I think the best explanation for the moral significance of humans is consciousness. Conscious individuals (and those who have been and can again be conscious) matter because what happens to them matters to them. They have preferences and positive and negative experiences.
On the other hand, (1) something that is intelligent (or has any other property) but could never be conscious doesn’t matter in itself, while (2) a human who is conscious but not intelligent (or any other property) would still matter in themself. I think most would agree with (2) here (but probably not (1)), and we can use it to defend the moral significance of nonhuman animals, because the category “human” is not in itself morally relevant.
I’m familiar with the general argument, but I find it persuasive in the other direction. That is, I find it plausible that there are human animals for whom personhood fails to pertain, so ~(2). [Disclaimer: I’m not making any further claim to know what sort of humans those might be nor even that coming to know the fact of the matter in a given case is within our powers.] I don’t know if consciousness is the right feature, but I worry that my intuitive judgements on these sorts of features are ad hoc (and will just pick out whatever group I already think qualifies).
Just to respond to the conclusion of that article, it doesn’t seem at all obvious that humans should be treated equally despite having different abilities, at least in contexts where those abilities are relevant. They also seem to equivocate a bit on treatment/respect. I can hold that persons should be treated with equal respect or equitably (or whatever) without holding that they should be treated equally. It also seems to me like personhood would be a binary feature. I don’t think it makes sense to say that someone is more of a person than another and is this deserving of more person privileges.
I think if you decide what we should promote in a human for its own sake (and there could be multiple such values), then you’d need to explain why it isn’t worth promoting in nonhumans. For example, if preference satisfaction matters in itself for a human, then why does the presence or absence of a given property in another animal imply that it does not matter for that animal? For example, why would the absence of personhood, however you want to define it, mean the preferences of an animal don’t matter, if they still have preferences? In what way is personhood relevant and nonarbitrary where say skin colour is not? Like “preferences matter, but only if X”. The “but only if X” needs to be justified, or else it’s arbitrary, and anyone can put anything there.
I see personhood as binary, but also graded. You can be a person or not, and if you are one, you may have the qualities that define personhood to a greater or lesser degree.
I’m mostly using “person” to be a stand in for that thing in virtue of which something has rights or whatever. So if preference satisfaction turns out to be the person-making feature, then having the ability to have preferences satisfied is just what it is to be a person. In which case, not appropriately considering such a trait in non-humans would be prima facie wrong (and possibly arbitrary).
I agree, but I think it goes a bit further: if preference satisfaction and subjective wellbeing (including suffering and happiness/pleasure) don’t matter in themselves for a particular nonhuman animal with the capacity for either, how can they matter in themselves for anyone at all, including any human? I think a theory that does not promote the preference satisfaction or the subjective wellbeing as an end in itself for the individual is far too implausible.
I suppose this is a statement of a special case of the equal consideration of equal interests.
I think the best explanation for the moral significance of humans is consciousness. Conscious individuals (and those who have been and can again be conscious) matter because what happens to them matters to them. They have preferences and positive and negative experiences.
On the other hand, (1) something that is intelligent (or has any other property) but could never be conscious doesn’t matter in itself, while (2) a human who is conscious but not intelligent (or any other property) would still matter in themself. I think most would agree with (2) here (but probably not (1)), and we can use it to defend the moral significance of nonhuman animals, because the category “human” is not in itself morally relevant.
Are you familiar with the argument from species overlap? https://www.animal-ethics.org/argument-species-overlap/
I’m familiar with the general argument, but I find it persuasive in the other direction. That is, I find it plausible that there are human animals for whom personhood fails to pertain, so ~(2). [Disclaimer: I’m not making any further claim to know what sort of humans those might be nor even that coming to know the fact of the matter in a given case is within our powers.] I don’t know if consciousness is the right feature, but I worry that my intuitive judgements on these sorts of features are ad hoc (and will just pick out whatever group I already think qualifies).
Just to respond to the conclusion of that article, it doesn’t seem at all obvious that humans should be treated equally despite having different abilities, at least in contexts where those abilities are relevant. They also seem to equivocate a bit on treatment/respect. I can hold that persons should be treated with equal respect or equitably (or whatever) without holding that they should be treated equally. It also seems to me like personhood would be a binary feature. I don’t think it makes sense to say that someone is more of a person than another and is this deserving of more person privileges.
I think if you decide what we should promote in a human for its own sake (and there could be multiple such values), then you’d need to explain why it isn’t worth promoting in nonhumans. For example, if preference satisfaction matters in itself for a human, then why does the presence or absence of a given property in another animal imply that it does not matter for that animal? For example, why would the absence of personhood, however you want to define it, mean the preferences of an animal don’t matter, if they still have preferences? In what way is personhood relevant and nonarbitrary where say skin colour is not? Like “preferences matter, but only if X”. The “but only if X” needs to be justified, or else it’s arbitrary, and anyone can put anything there.
I see personhood as binary, but also graded. You can be a person or not, and if you are one, you may have the qualities that define personhood to a greater or lesser degree.
If you’re interested in some more reading defending the case for the consideration of the interests of animals along similar lines, here are a few papers: https://philpapers.org/rec/HORWTC-3 https://stijnbruers.wordpress.com/2018/12/13/speciesism-arbitrariness-and-moral-illusions/amp/
I’m mostly using “person” to be a stand in for that thing in virtue of which something has rights or whatever. So if preference satisfaction turns out to be the person-making feature, then having the ability to have preferences satisfied is just what it is to be a person. In which case, not appropriately considering such a trait in non-humans would be prima facie wrong (and possibly arbitrary).
I agree, but I think it goes a bit further: if preference satisfaction and subjective wellbeing (including suffering and happiness/pleasure) don’t matter in themselves for a particular nonhuman animal with the capacity for either, how can they matter in themselves for anyone at all, including any human? I think a theory that does not promote the preference satisfaction or the subjective wellbeing as an end in itself for the individual is far too implausible.
I suppose this is a statement of a special case of the equal consideration of equal interests.