Week2

• Moral persons are beings or entities having moral status or standing
• To be a moral person is to be a bearer of moral rights
• Criteria for moral personhood include:

  • Unicriterial approach
  • Multicriterial approach
  • Meta-criterial theories of personhood
• Unicriterial approach includes:

  1. Genetic theory

  2. Life theory

  3. Rational theory

  4. Sentient theory

  5. Relational theory
• Multicriterial approach includes:

  • Combination of qualities like consciousness, reasoning, self-motivated activity, communication, self-concept, and self-awareness
• Multicriterial approach can be understood in two ways:

  1. Conjunctive construal (strict interpretation)

  2. Disjunctive construal (liberal interpretation)
• Meta-criterial theories of personhood include:

  • Social theory
  • Gradient theory
• Moral persons can be human or non-human and can be:

  • Moral agents: doers of morally evaluable actions
  • Moral patients (or recipients): receivers of such actions
• In terms of moral agency, moral persons can be:

  • Agentive moral persons: moral patients AND moral agents
  • Non-agentive moral persons: moral patients BUT NOT moral agents
• Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) wrote The Discourse on the Origins of Inequality (1755)
• Rousseau's views on human nature include:

  • Human nature is different from animal nature
  • Freedom and perfectibility
  • Pity/compassion
  • Connection of freedom to perfectibility
• Rousseau believes in the faculty of perfectibility, which is virtually unlimited openness to change
• Rousseau emphasizes that humans are not rational animals but sensitive creatures
• Moral accountability involves the worthiness of blame or praise for actions performed
• Agentive moral persons can be morally accountable for their actions.
• Conditions that make moral persons morally accountable include attribution conditions like incriminating and excusing conditions
• Conditions for moral accountability:

  • Attribution conditions determine whether moral accountability can be attributed to a person for an action they have done
  • Incriminating conditions: a person is accountable if they are the agent of the action, know that the action is good or bad, and intentionally perform the action
  • Excusing conditions: a person is excused from moral accountability if they do not have the volition to do the act, do not have the capacity to know good vs. bad, or do not intend to perform the act
• Degree conditions determine the degree of one's moral accountability:

  • Mitigating conditions lessen the degree of moral accountability
  • Aggravating conditions increase the degree of moral accountability
  • Factors affecting mitigating and aggravating conditions include the degree of knowledge, pressure or difficulty in life, intensity of wrongdoing, and involvement or participation
• Richard Taylor's views on the duality of good and evil:

  • Morality is a naturalistic reality originating from desires or felt needs
  • We are conative beings with needs, desires, and goals
  • Without desires or impulses, there can be no concept of good vs. evil and morality
• Taylor's concept of conation as the precondition of good vs. evil:

  • The basic distinction between good and evil cannot be drawn in a world devoid of all life
  • The concept of good and evil is relative to conation, our ability to feel desires and needs
  • The concept of right and wrong is relative to rules within one's social group
• Taylor's four worlds:

  • World 1: The world without any living thing
  • World 2: The world with rational people but without needs or desires
  • World 3: The world with at least one sentient being capable of feeling pain or pleasure
  • World 4: The world with at least two sentient beings
  • The concept of good and evil emerges in worlds with sentient beings
• Taylor's perspective on what is good:

  • The pursuit of worthwhile goals in life is crucial
  • Each individual has one life to live, and it can be wasted or made into a deliberate and thoughtful art