Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
First published on March 14, 2013
An entity has moral status if and only if it or its interests morally matter to some degree for the entity's own sake, such that it can be wronged. For instance, an animal may be said to have moral status if its suffering is at least somewhat morally bad, on account of this animal itself and regardless of the consequences for other beings, and acting unjustifiably against its interests is not only wrong, but wrongs the animal. Others owe it to the animal to avoid acting in this way. Some philosophers think of moral status as coming in degrees, reserving the notion of full moral status (FMS) for the highest degree of status.
Sometimes the term “moral standing” rather than “moral status” is used, but typically these terms have the same meaning. Some philosophers employ the language of “moral considerability” but this term is extremely ambiguous. Some use it as an alternate expression for “moral status” which is understood to come in degrees. In other cases the phrase is used to mean FMS. Act Utilitarians employ yet a third notion of moral considerability, which is a matter of having one's interests (e.g., the intensity, duration, etc. of one's pleasure or pain) factored into the calculus to determine which action minimizes the bad and maximizes the good. To avoid these ambiguities, this entry will use the terminology of “moral status” and “FMS.”
After reviewing which entities have been thought to have moral status and what is involved in having FMS, as opposed to a lesser degree of moral status, this article will survey different views of the grounds of moral status as well as the arguments for attributing a particular degree of moral status on the basis of those grounds.
The entire article is here.
