Who are the proper subjects of moral consideration?

@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

Why do you see it that way?

I talk to people here and there and ask what their opinions are on such matters.

joefromchicago wrote:

Is that empirically true or logically true?

Mostly empirical, as long as we are on subject in this discussion, in other words we are staying on the subject of who are the proper subjects of moral consideration.

joefromchicago wrote:

I don't think it's "wrong," at least not in a moral sense. I think it's unwarranted to consider non-humans as moral agents, for the simple reason that no non-human has ever acted morally, nor is there any reason to think that non-humans can act morally.

I too think it's unwarranted to consider non-humans as moral agents, however we're talking about whether or not moral agents should extent moral consideration to entities who are not moral agents, in other words beings who are not capable of moral consideration.
Must one be able to act morally for an other moral agent to extend moral consideration to the being that can't act morally? What about non-sentient beings? Take earth, for example, do you consider that you have a duty to protect the earth? In other words do you believe that moral consideration be extended to an approximately six thousand yottagrams of rock orbiting a star in space?
Or for that matter, do you believe only moral agents be the only subjects of moral consideration? If so, why limit to only moral agents?

joefromchicago wrote:

You tell me.

Why? Are my opinions any more important than yours on the matter?
By moral consideration I hope we are on the same page and talking about which entities is worthy of moral consideration. And to me personally, it is clear that at a minimum all sentient creatures should be etended moral considerability to some level, even if not at equal footing as a human companion.
In a certain sense, do you think the moral consideration we extend to other species, is superseded by the moral consideration we “should” extend to ourselves? Or at-least in some cases?

joefromchicago wrote:

Is 'sentience" the sole criterion for determining whether some being is entitled to moral consideration?

That's debatable and I've already given you my take on it. What do you think of non-sentient entities, such as our home planet earth that we reside in? Do you think we should extend moral considerations to earth because it is in the best interest for everyone, or the majority at least?
Do you think the ability to think through a course of action and choose competing goals, based on rational values is what makes us responsible for our actions or our lack of actions thereof towards sentient beings who may not have the ability to partake in moral considerability?

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

Quote:

Re: Frank Apisa (Post 5248299)
I don't know if this is semantics or not Frank.

A newborn has no rights.

A newborn has all the rights in the world. Society can easily take them away from a newborn. Society can simply allow the newborn to die.

Quote:

In failed societies newborns are routinely killed or sold. In our society we protect newborns by law because our society values them.

Yup...in some societies, the take all the rights away by killing the newborn. Our society does not. But almost from the beginning, we start limiting its rights to do whatever it wants.

Quote:

Who has more rights? People living in a functioning society such as the US or someone in a failed society, such as Somalia.

It could be argued that Somalia has fewer laws restricting humans...so I guess they have more rights. But I would much rather live in the US.

Quote:

If you were going to enumerate progress in human rights it would include things like

- Stopping child labor
- Ending rape
- Stopping spousal abuse.
- Ensuring education

In any area I can think of, the values our "rights" are based on depend on a functioning society.

We could go on like this for a long time without reaching agreement, Max.

It is my opinion that ALL laws, in effect limit rights...not the other way around. The 13th Amendment to the Constitution is normally viewed as "granting rights" to slaves. In reality, what is does is to restrict the rights of people to own slaves.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

You are waltzing around the obvious answer Matt. Rights are a human invention,

I didn't mean to waltz (or dance in any other fashion) around the answer. I thought that something similar was implied when I said:

MattDavis wrote:

I believe that a right is a concept, not a concrete thing.

But to clarify,
I do agree that rights are "inventions" in the sense that they can exist only in the minds of moral agents.
So as far as I know rights may be an exclusively human invention.
However, I think that it is at least conceivable that if there are other moral agents (space aliens etc.), rights might exist also in their minds.

maxdancona wrote:

In places where there is a breakdown in social structure, rights disappear.

Do you mean that rights are no longer granted, or that the concept of rights disappears from the minds of all the people in the society?

maxdoncona wrote:

First of all let me clarify the chimpanzee question. I was not asking about how humans should treat chimpanzees. I was talking about how male chimpanzees should treat female chimpanzees (when no humans are involved).

OK.
Your original question was asked in regards to "rights", so I framed my original answer in terms of a "rights" reference frame.
I think that rights is a more effective concept when used to shape legal frameworks to guide ethical behavior.
I don't actually find the "rights" reference frame a very effective way of describing ethical behavior in the abstract.
(Since your new question doesn't require it of me, I'll abandon the restriction. Wink

)

I hold that the "who" that is obligated to behave ethically is a moral agent.
Moral agents are simply those capable of ethical behavior.

Some necessary capacities for moral agency:

Autonomy, being capable of directing one's own actions.

Intelligence/Empathy, understanding the consequences
that one's behavior has on another being.

Additionally, I think that the standards of behavior change in relation to a moral agent's capacities. (Sort of along the lines that "with great power comes great responsibility"). Having more autonomy creates more possible choices from which to decide upon a course of action. Having a greater understanding of the consequences of behavior creates a greater burden in having to think more deeply and over a longer time frame about those consequences to decide upon a course of action.

So finally with regards to how male chimps treat female chimps:
Male chimps are very violent (25% die at the hands of other chimps), and rape is prevalent.* This is very disturbing, but to qualify as unethical I need to establish what a chimp's capacity as a moral agent is. I do believe that they have at least some capacity in this regard. They definitely are autonomous. It has been seen on MRI that they have the same "mirror neurons" that humans use for imagining the perspectives of others, and behavioral studies suggest that they are capable of empathy and a fairly sophisticated capacity to understand consequences.

So YES I think that such examples of chimp behavior are unethical.

I would also like to point out:
Anthropologic studies* have demonstrated that for human "primitive" tribal cultures both prehistoric and contemporary, 25% of males also die at the hands of other males and rape is also prevalent.

Studies are cited and listed in Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence by Dale Peterson and, Richard Wrangham.

2 Replies

@MattDavis,

I believe animals have a sense of "rights" that they practice and can be observed by humans.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

I believe animals have a sense of "rights" that they practice and can be observed by humans.

That's intriguing.
Which animals do you think this can be observed in?
Can a concept of rights be established to exist in the mind of another animal short of having a dialogue with that animal?

1 Reply

@Bennet,

Bennet wrote:

joefromchicago wrote:
Is that empirically true or logically true?

Mostly empirical, as long as we are on subject in this discussion, in other words we are staying on the subject of who are the proper subjects of moral consideration.

Then Matt is right -- you're not talking about philosophy, you're talking about anthropology (or sociology). That, of course, is worthy of discussion, it's just not something I'm terribly interested in.

Bennet wrote:

I too think it's unwarranted to consider non-humans as moral agents, however we're talking about whether or not moral agents should extent moral consideration to entities who are not moral agents, in other words beings who are not capable of moral consideration.

Admittedly, "moral consideration" is an inelegant term -- I've been using it to conform to the premise of this thread -- and it requires some definitional clarity. If by "moral consideration" you mean that some acts toward non-humans could be considered immoral, then I agree. For instance, it might be considered immoral to cause unnecessary pain and suffering to an animal, and deeming it so would be consistent with a system of human morality. On the other hand, if "moral consideration" means that non-humans are moral agents, or that they can impose moral obligations on humans, then that is where our paths diverge.

Bennet wrote:

Must one be able to act morally for an other moral agent to extend moral consideration to the being that can't act morally? What about non-sentient beings? Take earth, for example, do you consider that you have a duty to protect the earth? In other words do you believe that moral consideration be extended to an approximately six thousand yottagrams of rock orbiting a star in space?

The earth has no moral claim on me. I can act toward the earth in any way that is consistent with morality, but the earth itself is not a moral agent.

Bennet wrote:

Or for that matter, do you believe only moral agents be the only subjects of moral consideration? If so, why limit to only moral agents?

Because expanding morality to non-moral agents is inconsistent with the premises of morality.

Bennet wrote:

joefromchicago wrote:
You tell me.

Why? Are my opinions any more important than yours on the matter?

No, it's because I think I've made my position pretty clear. I don't need to repeat myself.

Bennet wrote:

In a certain sense, do you think the moral consideration we extend to other species, is superseded by the moral consideration we “should” extend to ourselves? Or at-least in some cases?

I don't think I understand your question. Morality only concerns itself with human conduct. Our acts toward non-humans is only moral or immoral insofar as those acts conform or deviate from human morality.

Bennet wrote:

Do you think the ability to think through a course of action and choose competing goals, based on rational values is what makes us responsible for our actions or our lack of actions thereof towards sentient beings who may not have the ability to partake in moral considerability?

Responsibility for one's actions is a different question entirely, one that presupposes some form of morality. I'm not sure you even believe in morality, so we haven't arrived at the point where we can intelligibly discuss responsibility.

3 Replies

@MattDavis,

Here's a start, http://science.jrank.org/pages/816/Behavior-Animal-behavior.html

0 Replies

@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

Then Matt is right -- you're not talking about philosophy, you're talking about anthropology (or sociology). That, of course, is worthy of discussion, it's just not something I'm terribly interested in.

Natural and moral philosophy, on the contrary, can each have their empirical part, since the former has to determine the laws of nature as an object of experience; the latter the laws of the human will, so far as it is affected by nature: the former, however, being laws according to which everything does happen. I'm differentiating morality, from moral consideration. Two separate ideas in my opinion.

joefromchicago wrote:

Admittedly, "moral consideration" is an inelegant term -- I've been using it to conform to the premise of this thread -- and it requires some definitional clarity. If by "moral consideration" you mean that some acts toward non-humans could be considered immoral, then I agree. For instance, it might be considered immoral to cause unnecessary pain and suffering to an animal, and deeming it so would be consistent with a system of human morality. On the other hand, if "moral consideration" means that non-humans are moral agents, or that they can impose moral obligations on humans, then that is where our paths diverge.

If "moral consideration" somehow means that non-humans are moral agents, then our paths don't diverge, because I don't believe non-humans are moral agents. But since you brought up obligations, do you think consideration should only be given if there is first some form of obligation? I personally don't think so, at least not in every case.

joefromchicago wrote:

The earth has no moral claim on me. I can act toward the earth in any way that is consistent with morality, but the earth itself is not a moral agent.

Then must something have a moral claim on you for your to extend moral consideration?

joefromchicago wrote:

Because expanding morality to non-moral agents is inconsistent with the premises of morality.

What are your premises of morality so I can understand which premise is inconsistent with extending moral considerablity to non-moral agents. I'm sensing a breakage in the definition of what moral considerability means when we are discussing it. I'm going with the definition that moral considerability is the deserving of having an entities welfare considered when making ethical decisions and resolving ethical dilemmas. The consideration is presumably given by the considerer and maker of the previously mentioned decisions. A thing can be given more or less consideration (or weight if you will) when making a decision.

joefromchicago wrote:

No, it's because I think I've made my position pretty clear. I don't need to repeat myself.

Well then at least give more explicit definitions so we are not talking about different concepts using the same words.

joefromchicago wrote:

I don't think I understand your question. Morality only concerns itself with human conduct. Our acts toward non-humans is only moral or immoral insofar as those acts conform or deviate from human morality.

Morality may just be that, but the question was when does something deserve moral consideration, implying that there is a right way to assign it. Which way is right and whether or not there is a right way?
And you don't consider the idea where our acts toward non-humans which are moral or immoral based insofar as how those acts conform or deviate from human morality, is moral consideration? If not what do you call it?
Do you not agree that it is left up to you, the person answering the question?

1 Reply

@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

Admittedly, "moral consideration" is an inelegant term -- I've been using it to conform to the premise of this thread -- and it requires some definitional clarity.

Sorry about the non-clarity. Moral agents and those eligible for moral consideration are the terms that I am familiar with in such discussions such as they are used here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_agency

Let me attempt to rephrase the original question:

Who's interests should be considered when making an ethical decision?

Shall we call the beings whose interests are being considered "moral benefactors"?
Shall we call the beings who do the considering "moral actors"?

0 Replies

@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

Because expanding morality to non-moral agents is inconsistent with the premises of morality.

No. It is inconsistent with your presumed definition of morality.
You are claiming that moral obligations extend only to other beings capable of moral consideration (moral agents/actors),
because you define morality to exist only in interactions between beings capable of moral consideration (moral agents/actors).
You are asserting a tautology.

1 Reply

@Frank Apisa,

I think we are arguing about the definition of the word "Rights" Frank, not an interesting discussion for either one of us. I just wanted to make sure there wasn't anything deeper then.

It is funny to me that you make "rights" sound like a bad thing.

1 Reply

@MattDavis,

Quote:

I hold that the "who" that is obligated to behave ethically is a moral agent.

I think this is the crux of my disagreement with you Matt. You are telling me that you believe at least some people are obligated. You are using the passive voice here to avoid the obvious question. They are obligated by who?

Who is doing the obligating?

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Who is doing the obligating?

You think that obligation requires an obligator.
I don't think that it does.
I think that obligation can be spoken of intrinsically.

This seems to me the conventional sense of the term.
"I have an obligation to my fellow man." A phrase that someone could say (and believe) without thinking that someone else is doing the obligating to them.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

Quote:

It is funny to me that you make "rights" sound like a bad thing.

It's even funnier to me that you think that.

I definitely do not think "rights" are a bad thing...and I would like to see government take away as few of them as possible...although I see that in order for society to function well...unlimited rights really is out of the question.

Maybe we can discuss it in another thread.

1 Reply

@Bennet,

Bennet wrote:

Natural and moral philosophy, on the contrary, can each have their empirical part, since the former has to determine the laws of nature as an object of experience; the latter the laws of the human will, so far as it is affected by nature: the former, however, being laws according to which everything does happen. I'm differentiating morality, from moral consideration. Two separate ideas in my opinion.

I can't make much sense of that.

Bennet wrote:

If "moral consideration" somehow means that non-humans are moral agents, then our paths don't diverge, because I don't believe non-humans are moral agents.

No, non-humans definitely are not moral agents.

Bennet wrote:

But since you brought up obligations, do you think consideration should only be given if there is first some form of obligation? I personally don't think so, at least not in every case.

No, an obligation is a specific moral claim. Moral "consideration" is extended to all moral agents, regardless of any obligation.

Bennet wrote:

joefromchicago wrote:
Because expanding morality to non-moral agents is inconsistent with the premises of morality.

What are your premises of morality so I can understand which premise is inconsistent with extending moral considerablity to non-moral agents.

Expanding morality to non-moral agents leads to irreconcilable inconsistencies. Morality is a system of determining right and wrong conduct, and non-humans cannot act in a manner consistent with such a system. If a wolf kills a deer, we cannot say that the wolf acted wrongfully toward the deer, no more than we could judge its actions praiseworthy if the wolf refrained from killing the deer. As such, either non-humans are outside morality, or else they are subject to morality but there is some rationale for excusing acts which, if they were committed by humans, would be judged immoral. And if there were such a rationale, it would be because morality depends on who is committing the act, which leads inescapably to moral relativism.

Bennet wrote:

And you don't consider the idea where our acts toward non-humans which are moral or immoral based insofar as how those acts conform or deviate from human morality, is moral consideration? If not what do you call it?

Acting morally with regard to a non-human does not make the non-human a moral agent. If we have a rule that humans should not be unnecessarily cruel toward animals, that's not because we owe animals a moral duty, it's because we, as moral agents, ought to act in conformity with the moral code that prohibits such conduct.

Bennet wrote:

Do you not agree that it is left up to you, the person answering the question?

Are you asking if morality is up to each individual? No, I don't agree with that at all.

1 Reply

@MattDavis,

MattDavis wrote:

joefromchicago wrote:
Because expanding morality to non-moral agents is inconsistent with the premises of morality.

No. It is inconsistent with your presumed definition of morality.
You are claiming that moral obligations extend only to other beings capable of moral consideration (moral agents/actors),
because you define morality to exist only in interactions between beings capable of moral consideration (moral agents/actors).
You are asserting a tautology.

I'm not sure you know what a "tautology" is, and you certainly haven't laid one out here. I'm not asserting that moral obligations extend only to other beings capable of moral consideration -- I thought I made that perfectly clear a couple of pages ago. Instead, moral obligations extend only to those beings who belong to the class of beings who are capable of moral consideration.

1 Reply

@joefromchicago,

I wish you'd stop your wordplay game because going in circles isn't going to get us anywhere. I am generally avoiding the separation of 'moral' considerations from other practical considerations, while you are suggesting that moral consideration is only restricted to moral agents. If there is a dog and a human friend sitting beside me and I have an extra piece of hotdog to share I can consider giving it to my human friend or my dog now can't I? I'm not restricted to just giving it to a moral agent, or the human in this case.
Where did I say acting morally with regard to a non-human makee the non-human a moral agent?

joefromchicago wrote:

Are you asking if morality is up to each individual?

No but consideration, or "moral" consideration is. To me it seems as though you are talking about who are considered moral subjects, instead of to whom consideration, with the moral sense, should be given. Two entirely different topics. One is about who is subject to morality and the other is about who or what should moral agents consider deserving of having an entities welfare considered when making ethical decisions and resolving ethical dilemmas.
I'm gonna go to hibernation mode in this forum for a bit because of school and other stuff. So if you don't hear from me for a few weeks don't think we're over yet. Razz

2 Replies

@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

Because expanding morality to non-moral agents is inconsistent with the premises of morality.

Ok maybe I am presuming that you've presumed something that you haven't.

In the quote above, what exactly are you considering to be "the premises of morality?"

1 Reply

@Bennet,

Bennet wrote:

I wish you'd stop your wordplay game because going in circles isn't going to get us anywhere.

AMEN!!!

0 Replies

@MattDavis,

Quote:

You think that obligation requires an obligator.
I don't think that it does.
I think that obligation can be spoken of intrinsically.

This seems to me the conventional sense of the term.
"I have an obligation to my fellow man." A phrase that someone could say (and believe) without thinking that someone else is doing the obligating to them.

I think the question "Why does someone have an obligation" is a fair one.

Why does one have an obligation to their fellow man?

If you can't answer that, then how can you say that this obligation exists? Aren't you just making it up?

1 Reply

Who are the proper subjects of moral consideration?

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