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At 02:18 AM 03/24/1999 -0500, you wrote: >Hi Lorin, > >>Jim wrote: >>>>We're the ones doing the thinking about ethics, policy, management, etc., >>>>and so the only question we can ask is, "Do *our* activities benefit or >>>>harm animals?" Not (theoretically inconclusive questions like), "Do they >>>>have rights?" or, "Are they persons with full moral status?" >> >>Lorin here: >>It seems that the latter two questions are encumbered with a lot of issues >>that are tangential to the essential point being made which is, I think, >>summarized in one question: Does morality matter to animals? Or, >>alternately, are animals only moral patients? Asking questions about the >>"rights" of animals transgresses into the politico-legal, and asking >>whether animals are "persons with full moral status" unfairly caricatures >>the issue by assuming that moral status is an all-or-nothing affair. >> >>I think the appropriate answer to the question posed is that, yes, morality >>does matter to animals more than merely as an outcome of the question "Do >>*our* activities benefit or harm animals?" For morality to matter to >>animals does not necessitate that they be active moral agents; all it >>requires is that they have non-anthropocentric moral status. There is a >>distinction to be made here between moral status and moral participation. >>It is possible to have moral status without being able to participate as a >>moral agent, just as a stone can be a chemical composition without >>understanding and being able to manipulate its chemistry. In other words, >>morality need not be wholly reciprocal; moral agency is not a necessary >>condition for inclusion into the category of things which have moral value. > >I follow you fine up until this point. Then I have a couple of questions: > >Lorin continued: >> Of course it is the case that humans are the only ones who can >>substantively participate in a moral code, but this does not mean they are >>therefore the authors of the source of moral value. Moral value is, to my >>mind, an anthropocentric label applied to a set of non-anthropocentric >>properties intrinsic to an entity. > >(1) since the first sentence implies that humans are not "the authors of >the source of moral value," I wonder who is? Value theory has long assumed >there is no value without a valuer--i.e. a human source of value. >Alternatively, within a theological context, the statement makes sense, >because God is the author of the source of moral value. In a secular or >atheistic framework, some sort of natural law theory might account for the >source of moral value. Or, possibly, the suggestion in your second >sentence: >(2) "Moral value is, to my mind, an anthropocentric label applied to a set >of non-anthropocentric properties intrinsic to an entity." While I am >comfortable with the general notion of intrinsic properties that inhere in >an object or living entity, I am not sure here by what you mean "moral" >value. If moral value inheres in an entity, then does this mean that prior >to the evolution of humans, natural entities had "moral value"? I can >*understand* an assertion of timeless intrinsic value within a theistic >framework, and even within a natural law framework, even though I may not >agree with those positions. But what I think you are suggesting is >something akin to G.E. Moore's discussion of values as supervenient >nonnatural properties, a doctrine I have never pretended to understand >fully. Perhaps you could elaborate a bit on the theory of value you're >working towards in your work? Just curious. . . . There is one certain thing which possesses intrinsic value--ourselves. That is, we value ourselves, our own life, intrinsically (we cannot value ourselves instrumentally without stating a tautology (i.e. we value our life for the purposes of our life)). We value other humans intrinsically by logical analogy to ourselves. In other words, if we recognize that we have intrinsic value to ourselves, we cannot without contradiction deny that other systems that matter to themselves have intrinsic value. Ultimately, all those entities which, if they had agency, could matter to themselves have intrinsic value. Here I am using a notion of "hypothetical agency" to determine if an organism matters to itself. It is not the case that an organism has to have agency to have moral status, only that its moral status needs to be comprehensible from the (hypothetical) position of a *rational* agent. I believe, using Warwick Fox's notion of autopoiesis (self-renewal), that all organisms / systems which renew or regenerate themselves, matter to themselves. Thus, if we identify the condition of autopoiesis, we are obligated to recognize intrinsic value. Trees, having a internal principle of continued existence and the ability of self-renewal, matter to themselves and have intrinsic value. Stones do not: they continue in existence, to be sure, but do not exhibit any potential for self-renewal. From this it follows that the biosphere has value because it clearly has the ability for self-renewal. I accept that. This does not mean, however, that every atom within the earth has value--morality is not reductionist. Moreover, one should be aware that autopoiesis is not the only principle to be considered in making moral decisions...if this were the case, then we would have a completely egalitarian morality, one which would also be completely unworkable. Instead, autopoiesis provides a base level of moral considerability upon which other considerations, positive and negative, are stacked (i.e. instrumental value, aesthetic value). Moral decisions are complex. PS. I'm kinda making this up as I go, so I accept that there may be great gaping holes in my argument, or that it may simply be a restatement of positions put forth by others. Lorin Note to Jim: this is a different vein from the one I mentioned to you earlier--the one from Kent Baldner using Kant's transcendental idealism. I'm just weighing in my mind if Baldner's position is actually workable as an argument against pure subjectivism. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%