the basis of those grounds.

Mary Anne Warren investigates a theoretical question that is at the centre of practical and professional ethics: what are the criteria for having moral status? That is: what does it take to be an entity towards which people have moral considerations? Warren argues that no single property will do as a sole criterion, and puts forward seven basic principles which establish moral status. She then applies these principles to three controversial moral issues: voluntary euthanasia, (...) abortion, and the status of non-human animals. (shrink)

A central puzzle of contemporary moral and political philosophy is that while most of us believe that all or almost all human beings enjoy the same moral status, human beings possess the capacities that supposedly ground moral status to very unequal levels. This paper aims to develop a novel strategy to vindicate the idea of moral equality against this challenge. Its central argument is that the puzzle emerges only if one accepts a usually unstated (...) theoretical premise about value and the proper response to value. The premise holds that if the presence of a valuable property warrants a certain kind of response towards its bearers, then every variation in the degree to which the property is present necessarily constitutes a reason for a corresponding variation in the response that is warranted towards its bearers. It argues that despite its intuitive appeal, the premise is not plausible as a general view about the proper way of responding to value, and as a view about responding to the value of rational beings in particular. It proposes an account of the proper manner of valuing rational beings that supports a distinctive version of the so-called threshold approach to justifying equal moral status. (shrink)

Many contemporary bioethicists claim that the possession of certain psychological properties is sufficient for having full moral status. I will call this thepsychological approach to full moral status. In this paper, I argue that there is a significant tension between the psychological approach and a widely held model of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID, formerly Multiple Personality Disorder). According to this model, the individual personalities or alters that belong to someone with DID possess those properties that proponents (...) of the psychological approach claim suffice for full moral status. If this account of DID is true, then the psychological approach to full moral status seems to entail that the two standard therapies for treating DID might, on occasion, be seriously immoral, for they may well involve the (involuntary) elimination of an entity with full moral status. This result should give proponents of the psychological approach pause, for most people find the claim that current treatments of DID are ethically suspect highly counter-intuitive. (shrink)

It has been known for quite a while that traditional ethical theories have very counterintuitive and paradoxical implications for questions concerning procreation and our moral duties to future generations. Classical Utilitarianism, for example, seems to imply that we have a moral duty to procreate and that we should try to have as many off-springs as possible. More disturbingly, it implies Derek Parfit’s well-known Repugnant Conclusion.

When philosophers consider what moral status human beings have, they tend to find themselves either supporting the idea that not all human beings are rightholders or adopting what Peter Singer calls a 'speciesist' position, where speciesism is defined as morally favoring a particular species—in this case, human beings—over others without sufficient justification. In this paper, I develop what I call the 'genetic basis for moral agency' account of rightholding, and I propose that this account can allow all (...) human beings to be rightholders without being speciesist. While my aim is to set out this account clearly rather than to defend it, I explain how this account is different from a potentiality account and I argue that it is preferable to an actual moral agency account of human moral status. (shrink)

Many people believe that all human life is of equal value. Most of them also believe that all human beings have a moral status superior to that of nonhuman animals. But how are these beliefs to be defended? The mere difference of species cannot in itself determine moral status. The most obvious candidate for regarding human beings as having a higher moral status than animals is the superior cognitive capacity of humans. People with profound (...) mental retardation pose a problem for this set of beliefs, because their cognitive capacities are not superior to those of many animals. I argue that we should drop the belief in the equal value of human life, replacing it with a graduated view that applies to animals as well as to humans. (shrink)

For a long time, researchers of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and futurists have hypothesized that the developed Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) systems can execute intellectual and behavioral tasks similar to human beings. However, there are two possible concerns regarding the emergence of AGI systems and their moral status, namely: 1) is it possible to grant moral status to the AGI-enabled robots similar to humans? 2) if it is (im)possible, then under what conditions do such robots (fail to) (...) achieve moral status similar to humans? To examine the possibilities, the present study puts forward a functionality argument, which claims that if a human being and an AGI-enabled robot have similar functionality, but different creative processes, they may have similar moral status. Furthermore, the functionality argument asserts that an entity’s (a human being or an AGI-enabled robot) creation/production from carbon or silicon or its brain’s utilization of neurotransmitters or semiconductors does not carry any significance. Rather, if both entities have similar functionality, they may have similar moral status, which implies that the AGI-enabled robot may achieve human-like moral status if it performs human-like functions. (shrink)