The claim that they can’t be moral patients doesn’t seem to me to be well-supported by the fact that their statements aren’t informative about their feelings. Can you explain how you think the latter implies the former?
They can’t USEFULLY be moral patients. You can’t, in practice, treat them as moral patients when making decisions. That’s because you don’t know how your actions affect their welfare. You can still label them moral patients if you want, but that’s not useful, since it cannot inform your decisions.
The claim that they can’t be moral patients doesn’t seem to me to be well-supported by the fact that their statements aren’t informative about their feelings. Can you explain how you think the latter implies the former?
They can’t USEFULLY be moral patients. You can’t, in practice, treat them as moral patients when making decisions. That’s because you don’t know how your actions affect their welfare. You can still label them moral patients if you want, but that’s not useful, since it cannot inform your decisions.