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Moral Standing and Personhood

a. Theories of Moral Standing and Personhood

Take two beings, a rock and a human being. What is it about each such that it's morally okay to

destroy the rock in the process of procuring minerals but not okay to destroy a human being in

the process of procuring an organ for transplantation?  This question delves into the issue of

moral standing. To give an answer to this question is to give a theory of moral

standing/personhood. First, some technical things should be said. Any given entity/being has a

moral status. Those beings that can't be morally wronged have the moral status of having no

(that is, zero) moral standing. Those beings that can be morally wronged have the moral status

of having some moral standing. And those beings that have the fullest moral standing are

persons. Intuitively, most, if not all human beings, are persons. And intuitively, an alien species

of a kind of intelligence as great as ours are persons. This leaves open the possibility that

certain beings, which we would not currently know exist, could be greater in moral standing than

persons. For example, if there were a god, then it seems that such a being would have greater

moral standing than us, than persons; this would have us reexamine the idea that persons have

the fullest moral standing. Perhaps, we could say that a god or gods were super-persons, with

super moral standing.

Why is the question of moral standing important?  Primarily, the question is important in the

case of non-human animals and in the case of fetuses. For this article, we will only focus on

human animals directly. But before considering animals, let's take a look at some various

theories of what constitutes moral standing for a being. A first shot is the idea that being a

human being is necessary and sufficient for being something with moral standing. Notice that

according to this theory/definition, rocks are excluded, which is a good thing. But then this runs

into the problem of excluding all non-human animals, even for example, primates like chimps

and bonobos. As such, the next theory motivated would be this:  A being/entity has moral

standing (moral counts/can be morally wronged) if and only if it is living. But according to this

theory, things like plants and viruses can be morally wronged. A virus has to be considered in
our moral deliberations in considering whether or not to treat a disease, and because the viral

entities have moral standing; well, this is counterintuitive, and indicates that with this theory,

there is a problem of being too inclusive. So, another theory to consider is one which excludes

plants, viruses, and bacteria. This theory would be rationality. According to this theory, those

who morally count would have rationality. But there are problems. Does a mouse possess

rationality?  But even if one is comfortable with mice not having rationality, and thereby not

counting morally, one might then have a problem with certain human beings who lack genuinely

rational capacities. As such, another way to go is the theory of souls. One might say that what

morally counts is what has a soul; certain human beings might lack rationality, but they at least

have a soul. What's problematic with this theory of moral standing is that it posits an

untestable/unobservable entity – namely, a soul. What prohibits a virus, or even a rock, from

having a soul?  Notice that this objection to the soul theory of moral standing does not deny the

existence of souls. Instead, it is that such a theory posits the existence of an entity that is not

observable, and which there cannot be a test for its existence.

Another theory, which is not necessarily true and which is not unanimously accepted as true, is

the sentience theory of moral standing. According to this theory, what gives something moral

standing is that it is something that is sentient – that is, it is something that has experiences,

and more specifically has experiences of pain and pleasure. With this theory, rocks and plants

don't have moral standing; mice and men do. One problem, though, is that many of us think that

there is a moral difference between mice and men. According to this theory, there is no way to

explain how although mice have moral standing, human beings are persons (Andrews, 1996). It

appears that to do this, one would have to appeal to rationality/intelligence. But as discussed,

there are problems with this. Finally, there is another theory, intimately tied with sentience

theory. We can safely say that most beings who experience pain and pleasure have an interest

in the kinds of experiences that they have. There is, however, the possibility that there are

beings who experience pain and pleasure but who don't care about their experiences. So what

should we say about those who care about their experiences?  Perhaps it is not their

experiences that matter, but the fact that they care about their experiences. In that case, it looks

like what matters morally is their caring about their experiences. As such, we should call this

new theory “interest theory.”  A being/entity has moral standing if and only if it has interests (in

virtue of caring about the experiences it has).