'Value requires a valuer' argument:
1 ‘Ought implies can’ – to be morally responsible for an action, it must be the case BOTH that you can perform the action, AND that you are capable of NOT performing the action – that is, performing the action is up to you, within your control – you have a conscious, rational choice and control (autonomy or agency)
2 So agency – the capacity for rational exercise of free will - is necessary for moral responsibility
3 Membership in the intrinsic moral community is necessary for personhood
4 intrinsic moral community = all things due moral consideration just in virtue of what they are, not dependent upon any external relationship of valuing, but valuable in themselves
5 so if no agency, then no moral responsibility
6 if no moral responsibility, then no morality
7 if no morality, then no intrinsic moral community
8 so no non-agents could possibly be in the intrinsic moral community
9 so agency is necessary for membership in intrinsic moral community
10 so agency is necessary for personhood
11 all agents can value themselves (and so are in intrinsic moral community)
12 because of independent self-valuing, all agents are thus capable of moral responsibility
13 so agency is sufficient for capacity for moral responsibility
14 the capacity for moral responsibility is sufficient for personhood
15 so agency is sufficient for personhood
Conclusion: so (from 10 and 15) agency is both necessary and sufficient for personhood = agency theory of personhood is true – all and only agents are persons
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1 comment:
Intriguing conception - and as we've discussed before, I do think it leaves open a Singerian approach - i.e. some humans are NOT persons, while some non-humans ARE perhaps persons. Oh yeah, and the Hawks' management are still dumber than the Falcons', but the latter are trying to catch up...
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