Higher Moral Status Research Articles

What does the Thinking about Relationalism and Humanness in African Philosophy imply for Different Modes of Being Present in the Metaverse?

In this article, I interrogate whether the deployment and development of the Metaverse should take into account African values and modes of knowing to foster the uptake of this hyped technology in Africa. Specifically, I draw on the moral norms arising from the components of communal interactions and humanness in Afro-communitarianism to contend that the deployment of the Metaverse and its development ought to reflect core African moral values to foster its uptake in the region. To adequately align the Metaverse with African core values and thus foster its uptake among Africans, significant technological advancement that makes simulating genuine human experiences possible must occur. Additionally, it would be necessary for the developers and deployers to ensure that higher forms of spiritual activities can be had in the Metaverse to foster its uptake in Africa. Finally, I justify why the preceding points do not necessarily imply that the Metaverse will have a higher moral status than reallife on the moral scale that can be grounded in Afro-communitarianism.

The dysgenics objection to longtermism

Strong longtermism maintains that how we should act morally is determined almost entirely by the expected effects on the welfare of our descendants existing thousands if not millions of years into the future, who might include both other humans and any artificial agents with a comparable or higher moral status that we end up creating. It is based on three key assumptions: (i) that our descendants will have a moral status that is at least as high as ours and therefore should not have their welfare discounted by us; (ii) that there is a good chance that these individuals will vastly outnumber us; and (iii) that we can do things here and now that can be expected to positively shape the long-term trajectory of humanity. The aim of this contribution is to suggest that authors such as Will MacAskill and Hilary Greaves have been too optimistic about all these assumptions as a result of having ignored evidence that the populations of post-industrial countries are becoming less intelligent due mostly to the negative relationship that has emerged within these societies between intelligence and fertility and to the proclivity of intelligent people to delay parenthood.

Morality, Modality, and Humans with Deep Cognitive Impairments

Abstract Philosophers struggle to explain why human beings with deep cognitive impairments have a higher moral status than certain non-human animals. Modal personism promises to solve this problem. It claims that humans who lack the capacities of “personhood” and the potential to develop them nonetheless could have been persons. I argue that modal personism has poor prospects because it's hard to see how we could offer a plausible account of modal personhood. I search for an adequate understanding of modal personhood by considering existing accounts and sketching new ones. But each account fails, either because it objectionably excludes some deeply cognitively impaired humans from the class of modal persons or because it makes modal personhood doubtfully relevant to moral status. And the modal personist cannot solve this problem by appealing to the misfortune suffered by modal persons.

Relational egalitarianism and moral unequals

Relational egalitarianism and moral unequals

Moving beyond the moral status of organoid-entities.

Ethical deliberations are unfolding for potentially controversial organoid-entities such as brain organoids and embryoids. Much of the ethical deliberation centers on the questionable moral status of such organoid-entities. However, while such work is important and appropriate, ethical deliberations may become too exclusively rooted in moral status and potentially overshadow other relevant moral dilemmas. The ethical discussion on organoid models can benefit from insights brought forth by both Judith Jarvis Thomson and Don Marquis in how they attempted to advance the abortion debate. To discuss other abortion ethical issues more fully, both Thomson and Marquis assumed differing moral status positions of the conceptus and followed lines of reasoning based on these moral status assumptions. We suggest a similar approach with controversial organoid-entities like brain organoids and embryoids. To avoid overshadowing or overlooking other relevant ethical issues, ethicists ought to first assume an organoid-entity moral status position (such as a high moral status or no moral status) and explore any possible arguments that may result from such a position. While we ought not to copy the content of Thomson and Marquis' arguments exactly for organoid-entities, it is worthwhile to translate their arguments' overarching structures. This paper explores the relevant insights of Thomson and Marquis, how they can be translated into the organoid ethics debate, and what possible lines of inquiry may be worth exploring based on particular moral status assumptions.

Is a vegetarian diet morally safe?

If non-human animals have high moral status, then we commit a grave moral error by eating them. Eating animals is thus morally risky, while many agree that it is morally permissible to not eat animals. According to some philosophers, then, non-animal ethicists should err on the side of caution and refrain from eating animals. I argue that this precautionary argument assumes a false dichotomy of dietary options: a diet that includes farm-raised animals or a diet that does not include animals of any kind. There is a third dietary option, namely, a diet of plants and non-traditional animal protein, and there is evidence that such a diet results in the least amount of harm to animals. It follows therefore that moral uncertainty does not support the adoption of a vegetarian diet.

A Test of ‘Utilitarianism for Animals, Kantianism for People’

Abstract Many people believe that animals possess moral status, but human beings possess higher moral status than animals. To try to identify a theoretical basis for this view, Robert Nozick proposed Utilitarianism for Animals, Kantianism for People. The present manuscript evaluates Nozick’s proposal by identifying the tradeoffs in welfare that it permits in medical research with animals and assessing whether those tradeoffs are indeed permissible. This analysis suggests that at least some deontological side constraints apply to the treatment of sentient animals, hence, Utilitarianism for Animals, Kantianism for People is mistaken. Because Nozick’s proposal represents a prominent attempt to provide a theoretical basis for the common belief that human beings possess higher moral status than animals, this conclusion is noteworthy in its own right. Moreover, by granting equal moral weight to the interests of animals, but reserving deontological side constraints for human beings, Utilitarianism for Animals, Kantianism for People offers one of the more plausible bases for the claim that there are degrees of moral status among those who matter morally. The manuscript thus ends by considering the implications of the present analysis for the possibility that moral status comes in degrees.

Constructing “Pure” and “Applied” Science in Early Francoism

The paper discusses several appropriations of the categories of “pure” and “applied” science (mainly in chemistry) in early Francoism. At the height of a crusade that criminalized “pure” science as inherently attached to the culture of the Second Spanish Republic, the category of “pure” assumed spiritual, religious and anti-materialist values in the early education policies of the new regime, in the context of the newly founded national research centre, the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC). At the same time, relevant Francoist scientists stressed the high moral status of a new utilitarian, “applied” science, to efficiently serve the material needs of the country. As a result, the categories of “pure” and “applied” science, and their rhetorical use in public addresses and propaganda, became useful tools for building a strong alliance between science and power that cemented the dictatorship.

Moral Status, Luck, and Modal Capacities: Debating Shelly Kagan

AbstractShelly Kagan has recently defended the view that it is morally worse for a human being to suffer some harm than it is for a lower animal (such as a dog or a cow) to suffer a harm that is equally severe (ceteris paribus). In this article, I argue that this view receives rather less support from our intuitions than one might at first suppose. According to Kagan, moreover, an individual’s moral status depends partly upon her ‘modal capacities.’ In this article, I argue that the most natural strategy for justifying Kagan’s theory faces some important challenges. More generally, I argue that philosophers who wish to defend the view that human beings have a higher moral status than that of the lower animals face a dilemma. Either their theory of moral status will imply (unacceptably) that some severely cognitively impaired human beings have a significantly lower moral status than that of typical human beings, or these philosophers will be forced to ground moral status in a set of properties so far removed from a subject’s actual capacities that it will become difficult to see why these kinds of properties should have such moral importance.

The differentiation argument: If newborns outrank animals, so do fetuses.

Common-sense morality seems to dictate that newborn babies strictly outrank non-human animals on an ordered list of subjects of moral consideration. This is best described as the view that newborn babies have a higher moral status than any non-human animal. In this article, I will argue that this common-sense claim about the special moral status of newborn babies makes it hard to avoid the conclusion that fetuses, including pre-conscious fetuses, also have a higher moral status than any non-human animal-indeed, as high as newborn babies. While this conclusion does not quite entail that abortion is generally seriously immoral, it does seem to follow that it would be no less difficult to justify (even relatively early) abortion than it would be to justify killing a newborn.

Recognizing animal personhood in compassionate conservation.

Compassionate conservation is based on the ethical position that actions taken to protect biodiversity should be guided by compassion for all sentient beings. Critics argue that there are 3 core reasons harming animals is acceptable in conservation programs: the primary purpose of conservation is biodiversity protection; conservation is already compassionate to animals; and conservation should prioritize compassion to humans. We used argument analysis to clarify the values and logics underlying the debate around compassionate conservation. We found that objections to compassionate conservation are expressions of human exceptionalism, the view that humans are of a categorically separate and higher moral status than all other species. In contrast, compassionate conservationists believe that conservation should expand its moral community by recognizing all sentient beings as persons. Personhood, in an ethical sense, implies the individual is owed respect and should not be treated merely as a means to other ends. On scientific and ethical grounds, there are good reasons to extend personhood to sentient animals, particularly in conservation. The moral exclusion or subordination of members of other species legitimates the ongoing manipulation and exploitation of the living worlds, the very reason conservation was needed in the first place. Embracing compassion can help dismantle human exceptionalism, recognize nonhuman personhood, and navigate a more expansive moral space.

From “Meat Culture” to “Cultured Meat”: Critically Evaluating the Contested Ontologies and Transformative Potential of Biofabricated Animal Material on Culture and Law

This article calls into question how different the parallel ontologies of meat are in terms of the realities they enact. It argues that while biofabricated animal material is expected to transform the production and consumption of meat, the material’s ontologies reinforce existing interrelationships between the dominant meat culture and the law. Additionally, the expectations surrounding biofabricated animal material vests the material with transformative power, even though it does not challenge the structural factors, namely law and culture, which underlie the exploitation and commodification of animals. I begin by delineating the co-constituting relationship between law, the realities of meat production and consumption, and meat culture. I then unpack the interface between different ontologies of meat and consider why the contest has taken place in legal terrains. From here, I consider the key expectations that have assigned transformative power to biofabricated animal material. I suggest that these expectations work to reinforce existing meat culture, and the configurations of power that benefit from it, as supported via legal instruments.

Moral Responsibility and the Wrongness of Abortion.

We argue against Thomson's view that abortion is permissible even if fetuses have high moral status. Against this, we argue that, because many mothers are morally responsible for their pregnancies, they have a special obligation to assist. Finally, we address an objection according to which many mothers whose pregnancies are not a product of rape are not morally responsible to a sufficient degree, and so an obligation to assist is not generated. This objection assumes that the force of the mother's right to bodily integrity is not diminished if she is insufficiently morally responsible. We challenge this assumption. Our complete thesis is as follows: If a mother is morally responsible to a sufficient degree, she acquires an obligation to assist. If she is not, the force of her right to bodily integrity may be reduced.

Monkey Wrench?: Virtues of a Weak Posthumanism

Monkey Wrench?:Virtues of a Weak Posthumanism Mads Rosendahl Thomsen (bio) Monkey Trouble: The Scandal of Posthumanism by Christopher Peterson. Fordham University Press, 2018. 160 pp. Hardcover: $95.00, Paperback: $28.00. Posthumanism comes in many varieties. Some theories are focused on the importance of technology that could lead to transhumans, others engage in the decentering of the subject and the problematic privileged position of the human race, both epistemologically and morally. In addition, there are numerous ways by which human-animal-matter divisions are being criticized. It is often telling if it is possible to spot a hero in a theory: Is it other large animals that display emotions, or all of Earth's fauna? Should flora be included, or is matter as such the real new hero? Obviously, the human is not a hero, but not always a villain either. In Monkey Trouble, a lively and passionate book, Christopher Peterson asks how this can be, and criticizes work in the field of posthumanism for having thrown out a lot with the bath water of anthropocentrism. Some of the motives behind radical discourses may be the urge to create a strong position in academia, Peterson argues in the opening, and suggests that an element of academic branding is taking place (21). On the other hand, we certainly live in a time where both the future of the Earth's ecosystem and the question of human identity, and its possible interventions into its own nature, makes it difficult to blame anyone who wants to tackle these issues for being overly [End Page 271] grandiose. Peterson's suggestion that a "'weak' posthumanism" is worth pursuing, implicitly following Gianni Vattimo's call for a "weak thought," is a sympathetic proposal, not least in the light of Peterson's critique of the tendency to go for the paradigmatic shifts. Peterson deftly shows how one of the foremost scholars of the field, Cary Wolfe, evades the temptation of building a strong thinking but keeps the aporia open. Monkey Trouble's four chapters take up questions of language and ontology. Chapter 1 argues that the advanced stage of human language does make a difference and separates humanity from other species without giving it a higher moral status, and Chapter 2 continues in this track but shifts the perspective to the silence of the others. Object Oriented Ontology is criticized in Chapter 3 for going all in on a flat ontology that preaches immanence, which Peterson is not the only one to be skeptical about, also getting in a few zingers: "Size apparently doesn't matter for OOO (unlike its XXX counterpart)" (71). However, Monkey Trouble is a short book, and Peterson has wanted to bring too much into it. Art, literature, and film are drawn on frequently but mostly in a way that does not go beyond the thematic level. J. M. Coetzee's novel Foe, the poetry of Walt Whitman, and the films Gravity and Melancholia are all quite relevant to explore the discourses of posthumanism, but they neither provide the basis for a new and convincing argument nor are they analyzed in a way that does justice to the works themselves. The human-animal divide seen through Coetzee, immanence seen through Lars von Trier's and Alfonso Cuarón's films, and the totality of everything seen through Whitman all makes sense, but also seems to evade a more thorough discussion as well as a clearer engagement with the political dimension of posthumanism. Nonetheless, there is of course an elegant rhetorical point in juxtaposing the arguments of works of fiction and their distinctive viewpoints with the positions taken in posthumanist theory, not least because the artistic visions are not based on undisturbed abstractions but engage with fully-fleshed worlds. Peterson also seeks to clear up arguments concerning posthumanism through recurrent references to the work of Jacques Derrida. He shows how Derrida's work today remains relevant for understanding discourses of post-humanism, and Derrida's regular but scattered presence in the book shows the value of pushing conventional wisdom out of its comfort zone. There are number of important issues that are touched upon but are not developed more thoroughly. Race, which Peterson...

The Problem with Person-Rearing Accounts of Moral Status

Agnieszka Jaworska and Julie Tannenbaum recently developed the ingenious and novel person-rearing account of moral status, which preserves the commonsense judgment that humans have a higher moral status than nonhuman animals. It aims to vindicate speciesist judgments while avoiding the problems typically associated with speciesist views. We argue, however, that there is good reason to reject person-rearing views. Person-rearing views have to be coupled with an account of flourishing, which will (according to Jaworska and Tannenbaum) be either a species norm or an intrinsic potential account of flourishing. As we show, however, person-rearing accounts generate extremely implausible consequences when combined with the accounts of flourishing Jaworska and Tannenbaum need for the purposes of their view.

Social status level and dimension interactively influence person evaluations indexed by P300s

ABSTRACTFunctional neuroimaging research suggests that status-based evaluations may not solely depend on the level of social status but also on the conferred status dimension. However, no reports to date have studied how status level and dimension shape early person evaluations. To explore early status-based person evaluations, event-related brain potential data were collected from 29 participants while they indicated the status level and dimension of faces that had been previously trained to be associated with one of four status types: high moral, low moral, high financial, or low financial. Analysis of the P300 amplitude (previously implicated in social evaluation) revealed an interaction of status level and status dimension such that enhanced P300 amplitudes were observed in response to targets of high financial and low moral status relative to targets of low financial and high moral status. Implications of these findings are discussed in the context of our current understanding of status-based evaluation and, more broadly, of the processes by which person knowledge may shape person perception and evaluation.

Existence and Needs: A case for the equal moral considerability of non-human animals

This paper reflects on the question, “Is there a sound justification for the existential view that humans have a higher moral status than other animals?” It argues that the existential view that humans have a higher moral status than animals is founded on a weak and inconclusive foundation. While acknowledging various arguments raised for a common foundation between human and non-human animals, the paper attempts to establish a common ground for moral considerability of human and non-human animals. The first common foundation is based on the existential notion of being in the world, which is common for both human and non-human animals. The second idea is based on the common desire to actualize different needs. The paper demonstrates these common foundations by referring to Heidegger and Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Editorial Vol.7(3)

Philosophers and ethicists have long neglected moral questions that arise from our interaction with non-human animals. Most assumed that human beings have a higher moral status than other animals, and that it is therefore morally permissible to use non-human animals as a source of food, clothing, and entertainment, and for scientific purposes. In recent decades, however, that assumption has been challenged, and the moral status of non-human animals is now the subject of a lively and controversial academic debate.Advances in sciences, particularly the advent of evolutionary theory, made us realize that human beings and other animals are more similar than different, and force us to rethink our place in nature. We are no longer justified in thinking of ourselves as the crown of creation. We now understand that we are just one species among others, and we must ask ourselves anew – with an open and critical mind and without bias – which values and principles should guide our interaction with non-human animals, and how we should weigh our interests against those of other animals.Recognizing this important trend in moral thinking, the Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics invited me to edit a special issue on animal ethics. The interest was so great that one issue became two, of which this is the first. I am grateful to Professor Shamima Parvin Lasker and Ms. Tahera Ahmed for giving me the opportunity to serve as a guest editor, and for their assistance during the editing process. I also thank our contributors for choosing this journal to publish their excellent work, and the reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions.This, the first special issue on animal ethics contains the following five articles:Robin Attfield and Rebekah Humphreys (“Justice and Non-Human Animals”) challenge the widely held belief that non-human animals are not included within the scope of the principles of justice, and suggest that the interests of non-human animals sometimes take precedence over the interests of human beings. The implications of their argument for our interaction with other animals are profound: E.g., it is a matter of justice and fairness to prevent avoidable and unnecessary animal suffering, rather than a mere matter of compassion.Eric X. Qi (“Special Relations, Special Obligations, and Speciesism”) develops an account of the moral significance of special relations, and uses it to argue for a modest form of speciesism that steers a middle ground between anti-speciesism and crude speciesism. Unlike anti-speciesists, he maintains that species co-membership grounds special moral obligations among the members of the same species. In contrast to crude speciesists, however, he holds that our special obligations to fellow human beings do not warrant that we always attach more weight to their interests than to the comparable interests of non-human animals.Yamikani Ndasaukaand Grivas M. Kayange (“Existence and Needs: A case for the equal moral considerability of non-human animals”) argue that the existentialist view that human beings have a higher moral status than other animals rests on a weak foundation. They consider a number of arguments that have been made in support of this view and conclude that none of them holds up to critical scrutiny. They then suggest that human beings and other animals in fact deserve equal moral consideration, and – drawing from Martin Heidegger and Abraham Maslow – ground that claim in two important commonalities between them.Sreetama Chakraborty (“Animal Ethics: Beyond Neutrality, Universality, and Consistency”) explains how the postmodern approach to animal ethics departs from the traditional approach, particularly its emphasis on the principles of neutrality, universality, and consistency, and draws attention to the pernicious hierarchy of domination that separates human beings from other animals. Building on the insights of postmodernism, she takes first steps towards a new, non-anthropocentric paradigm, in the hope to achieve a sustainable balance between human interests and the interests of non-human animals.Gabriel Vidal Quiñones (“Singerian Vegetarianism and the Limits of Utilitarianism: A path towards a Meaning Ethics”) takes a critical look at Peter Singer’s utilitarian argument for vegetarianism, and argues that the conceptual resources of utilitarianism only allow for an incomplete moral understanding of our relationship with other animals. What is lacking, he suggests, is an ethical vision. He argues that, without an ethical vision, human action threatens to degenerate into mere automatism without meaning. He proposes a “meaning ethics” that he thinks is better equipped to help us decide how we ought to treat other animals.I hope you, dear reader, will enjoy reading through this remarkable collection of articles as much as I enjoyed putting it together. Maybe you will even be inspired to do some thinking of your own about issues of animal ethics and put your thoughts down on paper. If so, I sincerely hope that you will choose the Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics to publish your article.Warm regards and best wishes for the new year,

Necessary conditions for morally responsible animal research.

In this article, we present three necessary conditions for morally responsible animal research that we believe people on both sides of this debate can accept. Specifically, we argue that, even if human beings have higher moral status than nonhuman animals, animal research is morally permissible only if it satisfies (1) an expectation of sufficient net benefit, (2) a worthwhile-life condition, and (3) a no-unnecessary-harm/qualified-basic-needs condition. We then claim that, whether or not these necessary conditions are jointly sufficient for justified animal research, they are relatively demanding, with the consequence that many animal experiments may fail to satisfy them.

Who Has the Capacity to Participate as a Rearee in a Person-Rearing Relationship?

We discuss applications of our account of moral status grounded in person-rearing relationships: which individuals have higher moral status or not, and why? We cover three classes of cases: (1) cases involving incomplete realization of the capacity to care, including whether infants or fetuses have this incomplete capacity; (2) cases in which higher moral status rests in part on what is required for the being to flourish; (3) hypothetical cases in which cognitive enhancements could, for example, help dogs achieve humanlike cognitive capacities. We thereby show that our account does not have the counterintuitive implications alleged by DeGrazia and other critics.