scholarly journals Disability, Narrative, and Moral Status

2016 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth B. Purcell
Keyword(s):  
Moral Status ◽  
Cognitive Impairments ◽  
Moral Standing ◽  
Moral Action ◽  
Social Ability ◽  
Present Essay

<p>The present essay aims to respond to recent arguments which maintain that persons with severe cognitive impairments should not enjoy the full moral status or equal dignity as other "cognitively-able" humans. In the debate concerning moral standing and worth, philosophers Singer and McMahan have argued that individuals with certain impairments should not be granted full moral status and therefore, by extension, should not be awarded the same inviolability as humans without cognitive impairments. In response, I argue that an overlooked social ability – the capacity to narrate – provides grounds for the full moral status of individuals with severe cognitive impairments, and thus provides a defense and support for individuals with such "disabilities" to play a robust role in moral action and contribution to human living. </p>

The Animal Antinomy, Part 1

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine M. Korsgaard
Keyword(s):  
New Species ◽  
Moral Status ◽  
Domestic Animals ◽  
Moral Standing ◽  
Phase Out

Does a commitment to the moral standing of animals obligate us to try to end predation? “Creation ethicists,” who answer yes, believe that if we could, we ought to create new species of animals who would not need predation. The probable result would be that all animals are domestic. “Abolitionists,” who answer no, argue that the only way we can treat animals well is by leaving them alone. We should not interfere with predation, and should phase out domestic animals. The result would be that all animals are wild. This chapter raises some worries about the creationist position, although it grants that these worries are inconclusive. Since we would be substituting different kinds of animals for the ones that exist now, we need to understand the moral status of groups, including species, and to determine what is bad about extinction, before we can decide whether creating new species is a good solution to the problem of predation.

Literalism and Moral Status

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carrie Figdor
Keyword(s):  
Moral Status ◽  
Moral Standing ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Moral Boundaries ◽  
Psychological Capacities

Chapter 9 presents the idea that Literalism undermines current social and moral boundaries for moral status. Possession of psychological capacities, moral standing, and respectful treatment are a standard package deal. So either many more beings enjoy moral status than we now think, or the relative superiority of human moral status over other beings is diminished. It introduces the role of psychological ascriptions in drawing social and moral boundaries by examining dehumanization and anthropomorphism. It argues that in the short term Literalism does not motivate us to do more than make minor adjustments to current moral boundaries. We can distinguish the kinds of psychological capacities that matter for moral status from the kinds that best divide nature at its joints. In the long run, however, Literalism prompts us to reconsider the anthropocentric standards that govern current moral boundaries.

Physical Pleasure and Moral Action: An Analogy in Augustine’s Thought

2021 ◽  
Vol 75 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-184
Author(s):  
Amanda Knight
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Physical Mechanism ◽  
Theory Of Action ◽  
Moral Action ◽  
Conceptual System ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
The Will

Abstract The present essay argues that Augustine’s understanding of the physical mechanism of pain and pleasure bears an analogous relationship to the internal mechanics of his moral psychology. The significance of this analogy is threefold. It corroborates emerging consensus positions regarding Augustine’s moral psychology, including recognizing the significance of Stoic influences as well as construing Augustine’s psychology as monistic; it draws attention to a greater consistency between Augustine’s earlier and later accounts of moral psychology than is typically recognized in scholarship; and it offers a schema that organizes the significant components of Augustine’s moral psychology, like his theory of action, habit, the will, and conversion, in relation to one another within a single conceptual system.

Does consciousness matter?

2019 ◽  
pp. 165-188
Author(s):  
Peter Carruthers
Keyword(s):  
Moral Status ◽  
Cognitive Impairments ◽  
Phenomenal Consciousness ◽  
Human Infants ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Moral Status Of Animals

Chapter 7 concluded that there is no fact of the matter concerning phenomenal consciousness in animals, while also arguing that this conclusion is of no importance for science. The present chapter inquires whether it is nevertheless important in other ways, specifically for our ethical treatment of animals, arguing that it is not. But a challenge remains for those who theorize about the moral status of animals: they need to prize the foundations of their theories apart from assumptions about consciousness. The chapter also considers what should be said about the phenomenally conscious status of humans who, like animals, only partially share a full global-broadcasting architecture, such as human infants and people suffering from age-related cognitive impairments.

All Animals are Equal, but Some More than Others?

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 342-357
Author(s):  
Huub Brouwer ◽  
Willem van der Deijl
Keyword(s):  
Review Essay ◽  
Moral Status ◽  
Moral Standing ◽  
Common View ◽  
Status Hierarchy ◽  
Compelling Argument

Does the moral badness of pain depend on who feels it? A common, but generally only implicitly stated view, is that it does not. This view, ‘unitarianism’, maintains that the same interests of different beings should count equally in our moral calculus. Shelly Kagan’s project in How to Count Animals, more or less (2019) is to reject this common view, and develop an alternative to it: a hierarchical view of moral status, on which the badness of pain does depend on who feels it. In this review essay, we critically examine Kagan’s argument for status hierarchy. In particular, we reject two of the central premises in his argument: that (1) moral standing is ultimately grounded in agency and (2) that unitarianism is overdemanding. We conclude that moral status may, despite Kagan’s compelling argument to the contrary, not be hierarchical.

CONTRACTARIANISM AND INTERSPECIES WELFARE CONFLICTS

2008 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 227-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew I. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Moral Status ◽  
Moral Standing ◽  
Nonhuman Animals

AbstractIn this essay I describe how contractarianism might approach interspecies welfare conflicts. I start by discussing a contractarian account of the moral status of nonhuman animals. I argue that contractors can agree to norms that would acknowledge the “moral standing” of some animals. I then discuss how the norms emerging from contractarian agreement might constrain any comparison of welfare between humans and animals. Contractarian agreement is likely to express some partiality to humans in a way that discounts the welfare of some or all animals. While the norms emerging from the contract might be silent or inconsistent in some tragic or catastrophic cases, in most ordinary conflicts of welfare, contractors will agree to norms that produce some determinate resolution. What the agreement says can evolve depending upon how the contractors or the circumstances change. I close with some remarks on contractarian indeterminacy.

Dignity and Equality in Pufendorf’s Natural Law Theory

2019 ◽  
pp. 147-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simone Zurbuchen
Keyword(s):  
Social Inequality ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Moral Status ◽  
The Other ◽  
Moral Standing ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Natural Law Theory ◽  
The One ◽  
In Virtue Of

The chapter explores the ambiguity of the notion of dignity in Pufendorf’s natural law theory. On the one hand, dignity (dignatio) denotes the moral status of human beings in virtue of which they have to treat each other as equals. On the other hand, Pufendorf holds dignity and natural equality to be compatible with social inequality, notably with servitude and slavery. Moreover, when he deals with the comparative value and reputation (existimatio) of human beings, he admits that their moral status is conditioned by their readiness to behave as social beings. Human beings can thus lose their basic moral standing and are then considered as common enemies of all.

How the Moral Community Evolves

2021 ◽  
pp. 231-249
Author(s):  
Rachell Powell ◽  
Irina Mikhalevich ◽  
Allen Buchanan
Keyword(s):  
Moral Status ◽  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Moral Community ◽  
Moral Standing ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Moral Progress ◽  
Animal Minds ◽  
Attitudes And Behaviors ◽  
Adaptive Mechanisms ◽  
Moral Attitudes

Moral reasoning is modulated by emotions and other cognitive biases. How do these covert biasing mechanisms shape perceptions of more fundamental moral categories, such as moral standing and moral status (together, “MSS”), out of which specific moral attitudes and behaviors flow? This chapter explains the centrality of MSS to human evolution, and examines several evolved biases that distort MSS ascription. These include tendencies to deny moral standing, or to attribute lower moral status, to beings that elicit feelings of disgust or fear, as well as to those that are perceived as less similar, less attractive, less individualized, and less disposed toward reciprocal cooperation. These adaptive mechanisms may have served human groups well in the evolutionary past, but in the modern world they pose an obstacle to moral progress and play a key role in moral regression. The chapter argues that these biases have also influenced philosophical and scientific research on animal minds. The aim is to develop a richer, biocultural understanding of how conceptions of the moral community evolve.

Standing

2019 ◽  
pp. 6-36
Author(s):  
Shelly Kagan
Keyword(s):  
Moral Status ◽  
Moral Standing ◽  
Logical Possibility ◽  
Ability To Act ◽  
Lower Status ◽  
Important Idea ◽  
Necessary And Sufficient

This chapter introduces the key notions of moral standing and moral status, and notes the logical possibility that different individuals might have a higher or a lower status. It then turns to questions concerning the basis for having any kind of moral standing at all. A very common proposal is that sentience—the ability to feel pleasure and pain—is both necessary and sufficient for standing, but the author argues that an equally important idea (perhaps more important) is that of agency, having preferences about how things should go as well as the ability to act on those preferences. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of the connection between having standing and having a welfare (being such that things can be better or worse for you).

Contractarianism and Moral Standing Inegalitarianism

Dialogue ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 639-658
Author(s):  
ANDREW I. COHEN
Keyword(s):  
Moral Status ◽  
Moral Standing ◽  
David Gauthier ◽  
Nonhuman Animals

Contractarianism is more inclusive than critics (and, indeed, David Gauthier) sometimes suggest. Contractarianism can justify equal moral standing for human persons (in some respects) and provide sufficient moral standing for many nonhuman animals to require what we commonly call ‘decent treatment.’ Moreover, contractarianism may allow that some entities have more moral standing than do others. This does not necessarily license the oppression that liberal egalitarians rightly fear. Instead, it shows that contractarianism may support a nuanced account of moral status.

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