Sentience, Rationality, and Moral Status: A Further Reply to Hsiao

Modal Personhood and Moral Status: A Reply to Kagans Proposal

Kagan argues that human beings who are neither persons nor even potential persons — if their impairment is independent of genetic constitution — are modal persons: individuals who might have been persons. Moreover, he proposes a view according to which both (actual) personhood and modal personhood are sufficient for counting more, morally, than nonhuman animals. In response to this proposal, I ...

On the Moral Status of Infants and the Cognitively Disabled: A Reply to Jaworska and Tannenbaum

Revisiting Risk and Rationality: A Reply to Pettigrew and Briggs

I have claimed that risk-weighted expected utility (REU) maximizers are rational, and that their preferences cannot be captured by expected utility (EU) theory. Richard Pettigrew and Rachael Briggs have recently challenged these claims. Both authors argue that only EU-maximizers are rational. In addition, Pettigrew argues that the preferences of REU-maximizers can indeed be captured by EU theor...

Genetic enhancement, post-persons and moral status: a reply to Buchanan.

Responding to several leading ideas from a paper by Allen Buchanan, the present essay explores the implications of genetic enhancement for moral status. Contrary to doubts expressed by Buchanan, I argue that genetic enhancement could lead to the existence of beings so superior to contemporary human beings that we might aptly describe them as post-persons. If such post-persons emerged, how shoul...

Kant on the Rationality of Moral Judgment