Search Results

This chapter presents a few concluding remarks about the goal of achieving a greater consensus in our judgements of moral status. It argues that adopting a multi-criterial theory of moral status does not make it easy to solve all of the moral problems arising from uncertainties about what we owe to other entities. However, it gives us a more adequate set of tools than any of the uni-criterial theories. On the multi-criterial account there are many types of moral status, and many of these come in varying degrees of strength. Moral agents, sentient human beings who are not moral agents, sentient nonhuman animals, non-sentient living things, and such other elements of the natural world as species and ecosystems — all have legitimate claims to moral consideration. Of all the entities with which we interact, only moral agents have full moral status based solely upon their mental and behavioural capacities. The rest have moral status that is partially determined by their social and other relationships to moral agents, and — in the case of entities that are not sentient human beings — by their roles within terrestrial ecosystems.

This chapter reviews the principles proposed in Chapter 6. The first three principles refer to nested classes of entities: living organisms, sentient beings, and moral agents. Beings of each class have some moral status based upon their intrinsic properties. Organic life confers only a modest moral status; sentience confers a stronger moral status; and moral agency is sufficient (but not necessary) for full moral status. The fourth principle expands the community of moral equals to include sentient human beings who are not moral agents. Finally, the last three principles require the acceptance of special obligations to plants and animals of ecosystemically important species, and animal members of our social communities; and permit the acceptance of obligations to some non-living things that have ecosystemic importance, or that have special religious or spiritual value to some people.

This chapter comments on moral status as an intuitive or common-sense concept, and on two widespread — though not universal — beliefs about which things have moral status and which do not. It elaborates somewhat upon the concept of moral status, and considers why we need such a concept in order to make sense of our moral obligations towards human beings and the rest of the natural world. Next, it reviews some of the major positions on current issues that relate to moral status, outlines the book's chapters, and previews some of its conclusions. The chapter closes with two responses to what is probably the most common objection to the type of account being defended.

This chapter presents an account that ties moral status both to certain intrinsic properties and to certain relational ones. Three key intrinsic properties — life, sentience, and moral agency — are directly relevant to moral status, each in a different way. It suggests three principles that express the general nature of that relevance. At the same time, our nature and circumstances, as individuals who exist within both social communities and terrestrial ecosystems, require us to make our judgements of moral status consistent with the demands of important social and ecological relationships. The chapter suggests four principles that govern the way in which this is commonly and appropriately done.

This chapter examines two variants of the concept of a person, and considers the arguments for regarding personhood, in either of these two senses, as the sole criterion of moral status. The first, and more exclusive, concept of personhood emphasizes the mental capacities that are essential for moral agency, such as the capacity to deliberate about moral questions, and voluntarily to conform to moral standards. The less exclusive ‘subject-of-a-life’ criterion proposed by Tom Regan emphasizes the capacity to have beliefs and desires, to remember the past, to anticipate the future, and to act intentionally. It argues that personhood, in the full-blooded sense that requires the capacity for moral agency, is indeed a sufficient condition for full moral status. It is not, however, a necessary condition; infants and mentally disabled human beings ought to have the same basic moral rights as other sentient human beings, even though they may not be persons in this sense.

This chapter examines the sentience criterion, which has been defended by such utilitarian theorists as Jeremy Bentham and Peter Singer. It argues that a being's capacity to experience pleasure and pain provides a sound reason for recognizing a moral obligation not to kill it, or inflict pain or suffering upon it, without good reason. Nevertheless, sentience is not a sufficient condition for full moral status. There are sound reasons for recognizing stronger obligations towards some sentient beings, such as those that are moral agents, those that are members of our social communities, and those that belong to ecologically important species that are endangered by human activities.

This chapter examines the ethic of Reverence for Life developed by Albert Schweitzer, and defended in modified form by some contemporary environmental ethicists. It argues that, although life is a plausible basis for according an entity a moral status that precludes killing it without good reason, it is not a sufficient condition for the full moral status that we want for ourselves and those we care about. Depending upon the definition of ‘life’ which we employ, it may not even be a necessary condition for full moral status. Should we someday meet or manufacture machines that were sentient and self-aware, we might or might not classify them as alive; but in either case we would probably be morally obliged to accord them a moral status as strong as that of naturally evolved organisms with comparable mental and behavioural capacities.

This chapter examines two theories of moral status which are based upon relational rather than intrinsic properties. Some deep ecologists, such as J. Baird Callicott, hold that the moral status of a member of a particular biological species depends entirely upon that species' role — positive or negative — within a social or biotic community. Feminist ethicists, such as Nel Noddings, have argued that the moral status of living things always depends upon our emotional connections to them. The chapter argues that both these theories contain insights that need to be incorporated into an adequate account of moral status; but that neither membership in a social or biological community nor emotional connectedness can serve as the sole criterion of moral status.