Rethinking Moral Status

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0192894072
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (928 download)

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Book Synopsis Rethinking Moral Status by : Steve Clarke

Download or read book Rethinking Moral Status written by Steve Clarke and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-08-05 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Common-sense morality implicitly assumes that reasonably clear distinctions can be drawn between the full moral status that is usually attributed to ordinary adult humans, the partial moral status attributed to non-human animals, and the absence of moral status, which is usually ascribed to machines and other artifacts. These implicit assumptions have long been challenged, and are now coming under further scrutiny as there are beings we have recently become able to create, as well as beings that we may soon be able to create, which blur the distinctions between human, non-human animal, and non-biological beings. These beings include non-human chimeras, cyborgs, human brain organoids, post-humans, and human minds that have been uploaded into computers and onto the internet and artificial intelligence. It is far from clear what moral status we should attribute to any of these beings. There are a number of ways we could respond to the new challenges these technological developments raise: we might revise our ordinary assumptions about what is needed for a being to possess full moral status, or reject the assumption that there is a sharp distinction between full and partial moral status. This volume explores such responses, and provides a forum for philosophical reflection about ordinary presuppositions and intuitions about moral status.

Consciousness and Moral Status

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1315396327
Total Pages : 150 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (153 download)

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Book Synopsis Consciousness and Moral Status by : Joshua Shepherd

Download or read book Consciousness and Moral Status written by Joshua Shepherd and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-05-23 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It seems obvious that phenomenally conscious experience is something of great value, and that this value maps onto a range of important ethical issues. For example, claims about the value of life for those in Permanent Vegetative State (PVS); debates about treatment and study of disorders of consciousness; controversies about end-of-life care for those with advanced dementia; and arguments about the moral status of embryos, fetuses, and non-human animals arguably turn on the moral significance of various facts about consciousness. However, though work has been done on the moral significance of elements of consciousness, such as pain and pleasure, little explicit attention has been devoted to the ethical significance of consciousness. In this book Joshua Shepherd presents a systematic account of the value present within conscious experience. This account emphasizes not only the nature of consciousness, but also the importance of items within experience such as affect, valence, and the complex overall shape of particular valuable experiences. Shepherd also relates this account to difficult cases involving non-humans and humans with disorders of consciousness, arguing that the value of consciousness influences and partially explains the degree of moral status a being possesses, without fully determining it. The upshot is a deeper understanding of both the moral importance of phenomenal consciousness and its relations to moral status. This book will be of great interest to philosophers and students of ethics, bioethics, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of mind, and cognitive science.

Moral Status

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Publisher : Clarendon Press
ISBN 13 : 0191588156
Total Pages : 278 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (915 download)

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Book Synopsis Moral Status by : Mary Anne Warren

Download or read book Moral Status written by Mary Anne Warren and published by Clarendon Press. This book was released on 1997-11-13 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mary 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

The Moral Status of Animals

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Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 244 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis The Moral Status of Animals by : Stephen R. L. Clark

Download or read book The Moral Status of Animals written by Stephen R. L. Clark and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1984 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

A Theory of Bioethics

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Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1316515834
Total Pages : 329 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (165 download)

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Book Synopsis A Theory of Bioethics by : David DeGrazia

Download or read book A Theory of Bioethics written by David DeGrazia and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-08-26 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers a compelling theory of bioethics, covering medical assistance-in-dying, the right to health care, abortion, animal research, and the definition of death.

Human Capacities and Moral Status

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Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 9048185378
Total Pages : 208 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (481 download)

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Book Synopsis Human Capacities and Moral Status by : Russell DiSilvestro

Download or read book Human Capacities and Moral Status written by Russell DiSilvestro and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2010-04-21 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many debates about the moral status of things—for example, debates about the natural rights of human fetuses or nonhuman animals—eventually migrate towards a discussion of the capacities of the things in question—for example, their capacities to feel pain, think, or love. Yet the move towards capacities is often controversial: if a human’s capacities are the basis of its moral status, how could a human having lesser capacities than you and I have the same "serious" moral status as you and I? This book answers this question by arguing that if something is human, it has a set of typical human capacities; that if something has a set of typical human capacities, it has serious moral status; and thus all human beings have the same sort of serious moral status as you and I. Beginning from what our common intuitions tell us about situations involving "temporary incapacitation"—where a human organism has, then loses, then regains a certain capacity—this book argues for substantive conclusions regarding human fetuses and embryos, humans in a permanent vegetative state, humans suffering from brain diseases, and humans born with genetic disorders. Since these conclusions must have some impact on our ongoing moral and political debates about the proper treatment of such humans, this book will be useful to professionals and students in philosophy, bioethics, law, medicine, and public policy.

The Moral Status of Persons

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Publisher : Rodopi
ISBN 13 : 9789042012011
Total Pages : 270 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (12 download)

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Book Synopsis The Moral Status of Persons by : Gerhold K. Becker

Download or read book The Moral Status of Persons written by Gerhold K. Becker and published by Rodopi. This book was released on 2000 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The advances in molecular biology and genetics, medicine and neurosciences, in ethology and environmental studies have put the concept of the person firmly on the philosophical agenda. Whereas earlier times seemed to have a clear understanding about the moral implications of personhood and its boundaries, today there is little consensus on such matters. Whether a patient in the last stages of Alzheimer's disease is still a person, or whether a human embryo is already a person are highly contentious issues. This book tackles the issue of personhood and its moral implications head-on. The thirteen essays are representative of the major strands in the current bioethical debate and offer new insights into humanity's moral standing, its foundations, and its implications for social interaction. While most of the essays approach the issue by drawing on the rich intellectual tradition of the West, others offer a cross-cultural perspective and make available for ethical consideration the philosophical resources and the wisdom of the East. The contributors to this book are highly recognized philosophers, ethicists, theologians, and professionals in health care and medicine from East Asia (China, Japan), Europe, and North America. The first part of the book probes the foundations of personhood. Examining critically the main theories on personhood in contemporary philosophy, the authors offer alternatives that better respond to contemporary challenges and their implications for bioethics. The focus of the second part is firmly on the Confucian relational concept of the person and on the social constitution of personhood in traditional Japanese culture. While the essays challenge the individualistic features of personhood in the Western tradition, they lay the foundations for a richer concept that holds great promise for the resolution of moral dilemmas in modern medicine and health care. The third part of the book enters into a dialogue with the Christian tradition and draws on its spiritual heritage in the search for answers to the contemporary challenges to human dignity and value. Its focus is on the Catholic social thought and Lutheran theology. The fourth part addresses the moral status of persons in view of specific issues such as the effects of brain injury, gene therapy, and human cloning on personhood. It extends the scope of research beyond human beings and inquires also into the moral status of animals.

The Moral Status of Technical Artefacts

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Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 9400779143
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (7 download)

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Book Synopsis The Moral Status of Technical Artefacts by : Peter Kroes

Download or read book The Moral Status of Technical Artefacts written by Peter Kroes and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2014-01-08 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book considers the question: to what extent does it make sense to qualify technical artefacts as moral entities? The authors’ contributions trace recent proposals and topics including instrumental and non-instrumental values of artefacts, agency and artefactual agency, values in and around technologies, and the moral significance of technology. The editors’ introduction explains that as ‘agents’ rather than simply passive instruments, technical artefacts may actively influence their users, changing the way they perceive the world, the way they act in the world and the way they interact with each other. This volume features the work of various experts from around the world, representing a variety of positions on the topic. Contributions explore the contested discourse on agency in humans and artefacts, defend the Value Neutrality Thesis by arguing that technological artefacts do not contain, have or exhibit values, or argue that moral agency involves both human and non-human elements. The book also investigates technological fields that are subject to negative moral valuations due to the harmful effects of some of their products. It includes an analysis of some difficulties arising in Artificial Intelligence and an exploration of values in Chemistry and in Engineering. The Moral Status of Technical Artefacts is an advanced exploration of the various dimensions of the relations between technology and morality

Moral Status and Human Life

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Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1139493183
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (394 download)

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Book Synopsis Moral Status and Human Life by : James G. Dwyer

Download or read book Moral Status and Human Life written by James G. Dwyer and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-10-21 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are children of equal, lesser, or perhaps even greater moral importance than adults? This work of applied moral philosophy develops a comprehensive account of how adults as moral agents ascribe moral status to beings - ourselves and others - and on the basis of that account identifies multiple criteria for having moral status. It argues that proper application of those criteria should lead us to treat children as of greater moral importance than adults. This conclusion presents a basis for critiquing existing social practices, many of which implicitly presuppose that children occupy an inferior status, and for suggesting how government policy, law, and social life might be different if it reflected an assumption that children are actually of superior status.

Animals and the Moral Community

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Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 023114234X
Total Pages : 229 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (311 download)

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Book Synopsis Animals and the Moral Community by : Gary Steiner

Download or read book Animals and the Moral Community written by Gary Steiner and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gary Steiner argues that ethologists and philosophers in the analytic and continental traditions have largely failed to advance an adequate explanation of animal behavior. Critically engaging the positions of Marc Hauser, Daniel Dennett, Donald Davidson, John Searle, Martin Heidegger, and Hans-Georg Gadamer, among others, Steiner shows how the Western philosophical tradition has forced animals into human experiential categories in order to make sense of their cognitive abilities and moral status and how desperately we need a new approach to animal rights. Steiner rejects the traditional assumption that a lack of formal rationality confers an inferior moral status on animals vis-a-vis human beings. Instead, he offers an associationist view of animal cognition in which animals grasp and adapt to their environments without employing concepts or intentionality. Steiner challenges the standard assumption of liberal individualism according to which humans have no obligations of justice toward animals. Instead, he advocates a "cosmic holism" that attributes a moral status to animals equivalent to that of people. Arguing for a relationship of justice between humans and nature, Steiner emphasizes our kinship with animals and the fundamental moral obligations entailed by this kinship.

Taking Animals Seriously

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Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521567602
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (676 download)

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Book Synopsis Taking Animals Seriously by : David DeGrazia

Download or read book Taking Animals Seriously written by David DeGrazia and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1996-07-13 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book distinguishes itself from much of the polemical literature on these issues by offering the most judicious and well-balanced account yet available of animals' moral standing, and related questions concerning their minds and welfare. Transcending jejune debates focused on utilitarianism versus rights, the book offers a fresh methodological approach with specific and constructive conclusions about our treatment of animals. David DeGrazia provides the most thorough discussion yet of whether equal consideration should be extended to animals' interests, and examines the issues of animal minds and animal well-being with an unparalleled combination of philosophical rigor and empirical documentation. His book is an important contribution to the field of animal ethics and will be read with special interest by all philosophers teaching such courses, as well as biologists, those professionally involved with animals, and general readers concerned about animal welfare.

Anthropocentrism and Its Discontents

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Publisher : University of Pittsburgh Pre
ISBN 13 : 0822970988
Total Pages : 346 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (229 download)

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Book Synopsis Anthropocentrism and Its Discontents by : Gary Steiner

Download or read book Anthropocentrism and Its Discontents written by Gary Steiner and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2010-08-01 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anthropocentrism and Its Discontents is the first-ever comprehensive examination of views of animals in the history of Western philosophy, from Homeric Greece to the twentieth century. In recent decades, increased interest in this area has been accompanied by scholars' willingness to conceive of animal experience in terms of human mental capacities: consciousness, self-awareness, intention, deliberation, and in some instances, at least limited moral agency. This conception has been facilitated by a shift from behavioral to cognitive ethology (the science of animal behavior), and by attempts to affirm the essential similarities between the psychophysical makeup of human beings and animals. Gary Steiner sketches the terms of the current debates about animals and relates these to their historical antecedents, focusing on both the dominant anthropocentric voices and those recurring voices that instead assert a fundamental kinship relation between human beings and animals. He concludes with a discussion of the problem of balancing the need to recognize a human indebtedness to animals and the natural world with the need to preserve a sense of the uniqueness and dignity of the human individual.

The Moral Standing of the State in International Politics

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Publisher : University of Wales Press
ISBN 13 : 1786837889
Total Pages : 200 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (868 download)

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Book Synopsis The Moral Standing of the State in International Politics by : Milla Emilia Vaha

Download or read book The Moral Standing of the State in International Politics written by Milla Emilia Vaha and published by University of Wales Press. This book was released on 2021-07-15 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kant’s moral and political philosophy has been important in developing ethical thinking in international relations. This study argues that his theory of the state is crucially important for understanding the moral agency of the state as it is discussed in contemporary debates. For Kant, it is argued that the state has not only duties but also, controversially, inalienable rights that ground its relationship to its citizens and to other states. Most importantly, the state – regardless of its governmental form or factual behaviour – has a right to exist as a state. The Kantian account provided, therefore, explores not only the moral agency but also the moral standing of the state, examining the status of different kinds of states in world politics and expectations towards their ethical behaviour. Every state has a moral standing that must be respected in a morally imperfect world gradually transforming towards the ideal condition of perpetual peace.

Life Before Birth : The Moral and Legal Status of Embryos and Fetuses

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Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0199759685
Total Pages : 270 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (997 download)

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Book Synopsis Life Before Birth : The Moral and Legal Status of Embryos and Fetuses by : Albany Bonnie Steinbock Associate Professor of Philosophy & Public Policy State University of New York

Download or read book Life Before Birth : The Moral and Legal Status of Embryos and Fetuses written by Albany Bonnie Steinbock Associate Professor of Philosophy & Public Policy State University of New York and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1992-07-23 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hardly a day passes without newspaper coverage of some new development regarding prenatal life. The abortion debate continues to rage, but other examples abound: forced Caesareans; prosecutions of women for drug use during pregnancy; fetal protection policies; the use of fetal tissue for transplantation; embryo research; and the disposition of frozen embryos. All of these issues raise the question of the moral status of the unborn: are embryos and fetuses part of the pregnant woman or are they persons? Are they sources of tissue, research tools, or are they pre-born children? Different conceptions of the unborn prevail in different contexts, giving rise to the charge of inconsistency. For example, women have been criminally charged with abusing their fetuses by using drugs during pregnancy, even though abortion--which pro-lifers call the ultimate child abuse--is legal. The legalization of abortion itself was based in part on the unborn's never having been recognized in law as a full legal person. Yet fetuses have been considered as persons for the purposes of insurance coverage, wrongful death suits, and vehicular homicide. This book provides a framework for thinking clearly and coherently about the unborn. The first chapter elaborates the book's basic idea, that all and only beings who have interests have moral standing, and only beings who possess conscious awareness have interests. This thesis, which is called "the interest view," raises issues of considerable philosophical complexity, but is presented in language non-philosophers will be able to understand. Subsequent chapters apply the interest view, and explore the moral and legal aspects of a wide range of issues, including abortion, the legal status of the fetus outside abortion, maternal-fetal conflict, fetal research, and the use and disposition of extracorporeal embryos resulting from the new reproductive technologies. The philosophical discussion is enlivened by examples and actual cases which immediately catch, and sustain, the reader's interest. Written in a lively style, Life Before Birth: The Moral and Legal Status of Embryos and Fetuses is a timely and important work that enables us to resolve contradictions in our current thinking about the unborn, and to approach new issues in a clear and rational manner.

The Moral Equality of Humans and Animals

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Author :
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 1137315253
Total Pages : 153 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (373 download)

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Book Synopsis The Moral Equality of Humans and Animals by : Mark H Bernstein

Download or read book The Moral Equality of Humans and Animals written by Mark H Bernstein and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-09-15 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Received opinion has it that humans are morally superior to non-human animals; human interests matter more than the like interests of animals and the value of human lives is alleged to be greater than the value of nonhuman animal lives. Since this belief causes mayhem and murder, its de-mythologizing requires urgent attention.

How to Count Animals, more or less

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0192565176
Total Pages : 296 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (925 download)

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Book Synopsis How to Count Animals, more or less by : Shelly Kagan

Download or read book How to Count Animals, more or less written by Shelly Kagan and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-05 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most people agree that animals count morally, but how exactly should we take animals into account? A prominent stance in contemporary ethical discussions is that animals have the same moral status that people do, and so in moral deliberation the similar interests of animals and people should be given the very same consideration. In How to Count Animals, more or less, Shelly Kagan sets out and defends a hierarchical approach in which people count more than animals do and some animals count more than others. For the most part, moral theories have not been developed in such a way as to take account of differences in status. By arguing for a hierarchical account of morality - and exploring what status sensitive principles might look like - Kagan reveals just how much work needs to be done to arrive at an adequate view of our duties toward animals, and of morality more generally.

The Moral Status of Combatants

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 9780367521080
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (21 download)

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Book Synopsis The Moral Status of Combatants by : Michael Skerker

Download or read book The Moral Status of Combatants written by Michael Skerker and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2024 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book develops a new contractualist foundation for just war theory, which defends the traditional view of the moral equality of combatants and associated egalitarian moral norms. Traditionally it has been viewed that combatants on both sides of a war have the same right to fight, irrespective of the justice of their cause, and both sides must observe the same restrictions on the use of force, especially prohibitions on targeting noncombatants. Revisionist philosophers have argued that combatants on the unjust side of a war have no right to fight, that pro-war civilians on the unjust side might be targetable, and that lawful combatants on the unjust side might in principle be liable to prosecution for their participation on the unjust side. This book seeks to undercut the revisionist project and defend the traditional view of the moral equality of combatants. It does so by showing how revisionist philosophers fail to build a strong foundation for their arguments and misunderstand that there is a moral difference between collective military violence and a collection of individually unjustified violent actions. Finally, the book develops a theory defending the traditional view of military ethics based on a universal duty of all people to support just institutions. This book will be of much interest to students of just war theory, ethics philosophy, and war studies.