This looks fascinating - thanks Richard. One amateur suggestion - something explicit on the "who matters?" question? All too often that critical question of moral patiency scope tends to get neglected. That can lead readers to agree with a particular moral system while brutally (and often unthinkingly) excluding most valid moral patients…
This looks fascinating - thanks Richard. One amateur suggestion - something explicit on the "who matters?" question? All too often that critical question of moral patiency scope tends to get neglected. That can lead readers to agree with a particular moral system while brutally (and often unthinkingly) excluding most valid moral patients (human and non-human alike) from consideration under that system. The classical menu of moral scope choices include anthropocentrism, sentiocentrism (my favourite given the Sentientism worldview), biocentrism and ecocentrism. Of course, sadly, many humans apply something much more messy and arbitrary which includes a few lucky non-human sentients while excluding very many human sentients.
This looks fascinating - thanks Richard. One amateur suggestion - something explicit on the "who matters?" question? All too often that critical question of moral patiency scope tends to get neglected. That can lead readers to agree with a particular moral system while brutally (and often unthinkingly) excluding most valid moral patients (human and non-human alike) from consideration under that system. The classical menu of moral scope choices include anthropocentrism, sentiocentrism (my favourite given the Sentientism worldview), biocentrism and ecocentrism. Of course, sadly, many humans apply something much more messy and arbitrary which includes a few lucky non-human sentients while excluding very many human sentients.