Moral Status: Obligations to Persons and Other Living ThingsMary Anne Warren explores a theoretical question which lies at the heart of practical ethics: what are the criteria for having moral status? In other words, what are the criteria for being an entity towards which people have moral obligations? Some philosophers maintain that there is one intrinsic property—for instance, life, sentience, humanity, or moral agency. Others believe that relational properties, such as belonging to a human community, are more important. In Part I of the book, Warren argues that no single property can serve as the sole criterion for moral status; instead, life, sentience, moral agency, and social and biotic relationships are all relevant, each in a different way. She presents seven basic principles, each focusing on a property that can, in combination with others, legitimately affect an agent's moral obligations towards entities of a given type. In Part II, these principles are applied in an examination of three controversial ethical issues: voluntary euthanasia, abortion |
Contents
| 3 | |
Reverence for Life | 24 |
Sentience and the Utilitarian Calculus | 50 |
Personhood and Moral Rights | 90 |
The Relevance of Relationships | 122 |
A MultiCriterial Analysis of Moral Status | 148 |
Applying the Principles | 181 |
Abortion and Human Rights | 201 |
Animal Rights and Human Limitations | 224 |
| 243 | |
| 255 | |
Other editions - View all
Moral Status: Obligations to Persons and Other Living Things Mary Anne Warren No preview available - 1997 |
Moral Status: Obligations to Persons and Other Living Things Mary Anne Warren No preview available - 2000 |
Common terms and phrases
abortion active euthanasia agency Agent's Rights principle Animal Rights Animal Rights view Anti-Cruelty principle argue argument Baird Callicott basic moral rights behaviour believe biological communities Biophilia Hypothesis biosocial theory Callicott capable capacity ciple claim conscious experiences criterion of moral death ecological ecosystems entities Environmental Ethics equal consideration equal moral status feel foetuses full moral status harm human moral Human Rights principle Ibid individual infants instance interests intrinsic properties invertebrate Kant Kant's killing land ethic living things Mary Midgley mental moral agents moral equals moral obligations moral rights moral theory non-human animals non-sentient objection ovum persons Peter Singer philosophers plants potential preference utilitarian rational reason Regan requires Respect principle says Schweitzer self-aware Sentience Only view sentient sentient animals sentient human social communities species stronger moral status subjects-of-a-life teleological teleological organization terrestrial theory of moral tion Tom Regan Transitivity of Respect utilitarian vegetarian women woodlouse wrong York
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