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 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)

Rationality (or something similar) is usually given as the relevant difference between all humans and animals; the reason humans do but animals do not deserve moral consideration. But according to the Argument from Marginal Cases not all humans are rational, yet if such (marginal) humans are morally considerable despite lacking rationality it would be arbitrary to deny animals with similar capacities a similar level of moral consideration. The slippery slope objection has (...) it that although marginal humans are not strictly speaking morally considerable, we should give them moral consideration because if we do not we will slide down a slippery slope where we end up by not giving normal humans due consideration. I argue that this objection fails to show that marginal humans have the kind of direct moral status proponents of the slippery slope argument have in mind. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Moral Critique of Research on Animals The Uses of Animals in Research The Response of the Research Community to the Moral Critique of Animal Research Practical Resolution References Further reading.

Marginal humans are not rational yet we still think they are morally considerable. This is inconsistent with denying animals moral status on the basis of their irrationality. Therefore, either marginal humans and animals are both morally considerable or neither are. In this paper I consider a major objection to this argument: that species is a relevant difference between humans animals.

Given the existence of “marginal human cases”, it is often argued that we must either acknowledge that some human beings have less moral status than some non-human animals, or commit to the idea that moral status is held by humans qua human. In this paper, the moves available on both sides are shown to be unsatisfactory, and an argument for moral status that avoids both of the standard positions is suggested. Ultimately, (...) it is argued that the discussion of moral status is confused when marginal human cases are seen as posing a unique, rather than a general, theoretical problem. (shrink)

Perlo's engagement with the complex and ambiguous relationship between Marxism (and, more broadly, the socialist traditions) and the moral status of animals is very much to be welcomed. This sort of engagement is valuable for three main reasons. First, the more narrowly focused social movement activitywhether committed to animal rights, social justice in the workplace, or advancement for womenis liable to cut itself off from critical insights created in the context of other movements. I became aware (...) of this, particularly during the 1980s in relation to radical green politics, as both deepening and widening the already existing socialist case against neo-liberal capitalism, just as the women's liberation movement had done a decade or more earlier. Second, this sort of analysis is valuable because without it "single-issue" movements run a serious risk of advancing the claims of their own preferred social group at the cost of (usually unknowingly and unintentionally) deepening the oppression or exploitation of other groups. Third, where radical social movements campaign for changes that conflict with the interests of wealthy and powerful interests, and are committed to democratic values, they need to be able to bring public opinion with them. Single-issue movements rarely can do this on their own: Broad-based coalitions are needed. Moreover, the sources of radical thought and the range of justified grievances are now so diverse that the notion of a single, unified political party as the centralized vehicle of change is no longer viable (if it ever was). So, the broadly based coalition has to be diverse and difference-respecting. But can it be this while still maintaining enough unity of purpose and coordination of its actions to be effective? ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR Copyright of Society & Animals is the property of Brill Academic Publishers and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to alls); Perlo's engagement with the complex and ambiguous relationship between Marxism (and, more broadly, the socialist traditions) and the moral status of animals is very much to be welcomed. This sort of engagement is valuable for three main reasons. First, the more narrowly focused social movement activitywhether committed to animal rights, social justice in the workplace, or advancement for womenis liable to cut itself off from critical insights created in the context of other movements. I became aware of this, particularly during the 1980s in relation to radical green politics, as both deepening and widening the already existing socialist case against neo-liberal capitalism, just as the women's liberation movement had done a decade or more earlier. Second, this sort of analysis is valuable because without it "single-issue" movements run a serious risk of advancing the claims of their own preferred social group at the cost of (usually unknowingly and unintentionally) deepening the oppression or exploitation of other groups. Third, where radical social movements campaign for changes that conflict with the interests of wealthy and powerful interests, and are committed to democratic values, they need to be able to bring public opinion with them. Single-issue movements rarely can do this on their own: Broad-based coalitions are needed. Moreover, the sources of radical thought and the range of justified grievances are now so diverse that the notion of a single, unified political party as the centralized vehicle of change is no longer viable (if it ever was). So, the broadly based coalition has to be diverse and difference-respecting. But can it be this while still maintaining enough unity of purpose and coordination of its actions to be effective? ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR Copyright of Society & Animals is the property of Brill Academic Publishers and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts). (shrink)

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)

A comprehensive study of the ethics of killing in cases in which the metaphysical or moral status of the individual killed is uncertain or controversial. Among those beings whose status is questionable or marginal in this way are human embryos and fetuses, newborn infants, animals, anencephalic infants, human beings with severe congenital and cognitive impairments, and human beings who have become severely demented or irreversibly comatose. In an effort to understand the moral (...) class='Hi'>status of these beings, this book develops and defends distinctive accounts of the nature of personal identity, the evaluation of death, and the wrongness of killing. The central metaphysical claim of the book is that we are neither nonmaterial souls nor human organisms but are instead embodied minds. In ethical theory, one of the central claims is that the morality of killing is not unitary; rather, the principles that determine the morality of killing in marginal cases are different from those that govern the killing of persons who are self‐conscious and rational. Another important theme is that killing in marginal cases should be evaluated in terms of the impact it would have on the victim at the time rather than on the value of the victim's life as a whole. What primarily matters is how killing would affect that which would be rational for the victim to care about at the time of death. By appealing to various foundational claims about identity, death, and the morality of killing, this book yields novel conclusions about such issues as abortion, prenatal injury, infanticide, the killing of animals, the significance of brain death, the termination of life support in cases of persistent vegetative state, the use of anencephalic infants as sources of organs for transplantation, euthanasia, assisted suicide, and advance directives in cases of dementia. In particular, the book defends the moral permissibility of abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia in certain cases and argues that brain death is not the appropriate criterion of death either for a person or a human organism. (shrink)

This paper addresses the issue of the legal status of non-human animals and the possibility of changing it from the status of things or property to the status of non-things, or better, sentient beings. Key arguments for the change of their status are discussed, including the argument from marginal cases, as well as scientific evidence indicating that many animals are sentient beings. Two ways of initiating such changes seem most promising: (...) legislation, i.e. modification of the civil codes, and litigation, i.e. filing lawsuits on behalf of individual animals. It is argued that legislative changes are necessary for moving animals out of the legal category of things and into the category of sentient beings that can bear rights. On the other hand, litigation could bring about more radical change of the legal status of some animals. (shrink)

In this paper I will examine two responses to the argument from marginal cases; the argument from kinds and the similarity argument. I will argue that these arguments are insufficient to show that all humans have moral status but no animals do. This does not prove that animals have moral status but it does shift the burden of proof onto those who want to maintain that all humans are morally considerable, (...) but no animals are. (shrink)

I offer some reasons for the theory that, compared with human beings, non-human animals have some but lesser intrinsic value. On the basis of this theory, I first argue that we do not know how to compare an animal's claim to be free from a more serious type of harm, and a human's claim to be free from some lesser type of harm. For we need to take account of these parties' intrinsic value, and their competing types (...) of claim. Yet, there exists no known way for making such comparison, when a human's intrinsic value is higher than that of an animal, whereas the type of claim an animal has is morally weightier than the type of claim a human has. Second, I explain why utilitarianism is unhelpful in making such comparison. Third, in the case where some animals can be sacrificed for saving a larger number of humans, it is crucial to ask whether animals have the right to life, and I argue that this question is more perplexing than we might think. My conclusion is that the various difficulties mentioned above have a deeper source than we have so far acknowledged, and that this reflects that the moral reality is less tidy and more complex than many theories portray. (shrink)

In this article, I consider a number of arguments that assume that beings who have immortal souls occupy a special position in the sphere of moral concern. First, I place these arguments in their historical and cultural contexts. Next, I formulate several conditions of adequacy that all such arguments must satisfy. Subsequently, I distinguish two different general kinds of such arguments: Inclusionary arguments attempt to use the immortality of soul as a criterion for either including someone into a sphere (...) of morality while excluding others or, at least, for elevating someone's position within this sphere. Modifying arguments attempt to strengthen or weaken moral considerations that already apply to a being included into the sphere of morality. I argue that, although some modifying arguments may fulfill all conditions of adequacy, they have very little practical importance. (shrink)

If we are going to treat other species so very differently from our own — killing, eating and experimenting on pigs and sheep, for example, but never human beings — then it seems we need to come up with some morally relevant difference between us and them that justifies this difference in treatment. Otherwise it appears we are guilty of bigotry (in just the same way that someone who discriminates on the basis of race or sex is guilty of (...) bigotry). But what is this morally relevant difference? Julia Tanner's article examines, and rejects, some of the most popular answers to this question. -/- . (shrink)

This article explores Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation thesis and examines the arguments against his work, particularly from certain moral philosophers in the late 1970s and 1980s who seriously engaged with his ideas. This article argues that due to the straightforward, minimalist nature of Singer’s preference utilitarianism, his arguments have remained highly defensible and persuasive. By advancing sentience, above characteristics like intelligence or rationality, as a sufficient criterion for possessing interests, Singer provides a justifiable principle for morally considering animal (...) interests equal to those of humans. Numerous moral philosophers have challenged Singer, but they have struggled to seriously counter his core principle and to resolve the argument of ‘marginal cases’—that is, why do infants and intellectually disabled humans have moral status and animals do not. Ultimately, Singer broadly challenged prevailing anthropocentric views of animals and, in some instances, persuaded some of his most intransigent opponents. (shrink)

Our ethical obligations to another being depend at least in part on that being’s capacity for a mental life. Our usual approach to inferring the mental state of another is to reason by analogy: If another being behaves as I do in a circumstance that engenders a certain mental state in me, I conclude that it has engendered the same mental state in him or her. Unfortunately, as philosophers have long noted, this analogy is fallible because behavior and mental states (...) are only contingently related. If the other person is acting, for example, we could draw the wrong conclusion about his or her mental state. In this article I consider another type of analogy that can be drawn between oneself and another to infer the mental state of the other, substituting brain activity for behavior. According to most current views of the mind–body problem, mental states and brain states are non-contingently related, and hence inferences drawn with the new analogy are not susceptible to the alternative interpretations that plague the behavioral analogy. The implications of this approach are explored in two cases for which behavior is particularly unhelpful as a guide to mental status: severely brain–damaged patients who are incapable of intentional communicative behavior, and nonhuman animals whose behavioral repertoires are different from ours and who lack language. (shrink)

According to a common view, animals have moral status. Further, a standard defense of this view is the Argument from Consciousness: animals have moral status because they are conscious and can experience pain and it would be bad were they to experience pain. In a series of papers :277–291, 2015a, J Agric Environ Ethics 28:11270–1138, 2015b, J Agric Environ Ethics 30:37–54, 2017), Timothy Hsiao claims that animals do not have moral (...) class='Hi'>status and criticizes the Argument from Consciousness. This short paper defends the Argument from Consciousness by providing two simple responses to Hsiao’s criticism. (shrink)

Attempts to justify the special moral status of human beings over other animals face a well-known objection: the challenge of marginal cases. If we attempt to ground this special status in the unique rationality of humans, then it becomes difficult to see why nonrational humans should be treated any differently than other, nonhuman animals. We respond to this challenge by turning to the social contract tradition. In particular, we identify an important role for (...) the concept of recognition in attempts to secure rights through a social contract. Recognition, which involves identifying with or seeing ourselves as others, is the key to establishing the scope of justice, and we argue that this scope extends to all humans—even the so-called marginal cases—but not to other animals. If this is correct, then we have a principled reason for why all humans have certain rights that other animals lack. (shrink)

My paper builds on the conceptual tools from three interrelated philosophical debates that—as I believe—may help structure important if chaotic discussions about surrogates for living human brains and resolve some practical issues related to regulatory matters. In particular, I refer to the discussions about the “moral precautionary principle” in research ethics (Koplin and Wilkinson 2019); about normative uncertainty in ethics (MacAskill, Bykvist, and Ord 2020), and about the inductive risk problem for animal welfare scientists (Birch 2018). I elucidate (...) upon the possible meanings of the phrase “a too good human brain surrogate” used by Henry T. Greely (2021), and I demonstrate that the evaluation of the practical and regulatory implications of the “goodness” of such surrogates created for research purposes should be sensitive to the possible consequences of two types of errors: the under-attribution and over-attribution of moral status to such beings. Many authors writing about this topic (including Greely 2021, but see also, e.g., Koplin and Savulescu 2019) concentrate only on the first type of error, neglecting the negative consequences of the second type, i.e., over-attribution. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Some beings, including children, animals and the mentally handicapped, seem to deserve moral consideration, despite the fact that they are not rational or moral agents. These so‐called marginal cases create a problem for theories that heavily stress the role of moral and/or rational agency in ethics: the latter seem unable to account for the former's moral status. This paper discusses the recent and original attempt of Loren Lomasky to solve this problem. (...) It is argued that Lomasky's arguments are self‐defeating because they can only succeed by relying on common‐sense morality and, thus, by giving up the heavy stress on the role of rational agency in ethics. (shrink)

Human beings with diminished decision-making capacities are usually thought to require greater protections from the potential harms of research than fully autonomous persons. Animal subjects of research receive lesser protections than any human beings regardless of decision-making capacity. Paradoxically, however, it is precisely animals’ lack of some characteristic human capacities that is commonly invoked to justify using them for human purposes. In other words, for humans lesser capacities correspond to greater protections but for animals the opposite is (...) true. Without explicit justification, it is not clear why or whether this should be the case. Ethics regulations guiding human subject research include principles such as respect for persons—and related duties—that are required as a matter of justice while regulations guiding animal subject research attend only to highly circumscribed considerations of welfare. Further, the regulations guiding research on animals discount any consideration of animal welfare relative to comparable human welfare. This paper explores two of the most promising justifications for these differences␣between the two sets of regulations. The first potential justification points to lesser moral status for animals on the basis of their lesser capacities. The second potential justification relies on a claim about the permissibility of moral partiality as␣found in common morality. While neither potential justification is sufficient to justify the regulatory difference as it stands, there is possible common ground between supporters of some regulatory difference and those rejecting the current difference. (shrink)

In the last three decades, the consideration of whether non-human animals should be ascribed any moral status, and if so in what way it ought to be ascribed to them, has become of central philosophical, political and economic importance. Thus, given thecontemporary significance of what may be called (jar simplicity’s sake) the “animal issue,” it is worthwhile to examine in what way Ancient Greek philosophy might contribute to our understanding of the issue and to our philosophical response (...) to it. With this in mind,in this essay I examine the issue of the moral status of animals from a “critical” Aristotelian perspective, on the basis of which I shall attempt: (§I) to show how, unlike the Cartesian view of animal nature, Aristotle’s conception of the non-moral status of animals stillinforms the prevailing contemporary view of the animal, and (§II) to establish that Aristotle’s failure to ascribe moral status to animals should be rejected (a) given his admission that animals are, by nature, capable of suffering while they are unable to engage in rational deliberation, and (b) given his understanding of the connection between moral blameworthiness, natural disposition, and various kinds of acts, particularly un-chosen and chosen willing acts. In this way, we shall show that although the prevailing contemporary view of the animal’s moral status represents a slightly more “elevated” view than Aristotle’s, insofar as (typically) we do not explicitly claim, as Aristotle did, that animals are due no moral consideration, by critically appropriating the relevant Aristotelian texts, we nonetheless findrich philosophical evidence that permits us to further elevate our conception of the moral status of animals such that we are prepared to grant them genuine moral significance, not just in theory but also in practice. (shrink)

Recent advances in human brain organoid systems have raised serious worries about the possibility that these in vitro ‘mini‐brains’ could develop sentience, and thus, moral status. This article considers the relative moral status of sentient human brain organoids and research animals, examining whether we have moral reasons to prefer using one over the other. It argues that, contrary to common intuitions, the wellbeing of sentient human brain organoids should not be granted greater moral (...) consideration than the wellbeing of nonhuman research animals. It does so not by denying that typical humans have higher moral status than animals, but instead by arguing that none of the leading justifications for granting humans higher moral status than nonhuman animals apply to brain organoids. Additionally, it argues that there are no good reasons to be more concerned about the well‐being of human brain organoids compared to those generated from other species. (shrink)

While contractualism seems to solve some of the more pressing concerns of other moral theories, it does not conclusively address the moral status of non-human animals. Peter Carruthers claims that contractualism excludes animals from having full moral status. I argue that Carruthers’ arguments are fatally flawed due to his reliance on contradictory claims, unlikely assumptions, and flagrant violations of the contractualist method. However, Carruthers also claims that we can treat animals wrongly (...) and that it deserves moral criticism. This claim is based in indirect moral significance. However, this position makes it impossible for Carruthers to avoid endorsing two extremely counter-intuitive claims. The work of C. Tucker and C. MacDonald allows us to demonstrate that contractualism does give animals full moral standing. They ground the criteria for a contracting agent in three characteristics that animals possess. A look at some possible objections reveals nothing devastating to their proposal. (shrink)

_Anthropocentrism and Its Discontents_ is the first-ever comprehensive examination of views of animals in the history of Western philosophy, from Homeric Greece to the twentieth century. In recent decades, increased interest in this area has been accompanied by scholars’ willingness to conceive of animal experience in terms of human mental capacities: consciousness, self-awareness, intention, deliberation, and in some instances, at least limited moral agency. This conception has been facilitated by a shift from behavioral to cognitive ethology, (...) and by attempts to affirm the essential similarities between the psychophysical makeup of human beings and animals. Gary Steiner sketches the terms of the current debates about animals and relates these to their historical antecedents, focusing on both the dominant anthropocentric voices and those recurring voices that instead assert a fundamental kinship relation between human beings and animals. He concludes with a discussion of the problem of balancing the need to recognize a human indebtedness to animals and the natural world with the need to preserve a sense of the uniqueness and dignity of the human individual. (shrink)

The mainstream concept of death—the biological one—identifies death with the cessation of an organism. In this article, I challenge the mainstream position, showing that there is no single well-established concept of an organism and no universal concept of death in biological terms. Moreover, some of the biological views on death, if applied in the context of bedside decisions, might imply unacceptable consequences. I argue the moral concept of death—one similar to that of Robert Veatch—overcomes such difficulties. The moral (...) view identifies death with the irreversible cessation of a patient’s moral status, that is, a state when she can no longer be harmed or wronged. The death of a patient takes place when she is no longer capable of regaining her consciousness. In this regard, the proposal elaborated herein resembles that of Veatch yet differs from Veatch’s original project since it is universal. In essence, it is applicable in the case of other living beings such as animals and plants, provided that they have some moral status. (shrink)

The term moral considerability refers to the question of whether a being or set of beings is worthy of moral consideration. Moral considerability is most readily afforded to those beings that demonstrate the clearest relationship to rational humans, though many have also argued for and against the moral considerability of species, ecosystems, and “lesser” animals. Among these arguments there are at least two positions: “environmentalist” positions that tend to emphasize the systemic relations between species, and (...) “liberationist” positions that tend to emphasize the attributes or welfare of a particular individual organism. Already, this classic conflict provides for some challenging theoretical clashes between environmentalists and animal liberationists. The question of moral considerability is complicated, however, by recent developments in genetic engineering. Some animals, like pigs and fish, have been genetically modified by humans to grow organs that can then be transplanted into humans. If environmental arguments for the moral consideration of species are correct, then we are released from our obligations to morally consider those animals that we have genetically modified, since they are by their nature always an “invader species.” If, instead, the welfare of the animal is of penultimate importance, then there is a case for strengthening the moral considerability of GM animals over “naturally-occurring” animals, since they bear a closer relationship to humans. This would appear to be an intractable problem, a “bad marriage,” as Mark Sagoff once proposed. This paper argues that the case of invasive transgenic animals exposes weaknesses in this classic conflict, and particularly, in the framing of this conflict. To remedy this framing problem, this paper argues for a reconceptualization of the term “moral considerability,” instead urging a strong distinction between moral considerability, moral relevance, and moral significance. (shrink)

According to a widely shared intuition, normal adult humans require greater moral concern than normal, adult animals in at least some circumstances. Even the most steadfast defenders of animals' moral status attempt to accommodate this intuition, often by holding that humans' higher-level capacities (intellect, linguistic ability, and so on) give rise to a greater number of interests, and thus the likelihood of greater satisfaction, thereby making their lives more valuable. However, the moves from capacities (...) to interests, and from interests to the likelihood of satisfaction, have up to now gone unexamined and undefended. I argue that context plays a morally significant role both in the formation of an individual's capacities, and in the determination of the individual's interests and potential for satisfaction based on those capacities. Claims about an individual's capacities and interests are typically presented as unconditional; but on closer examination, they are revealed to be contingent on tacit assumptions about context. Until we develop an understanding of how to account for the role of context within our moral theories, attempts to defend special moral concern for human beings based on their superior capacities are less firmly grounded than is commonly thought. (shrink)

Autumn Fiester identifies an important element in clinical ethics consultation (CEC) that she labels, from the Greek, aporia, “state of perplexity,” evidenced in CEC as ethical ambiguity. Fiester argues that the inherent difficulties of cases so characterized render them inappropriate for voting and more amenable to mediation and the search for consensus. This commentary supports Fiester’s analysis and adds additional reasons for rejecting voting as a process for resolving disputes in CEC including: it distorts the analysis by empowering (...) individual voters preferences and biases rather than focusing on the interests and wishes of the patient and family; it offers an insufficiently sensitive model for resolving the awesome, nuanced, conflicted, and ethically complex issues surrounding life and death; it marginalizes minority opinions that may have moral validity. (shrink)

Many people think that animal liberation would require a fundamental transformation of basic beliefs. We would have to give up "speciesism" and start viewing animals as our equals, with rights and moral status. And we would have to apply these beliefs in an all-or-nothing way. But in Ethics and the Beast, Tzachi Zamir makes the radical argument that animal liberation doesn't require such radical arguments--and that liberation could be accomplished in a flexible and pragmatic way. By making (...) a case for liberation that is based primarily on common moral intuitions and beliefs, and that therefore could attract wide understanding and support, Zamir attempts to change the terms of the liberation debate. Without defending it, Ethics and the Beast claims that speciesism is fully compatible with liberation. Even if we believe that we should favor humans when there is a pressing human need at stake, Zamir argues, that does not mean that we should allow marginal human interests to trump the life-or-death interests of animals. As minimalist as it sounds, this position generates a robust liberation program, including commitments not to eat animals, subject them to factory farming, or use them in medical research. Zamir also applies his arguments to some questions that tend to be overlooked in the liberation debate, such as whether using animals can be distinguished from exploiting them, whether liberationists should be moral vegetarians or vegans, and whether using animals for therapeutic purposes is morally blameless. (shrink)

The concept of human dignity is widely used in contemporary ethics and law as a foundational criterion for moral reasoning. Nonetheless, the concept has recently received criticism from various quarters. Some of this criticism has come from representatives of the animal liberation movement. The concept of human dignity is accused of underpinning an ethics that is anthropocentric and speciesist. That is, human dignity is said to be used as the basis of an ultimately unjustifiable attribution of intrinsic (...) moral worth only to human beings and to lead, consequently, to a detrimental prejudice against other species. (shrink)

We address the moral importance of fish, invertebrates such as crustaceans, snails and insects, and other animals about which there is qualified scientific uncertainty about their sentience. We argue that, on a sentientist basis, one can at least say that how such animals fare make ethically significant claims on our character. It is a requirement of a morally decent (or virtuous) person that she at least pays attention to and is cautious regarding the possibly morally relevant aspects (...) of such animals. This involves having a moral stance, in the sense of patterns of perception, such that one notices such animals as being morally relevant in various situations. For the person who does not already consider these animals in this way, this could be a big change in moral psychology, and can be assumed to have behavioural consequences, albeit indeterminate. Character has been largely neglected in the literature, which focuses on act-centred approaches (i.e. that the evidence on sentience supports, or does not support, taking some specific action). We see our character-centred approach as complementary to, not superior to, act-centred approaches. Our approach has the advantage of allowing us to make ethically interesting and practically relevant claims about a wider range of cases, but it has the drawback of providing less specific action guidance. (shrink)

Two problems are considered here. One relates to who has moral status, and the other relates to who has moral responsibility. The criteria for mattering morally have long been disputed, and many humans and nonhuman animals have been considered “marginal cases,” on the contested edges of moral considerability and concern. The marginalization of humans and other species is frequently the pretext for denying their rights, including the rights to health care, to reproductive freedom, (...) and to bodily autonomy. There is broad agreement across cultural and philosophical traditions about the capacities and responsibilities of moral agents. I propose an inclusive and expansive way of thinking about moral status, situating it not in the characteristics or capacities of individuals, but in the responsibilities and obligations of moral agents. Moral agents, under this view, are not privileged or entitled to special treatment but rather have responsibilities. I approach this by considering some African communitarian conceptions of moral status and moral agency. I propose that moral agency can also be more expansive and include not just individual moral agents but collective entities that have some of the traits of moral agents: power, freedom, and the capacity to recognize and act on the demands of morality and acknowledge and respect the rights of others. Expanding who and what is a moral agent correspondingly extends moral responsibility for respecting rights and fostering the conditions for the health and well-being of humans and animals onto the collective entities who uniquely have the capacity to attend to global-scale health threats such as pandemics and human-caused climate change. (shrink)

Is it OK to lie to Siri? Is it bad to mistreat a robot for our own pleasure? Under what condition should we grant a moral status to an artificial intelligence (AI) system? This paper looks at different arguments for granting moral status to an AI system: the idea of indirect duties, the relational argument, the argument from intelligence, the arguments from life and information, and the argument from sentience. In each but the (...) last case, we find unresolved issues with the particular argument, which leads us to move to a different one. We leave the idea of indirect duties aside since these duties do not imply considering an AI system for its own sake. The paper rejects the relational argument and the argument from intelligence. The argument from life may lead us to grant a moral status to an AI system, but only in a weak sense. Sentience, by contrast, is a strong argument for the moral status of an AI system—based, among other things, on the Aristotelian principle of equality: that same cases should be treated in the same way. The paper points out, however, that no AI system is sentient given the current level of technological development. (shrink)

This is a Japanese translation my 1998 paper "The Moral Status of the Cloning of Humans" -/- This essay is concerned with two questions. First, is the cloning of humans beings morally acceptable, or not? Secondly, if it is acceptable, are there any significant benefits that might result from it? I begin by drawing a distinction between two very different cases in which a human organism is cloned: the first aims at producing a mindless human organism (...) that will serve as a living organ bank; the second, at producing a person. I then consider each of these in turn. The moral issues raised by the former are the same as those raised by abortion. For this reason, I do not discuss such cloning at length - though I do indicate, very briefly, the reasons for thinking that it is not morally problematic. The rest of the essay then focuses upon the question of the moral status of cloning in cases where the goal is to produce a human person. Here I begin by distinguishing between the question of whether such cloning is in principle morally acceptable, and the question of whether its use at the present time is morally defensible. The second of these questions I consider only briefly, but I do argue that the attempt to produce persons via cloning at the present time is open to serious moral objections. I then turn to the first question, and there I argue, first, that cloning that has the goal of producing persons is not intrinsically wrong; secondly, that such cloning would have a number of potential benefits; and thirdly, that none of the objections that have been directed against this sort of cloning can be sustained. My overall conclusion, accordingly, is that both sorts of cloning are in principle morally acceptable, and potentially beneficial to society. (shrink)

This essay is concerned with two questions. First, is the cloning of humans beings morally acceptable, or not? Secondly, if it is acceptable, are there any significant benefits that might result from it? I begin by drawing a distinction between two very different cases in which a human organism is cloned: the first aims at producing a mindless human organism that will serve as a living organ bank; the second, at producing a person. I then consider each of (...) these in turn. The moral issues raised by the former are the same as those raised by abortion. For this reason, I do not discuss such cloning at length - though I do indicate, very briefly, the reasons for thinking that it is not morally problematic. The rest of the essay then focuses upon the question of the moral status of cloning in cases where the goal is to produce a human person. Here I begin by distinguishing between the question of whether such cloning is in principle morally acceptable, and the question of whether its use at the present time is morally defensible. The second of these questions I consider only briefly, but I do argue that the attempt to produce persons via cloning at the present time is open to serious moral objections. I then turn to the first question, and there I argue, first, that cloning that has the goal of producing persons is not intrinsically wrong; secondly, that such cloning would have a number of potential benefits; and thirdly, that none of the objections that have been directed against this sort of cloning can be sustained. My overall conclusion, accordingly, is that both sorts of cloning are in principle morally acceptable, and potentially beneficial to society. (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 (AN) and non-analogy-based nature-considerism (NN). 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 (i) that nature has interests of the kind that they reasonably want to ascribe to it, and (ii) 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 (i) its unique complexity, and (ii) its indispensability (to all moral agents). 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)

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)

Moral individualists like Jeff McMahan and Peter Singer argue that our moral obligations to animals, both human and non‐human, are grounded in the morally salient capacities of those animals. By contrast, what might be called moral relationalists argue that our obligations to non‐human animals are grounded in our relationship to them. Moral relationalists are of various kinds, from relationalists regarding assistance to animals, such as Clare Palmer and Elizabeth Anderson, to relationalists (...) grounded in a Wittgensteinian view of human practice, such as Cora Diamond and Alice Crary. This article argues that there are, in fact, two distinct types of moral reasons, those based on salient capacities and those based on relationships. Neither type of reason is reducible to the other, and there is no third type to which to reduce them both. Any attempt at reduction would run counter to deep intuitions about our moral relation to non‐human animals as well as to other humans. Among the implications of this is that certain kinds of arguments, such as the argument from marginal cases, seem to be incomplete precisely because they do not capture the complexity of our moral relations to non‐human animals. (shrink)

Elizabeth Anderson claims that the argument from marginal cases is 'the central argument' behind the claim that nonhuman animals have rights. But she thinks, along with Cora Diamond, that the argument is 'obtuse'. Two different meanings could be intended here: that the argument from marginal cases is too blunt or dull to dissect the reasons why it makes sense to say that nonhuman animals have rights or that the argument from (...) class='Hi'>marginal cases is insensitive regarding nonrational human beings. The purpose of the present article is to argue that, despite Anderson's and Diamond's nuanced and perceptive treatments of the argument from marginal cases, this argument is not obtuse in either sense of the term. (shrink)

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)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Anthropocentrism and Its Discontents: The Moral Status of Animals in the History of Western PhilosophyRalph AcamporaGary Steiner. Anthropocentrism and Its Discontents: The Moral Status of Animals in the History of Western Philosophy. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005. Pp. ix + 332. Cloth, $37.50.In this text Steiner surveys the (Eurocentric) history of doctrines, attitudes, and beliefs about the ethical standing of (nonhuman) (...) animals. Unsurprisingly, he finds that the mainstream of thought in this area manifests "an underlying logic: that all and only human beings are worthy of moral consideration, because all and only human beings are rational and endowed with language" (2). This neatly expresses the anthropocentrism identified in the book's title, the "discontents" of which are obviously a gloss on Freud's reading of civilization—that is to say, Steiner sees a great deal of dissatisfaction (largely misgivings of conscience) mixed in with our sense of superiority over other animals. Subliminal unease with, and even explicit dissent from, the mainstream orthodoxy is not absent from the [End Page 480] historical account—indeed, as the author rightly indicates, there has been a parallel (if comparatively minor) stream of more animal-friendly philosophy throughout the ages of thinking on this subject. Moreover, this latter current of thought has been gathering strength lately as "an increasing number of ethologists and philosophers have marshaled insights concerning the evolutionary continuity and physiological similarity between animals and human beings to argue that many animals are conscious, sentient beings that [or better, who] deserve substantial moral consideration" (3).From the outset, then, Steiner situates his historical project within the context of contemporary debates in animal ethics. "By focusing on the historical development of thinking about animals," he proposes, "one can understand the sources of our own anthropocentric prejudices and use that history as the basis for a radical rethinking of the moral status of animals" (37). Early on, in the first chapter in fact, Steiner identifies two problems in the current development of the heterodox, animal-friendly tradition: animal ethicists, he claims, tend to overestimate the mental faculties of nonhumans and do not question the longstanding assumption that intellect (rational or linguistic) is what ultimately imparts moral significance. In effect, Steiner's charge is that these moralists anthropomorphize animals psychologically because they are still tied (critical protestations notwithstanding) to ethical anthropocentrism.Even aside from his ambition to further contemporary animal ethics, Steiner has provided a needed and lucid account of the history he targets. The historical surveys of animal ethics already on the record are limited either because they are merely brief preludes to anthologies or monographs whose main interest is to theorize anew or because they are subsidiary to histories of broader fields such as environmental or ecological thinking. Though Steiner harbors no pretense to exhaustive coverage, the figures he does treat are representative of a fairly comprehensive range from antiquity to postmodernity. Not only are famous vegetarians of the classical Greco-Roman periods covered (viz. Pythagoras, Plutarch, and Porphyry), but arch-anthropocentrists such as Aristotle and the Stoics are examined as well (though in the chapter dedicated to them, one would have liked to see more attention given to the animal-friendly Theophrastus). Notable here is that Steiner treats an assortment of Presocratic philosophers, extending back even to epic thinkers such as Hesiod and Homer. A number of medieval Christians are covered (including Augustine, Francis of Assisi, and Thomas Aquinas), and then it is on to a full chapter about Cartesian thought, before another on empiricism, utilitarianism, and Kant. Last in the survey come a trio of late moderns (Schopenhauer, Darwin, and Schweitzer), followed by a postmodern triumvirate (Heidegger, Levinas, and Derrida). Unfortunately absent from this later coverage are the vitalist Henri Bergson and his post-structuralist heirs, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari.In his final chapter Steiner aims to harness the history he has related for the purpose of reconceiving the moral status of animals so as to avoid the twin problems of anthropocentrism and anthropomorphism which he sees as our inheritance in the Western tradition. The route he takes is to synthesize biocentrically two rival approaches of species linkage, one that stresses common competence and another... (shrink)

According to the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing, it is more difficult to justify doing harm than it is to justify allowing harm. Enabling harm consists in withdrawing an obstacle that would, if left in place, prevent a pre-existing causal sequence from leading to foreseen harm. There has been a lively debate concerning the moral status of enabling harm. According to some (e.g. McMahan, Vihvelin and Tomkow), many cases of enabling harm are morally indistinguishable from (...) doing harm. Others (e.g. Foot, Hanser) support the Equivalence Hypothesis, according to which enabling harm is morally equivalent to allowing harm. Here I argue that there is every reason to embrace, and no reason to reject, the Equivalence Hypothesis. (shrink)

This article seeks to revisit the relationship between Rawls’s contractarianism and the moral status of animals, paying particular attention to the recent literature. Despite Rawls’s own reluctance to include animals as recipients of justice, and my own initial scepticism, a number of scholars have argued that his theory does provide resources that are useful for the animal advocate. The first type takes Rawls’s exclusion of animals from his theory of justice at face value but (...) argues that animals can still be protected within a moral realm independently of justice, or indirectly through the motivations of human contractors. The second type adapts his theory in a way that enables animals to be included within a contractarian theory of justice. It is argued, though, that none of the responses offered is successful in providing a sphere of protection for animals from within Rawls’s contractarian theory. It is doubtful if Rawls’s intention was for animals to receive a significant degree of protection within a moral realm independently of justice, and equally doubtful if the contractors in the original position would be motivated to act on behalf of animals. In the case of the second, whilst Rawlsian resources can be utilised to justify the attempt to amend the veil of ignorance so as to include animals, these are not dependent on a contractural agreement. Similarly, placing emphasis on social-co-operation as a means of incorporating animals into a theory of justice is flawed, not least because, paradoxically, it works for domesticated animals whilst they are being exploited. (shrink)

David Shoemaker has claimed that a binary approach to moral responsibility leaves out something important, namely instances of marginal agency, cases where agents seem to be eligible for some responsibility responses but not others. In this paper we endorse and extend Shoemaker’s approach by presenting and discussing one more case of marginal agency not yet covered by Shoemaker or in the other literature on moral responsibility. Our case is that of Kenneth Parks, a Canadian man (...) who drove a long way to his mother-in-law’s and killed her in a state of somnambulism. We support our claim about Parks’ marginal responsibility in three steps: we first deny that Parks acts involuntarily as traditionally claimed in the legal literature; we then propose to extend Shoemaker’s analysis of marginal responsibility based on quality of will so as to include two other dimensions: the moral status of the agent and the actual causal effects of their actions; finally, we distinguish Parks’ marginal responsibility from four other existing concepts: “tracing”, diminished responsibility, causal responsibility, and moral disapproval without responsibility. (shrink)

I characterize the main approaches to the moral consideration of children developed in the light of the argument from 'marginal' cases, and develop a more adequate strategy that provides guidance about the moral responsibilities adults have towards children. The first approach discounts the significance of children's potential and makes obligations to all children indirect, dependent upon interests others may have in children being treated well. The next approaches agree that the potential of children is morally (...) considerable, but disagree as to whether and why children with intellectual disabilities are morally considerable. These approaches explore the moral significance of intellectual capacities, species membership, the capacity for welfare, and the interests of others. I argue that relationships characterized by reciprocity of care are morally valuable, that both the potential to be in such relationships and the actuality of being in them are morally valuable, and that many children with significant intellectual disabilities have this potential. (shrink)

Nicholas Agar argues that it is possible, and even likely, that radically enhanced human beings will turn out to be ‘post-persons’, that is, beings with a moral status higher than that of mere persons such as us.1 This would mean that they will be morally justified in sacrificing our lives and well-being not merely in cases of emergency, but also in cases of ‘supreme opportunities’ , that is, whenever such a sacrifice leads to ‘significant benefits for (...) post-persons’. For this reason, Agar believes, it would be morally wrong to allow any cognitive enhancement of people that might entail the risk of moral status enhancement.However, neither are there sufficient grounds to expect radically enhanced human beings to have a higher moral status than unenhanced human beings, nor would it, even if they did, be morally wrong to bring about their existence. We use moral status ascriptions mostly as a convenient shorthand to indicate a difference in capacities that strikes us as morally relevant. Rocks have zero moral status because they cannot feel or think, so we cannot hurt or kill them. Whatever we do to them, it does not affect them. Animals, on the other hand, …. (shrink)