Abstract

The paper seeks to show that underlying Bentham's concept of utility is a commitment to a criterion or principle of moral status distinguishing morally relevant beings from the morally irrelevant. Further, that the notion of moral status is ultimately inconsistent with Bentham's utility; that it implies something like a Kantian ethic barring the use of morally relevant beings as mere means to some other's satisfaction, an ethic which suitably interpreted may be more useful in defence of some concerns for which Bentham has traditionally been cited, animal rights for example. The paper concludes by noting the history and politics of moral status and argues that the concept involves a fusion of fact and value, the empirical and the evaluative, undermining assumptions of a rigid separation of the two and the consequent essential subjectivity of the latter.