On de facto moral friends and a two-level, multimodal account of moral considerability: A critique of Metzian relationalism

Abstract

This paper aims to ground an argument for a widened scope in regard to the motivations or reasons accounting for moral considerability. Such a scope, it is here argued, would account not only for human persons but animals, ecosystems, hypothetical artificial moral agents and so-called Martians as well. And it does so by first distinguishing between two categories of entities: members of group X, and entities not of group X. This basic distinction is then employed to articulate the groundwork for a two-level, multimodal account of moral considerability and gives signification to the idea of de facto moral friends. To achieve this, it appropriates much of its central tenets from the affluence of African philosophical, and intellectual heritage, on this occasion, the notion of Ubuntu. Lastly, this paper assumes the viewpoint of metaethical X-centrism, alternatively, metaethical anthropocentrism in constructing moral claims