The Moral Status of Beings who are not Persons: A Casuistic Argument

Abstract

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.

Continuities and Discontinuities Between Humans, Intelligent Machines, and Other Entities

“…Fourth, an epistemological concept of continuity-since it is grounded in our understanding rather than our properties-allows us to more clearly understand how science sometimes conflict with common sense, or give rise to what Freud described as severe blows to the "narcissism of men … from the researches of science" (Freud 1953, p. 139). Fifth, although this approach has its own problems, which I will try to identify throughout, it avoids some of the problems that plague more ontological approaches, in particular the grounding of human uniqueness in properties that are inherently difficult to define precisely and may even be said to be "essentially contested" (Gallie 1955)-including such concepts as autonomy (Kant 1780(Kant /1997(Kant , 1788(Kant /1997, sentience (Singer 1990), having a conception of one's own life (Regan 2004), concept formation (Adler 1993), and having a will to live (Wetlesen 1999). 1 Finally, the proposed theory provides a new way to specify one's stance regarding the relation between humans and other entities, a stance that will be partly determined by our often implicit assumptions regarding scientific realism and scientific reductionism.…”