Abstract
The use of the concept of moral status is commonplace today in debates about the moral consideration of entities lacking certain special capacities, such as nonhuman animals. This concept has been typically used to defend the view that adult human beings have a status higher than all those entities. However, even those who disagree with this claim have often accepted the idea of moral status as if it were part of an undisputed received way of thinking in ethics. This paper argues that the use of this concept, however common, distorts our understanding of how to behave towards different individuals in different circumstances. When moral status is identified with the interest in living or the capacity for well-being, it becomes an arbitrary and irrelevant criterion. When it is used as a synonym of moral consideration or considerability, in a way that is compatible with the principle of equal consideration, it becomes trivial and confusing. When used, instead, to defend the unequal moral consideration of interests of equal weight, it has several implausible implications. In particular, the claim that unequal status is justified because of the value (either final or intrinsic, or instrumental) of cognitive capacities implausibly entails that our exercising those capacities should have priority over the promotion of our wellbeing. The idea of full moral status is also problematic as it implies the possibility of status monsters. In addition, its use is based in a misconceived way of what it would really entail to have a full status by virtue of having rational capacities. The paper concludes that we have strong reasons to abandon the concept of moral status altogether.
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Notes
In some cases, an intermediate concept between the possession of these capacities and moral status is introduced. For example, it is argued that beings who possess the mentioned capacities are persons, and that this, in turn, grants them the possession of moral status (or of some special moral status). For the sake of simplicity, however, I will not examine the concept of personhood here and will just focus on moral status.
See for instance Warren (1997).
Hacker-Wright (2007); Hursthouse (2013). There are, however, many who claim that relations are also morally relevant and yet accept the standard view. Accordingly, they claim that our status determines partially, but not completely, how others should behave towards us. They can therefore claim that a relative should be treated better than a stranger, without necessarily arguing that their moral status would be different. See for instance Jaworska (2007); McMahan (2002).
See McMahan (2002, espesially p. 208).
Vallentyne (2005, especially p. 423).
Singer (2009).
Sachs (2011).
This has been argued for by Rachels (2004).
DeGrazia (2008).
Jaworska (2007).
This is so both if we understand the quality of experiences or preferences as trumping in value—as it has been assumed, not without controversy, that J.S. Mill held (1969, pp. 203–529)—or if we just understand quality as a feature of experiences that can make them better or worse without that meaning any kind of incommensurability.
Nozick (1974, p. 41).
This is also the case if instead of maximum moral status as such we consider the concept of equal maximum moral status. If instead of a single status monster there existed a group of individuals with the same capacities that the status monster has, then they would all have equally the maximum status that it would be possible for them to have. This would mean when their interests conflicted they would count the same, but for anyone else they would still be status monsters, their interests being more important than the aggregate interests of all other entities.
See for instance Bostrom and Savulescu (2009).
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Horta, O. Why the Concept of Moral Status Should be Abandoned. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 20, 899–910 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-017-9829-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-017-9829-7