Contractarianism Gone Wild: Carruthers and the Moral Status of Animals

Contractarianism Gone Wild: Carruthers and the Moral Status of Animals

In bis recent contribution to the literature on the moral status of animals, Peter Carruthers argues that "some version of contractualism provides us with the most acceptable framework for moral theory," and be defends two central claims about sucb a theory: that it provides "a theoretical framework that accords full moral standing to all human beings, while non-arbitrarily withholding such sta...

The moral status of animals.

Contractualism and the Moral Status of Animals

While contractualism seems to solve some of the more pressing concerns of other moral theories, it does not conclusively address the moral status of non-human animals. Peter Carruthers claims that contractualism excludes animals from having full moral status. I argue that Carruthers’ arguments are fatally flawed due to his reliance on contradictory claims, unlikely assumptions, and flagrant vio...

Carruthers on the Deficits of Animals

The simple version of the HOT theory of consciousness is easily refuted. Carruthers escapes this refutation because he is actually a closet introspectionist. I agree with Carruthers that the subjective properties of experience are constituted from discriminatory and other cognitive responses, but I disagree that conceptual uptake into a language of thought is the form of uptake that is necessar...

Sociobiology and the Moral Status of Nonhuman Animals

RD. Alexander (1987) has proposed that the ultimate grounds of ethics are evolutionary. Humans have the capacity for moral reasoning and negotiation, together with a system of appropriate emotions, such as shame and guilt when we do wrong, and a sense ofmoral wellbeing when we do right, because these abilities tended to increase our ancestors' inclusive fitness in the past. Fairly simple mathem...