Moral Considerability: Deontological, not Metaphysical

This article attempts to redirect inquiry into the question of moral considerability. It argues that moral considerability should be understood narrowly and centrally as an agent-relative deontological question, inquiring into the presuppositions of reason in order to determine what obligations rational agents have to non-human others. It proposes that moral considerability is better understood as a question about a moral agent's duty than about a moral patient's status. Rather than focusing on the properties, attributes, or capacities of other beings that qualify them as moral patients, it instead suggests that the focus of the question is more comprehensible if understood as pertaining exclusively to agents, as establishing the obligations of rational agents to consider others. Approaching the problem of moral considerability deontologically offers a fresh solution to a problem that has plagued environmental ethicists for years. Namely, it circumvents the need to find special criteria to establish moral relevance. Further, following Kenneth Goodpaster, this article proposes that the narrow question of moral considerability should not be confused with the wider question of moral status. Instead, it stipulates a distinction between moral considerability, moral relevance, and moral significance, suggesting that the three terms can together answer the question of moral status. Whether we are to consider another entity is a question separate both from which are the relevant considerations and from how much weight we must give to those relevant considerations.