ON MORAL CONSIDERABILITY: AN ESSAY ON WHO MORALLY MATTERS

There appear to be three main sets of issues that arise upon a focus on animal value: the moral standing or moral considerability of animals, the value of animal life, and the argument from marginal cases (or unfortunate humans). But these issues all arise, and in various ways, in the confines of a larger argument concerned with human benefit that proponents of animal use accept to justify animal experimentation in medicine and that opponents of animal use reject to scuttle that attempted justification. In fact, these main sets of issues are all interconnected, and the ultimate issue in dispute in this general area will turn out to be the comparative value of human and animal life.

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Moral Considerability: Deontological, not Metaphysical

Ethics & the Environment ◽

10.2979/ethicsenviro.16.2.37 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 16 (2) ◽

pp. 37 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Hale

Keyword(s):

Moral Considerability

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Individualist Biocentrism vs. Holism Revisited

Les ateliers de l éthique ◽

10.7202/1026682ar ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 9 (2) ◽

pp. 130-148 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Katie McShane

Keyword(s):

Environmental Ethics ◽

Evolutionary Biology ◽

Environmental Conservation ◽

Normative Ethics ◽

Conservation Strategies ◽

Units Of Selection ◽

Moral Considerability ◽

Intuitive Appeal ◽

Theoretical Assumptions ◽

Endogenous Viral Elements

While holist views such as ecocentrism have considerable intuitive appeal, arguing for the moral considerability of ecological wholes such as ecosystems has turned out to be a very difficult task. In the environmental ethics literature, individualist biocentrists have persuasively argued that individual organisms—but not ecological wholes—are properly regarded as having a good of their own . In this paper, I revisit those arguments and contend that they are fatally flawed. The paper proceeds in five parts. First, I consider some problems brought about by climate change for environmental conservation strategies and argue that these problems give us good pragmatic reasons to want a better account of the welfare of ecological wholes. Second, I describe the theoretical assumptions from normative ethics that form the background of the arguments against holism. Third, I review the arguments given by individualist biocentrists in favour of individualism over holism. Fourth, I review recent work in the philosophy of biology on the units of selection problem, work in medicine on the human biome, and work in evolutionary biology on epigenetics and endogenous viral elements. I show how these developments undermine both the individualist arguments described above as well as the distinction between individuals and wholes as it has been understood by individualists. Finally, I consider five possible theoretical responses to these problems.

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Conclusion

The Death of the Ethic of Life ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190923877.003.0008 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 183-192

Author(s):

John Basl

Keyword(s):

Medical Ethics ◽

Environmental Ethics ◽

Emerging Technologies ◽

Moral Considerability ◽

Environmental Practice ◽

Specific Species

The primary aim of this work has been to show that biocentrism is false by developing the strongest, most plausible version of the view and then exposing it to new criticisms, criticisms that are not susceptible to the standard biocentrist responses. The conclusion takes up the broader implications of the death of the ethic of life in four domains: environmental ethics and environmental practice, medicine and medical ethics, emerging technologies, and within philosophy more broadly. Given the webs of interdependence in nature, it argues that not much hangs, in terms of policy, on the fact that biocentrism or teleocentrism is false, but there are edge cases: cases where, for example, we might be thought to have an obligation to restore specific species or make reparations for past environmental wrongdoing, where the answer to questions about moral considerability matters.

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