PHIL 163 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Moral Agency, Homo Sapiens, If And Only If
Document Summary
Morality is affected by one"s surroundings such as family, religion, etc. Naturally, we come with a speciecism view that only humans have moral status. However, humans have different intellectual capacity, backgrounds, etc. The only thing we have in common is that we are all homo sapiens: however, this doesn"t justify how we only have moral status. All living organisms have moral rights, but they might not all have moral duties. If you are a moral agent, you are a moral patient and vice versa. Some do not follow this because some sentients like animals do not have the same intellectual capacity and reasoning like humans. What gives you moral status is having real feelings such as happiness, suffering, etc. and a point of view (regan) Difficult to make the boundaries of sentientism. Plants can communicated and learn, but they don"t have a central place of knowledge/ nervous system like a brain.
