Moral Agency and Autonomy

While both psychological and non-psychological organisms can, on my view, be the objects of our moral responsibilities, and psychological organisms can be the holders of rights, only moral agents can be the bearers of moral obligations, duties, and responsibilities. Since moral responsibilities presuppose there being a moral agent who is capable of being ascribed moral obligations, it follows that if there were no moral agents in the universe, then there would be no moral obligations.

Kant thought that moral agency, or rational moral agency, was the sole basis for moral status. He wrote "Two things find the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and more steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me" [I. Kant. Critique of Practical Reason. trans Lewis White Beck, 1956, p. 166]. Rational moral agency is what makes moral autonomy possible, for Kant. Moral autonomy is the highest known form of psychological agency. A morally autonomous individual is one who directs his or her own voluntary behavior in accordance with an internalized conception of the moral law. The term "autonomy" literally means "living by ones own law" or "giving law to oneself." The autonomous individual is one who is capable of independent moral judgment and decision-making and whose will is directed by their own moral conceptions and rational judgments, not by the will of another or by instinct or emotion. As John Christman writes, "Put most simply, to be autonomous is to be one's own person, to be directed by considerations, desires, conditions, and characteristics that are not simply imposed externally upon one, but are part of what can somehow be considered one's authentic self." ("Autonomy in Moral and Political Philosophy"). The concept of moral autonomy plays a central role in liberal social and political philosophy as well as in normative ethics. One must, however, distinguish among various senses in which the term "autonomy" is commonly used, for instance, between basic autonomy which is the moral status in which the individual has the capacity to make their own decisions and speak for themselves, and be held morally accountable for their actions, and ideal autonomy in which a person is maximally authentic and free from all forms of distorting influences on their judgment. For this discussion, I will be using the term "autonomy" in the basic sense, though I want to emphasize that even in this sense, autonomy is a personal achievement.

As Warren points out, Kant held that moral agency is both a necessary and a sufficient condition for full moral status, while she, and many other philosophers, including myself, who have thought about this question, strongly doubt that it is a necessary condition. On the view I have been discussing, there are at least three levels of moral standing: one for living, non-psychological organisms, another for living psychological organisms, and a third for living rational moral agents. So on my view, while moral agency is not necessary for a being to have moral standing, it is sufficient.

Additionally, on my view, being a moral agent or rationally autonomous is not a necessary condition for being capable of holding rights; some moral patients who are not also moral agents, are capable of being ascribed rights based upon their psychological agency. But while moral agents can also function as the objects of obligations, and can also be the holders of rights, moral obligations can only be meaningfully ascribed to moral agents. Only autonomous moral agents, those with full moral agency, are ascribed full moral responsibility for their behavior.

There is a problem, though, in deciding when something qualifies as a moral agent. Predictably, philosophical opinion on this question divides between those who favor a minimalist and a maximalist view. Kant and Locke were minimalists who argued that moral agents must be capable of being held morally and legally accountable for their actions, and that therefore, only normal human adults qualified as moral agents with full moral status. Human infants and young children, persons with some kinds of severe mental disorders or disabilities, the comatose, and sentient non-human animals, would, on this view, be excluded from the category of moral agents.

Other philosophers have noticed that even some animals seem to know the difference between "right" and "wrong" and exhibit some of the psychological capacities necessary for moral agency. Your dog probably know that it is not supposed to urinate on the carpet. While not, strictly speaking, a moral wrong, the fact that dogs can be trained to avoid behaviors which their human masters find distasteful, seems to indicate that they are capable of at least some limited form of moral agency. Research on primates, by Franz de Waal, and others, strongly suggests that some apes possess a sense of justice. Many animals exhibit behaviors like caring for their young and defending them against predators that seem to us to be moral responses indicative of some degree of moral agency.

For instance there is a documentary film about a group of African elephants that adopted an orphaned calf (as described in Ingfei Chen,"The Social Brain" Smithsonian Magazine June 2009, pp. 38-43):

When the baby elephant falls into a water hole, the matriarch quickly marches in, followed by the others. Together she and a second female use their tusks, trunks and legs to free the calf from the muck. Another animal paws at the steep bank with its foot, building a ramp the youngster uses to climb to safety. "It's really remarkable...," how the elephants rapidly sized up the crisis and worked together to save the baby. "It's a very high sort of functioning that very few animals are able to do....humans can do it only on good days."

The case is reminiscent of the famous example from Peter Singer in which a small child falls into a shallow lake and a passerby must decide whether it is worth ruining his good shoes to wade into the water to rescue him. On good days, presumably, the answer is he should.

John Rawls attempted to solve the problem of defining the range of moral agency by proposing that we think of moral agency is a "range property," that is, being capable of having a sense of justice or a conception of moral obligation or being accountable for one's voluntary actions, is a complex set of psychological capacities which different individuals may possess in differing degrees. This allows for us to use the term "moral agent" in a maximalist way to describe young children and some non-human animals, who possess some, but not all, of the psychological capacities necessary for full moral agency at least to some degree.

While I am comfortable with this suggestion, I think we will still need to have another concept, that of "full moral agency" or "moral autonomy" to designate those kinds of individuals which have these capacities in sufficient measure as to make them fully accountable and morally responsible for their behavior. Full moral agency, moral autonomy, is a moral status that not all moral agents, nor all human beings, ever achieve. Only those individuals who have attained full moral agency can be held strictly accountable, morally speaking, for their behavior.

Young children are generally not accorded full moral status because the degree with which they are in control of their moral faculties is insufficiently developed. We exempt young children from criminal liability for certain kinds of moral or legal wrongs they may commit, or if we do hold them accountable for them, do so with their immaturity functioning as a mitigating factor in ascriptions of blame and punishment. Children are not yet morally autonomous moral agents, and one way to understand this is to recognize that paternalism is justified when children are concerned. Parents should sometime override their children's wills when doing so is in the child's best interests. Children cannot give consent for medical procedures in their own names; they cannot be parties to contracts, and they cannot vote. Children develop moral competence though the process of socialization, and if all goes well, they do eventually attain adulthood and so achieve the moral status of full moral agency and become autonomous moral agents. Children grow in moral stature as they acquire the complex set of psychological capacities necessary for full moral agency or basic moral autonomy, but they can be considered to be moral agents, albeit novice or immature ones, before that time, at least once they have sufficiently developed linguistic capacities so as to allow them to be capable of "giving an account" of their actions. Thus, I agree with Warren when she writes, "Without a language that is capable of representing moral concepts and principles, real moral agency is not possible" (p. 161).

By "real" here I think she must mean "full", since elsewhere she suggests that some non-linguistic animals exhibit some of the characteristics of moral agency. In any case, I see no problem in using the term "moral agency" in both the maximalist sense and in the more restricted minimalist sense of individuals who have attained full moral agency or moral autonomy, so long as it is clear which sense is being employed.

But, on my theory, being a moral agent, to any degree, is not a necessary condition of being capable of holding rights, so even infants, and probably also human fetuses who have developed to the point of psychological awareness, can be ascribed meaningful rights, whether or not they are also considered to be moral agents. So can intelligent social animals such as elephants, whales, chimpanzees, dolphins and other categories of psychologically complex animals.

Even sentient non-human animals who are not capable of moral agency, for instance, the baby bunny nibbling on the grass in my backyard, can also be considered possible right-holders as well as the objects of the moral obligations of moral agents. Thus, for instance, one thing one should teach one's children is not to set baby bunnies on fire for fun. On Warren's view this is due to the Anti-Cruelty principle. On my view, moral agents do have non-optional moral responsibilities to avoid and prevent needless pain to psychological organisms, and these duties can be enforced by means of rights ascribed to the object of those responsibilities. Even non-psychological but living entities, such as bacteria and plants, can be the objects of the moral responsibilities of moral agents, but they cannot be the holders of rights and the duties towards them cannot be demanded and coercively enforced.

Another noteworthy feature of my view is that some kinds of organizations, such as corporations and governments, can be ascribed full moral agency, even though they are not living beings. Corporations can have both rights and obligations even though they are not alive and do not die. Organizations which have centralized internal decision-making structures, operated by human moral agents, can be ascribed a kind of moral agency which is not reducible to the agency of their human operators. Corporations and governments can be held morally and legally accountable for their actions. I will discuss this matter in greater detail at a latter stage in the argument, but for the time being, I wish to indicate that moral agency, even full moral agency, is not in my view a grade of moral status that is reserved only to living normal human adults. It is also conceivable that alien creatures, such as E.T. or the Vulcans from Star Trek, should be regarded as possessing full moral agency, and similarly, advanced intelligent robots and androids, such as "Data" will be considered to qualify for full moral agency, where this means that they can be treated as the bearers moral obligations for whose fulfillment they can be held fully morally and legally accountable.

Entities that have the moral status of full moral agency, or autonomous moral agents will also by that token be the holders of rights. Full moral status is a sufficient condition of being a right-holder on my view, because as I will demonstrate later on, being the bearer of moral obligations, such as the responsibility to protect the vulnerable, entails that those moral agents who have them must also have at least some rights. This conclusion will follow on the supposition, which I will also address later, that the status of full moral agency has moral content, that is, full moral agency or moral autonomy carries with it certain substantive moral responsibilities. Put another way, full moral agency functions as both a necessary and a sufficient condition for having certain kinds of moral obligations.

Moral agents that have attained full moral autonomy have also a kind of inherent value which is distinct from the inherent value of living things, and psychological organisms, though when the moral agent in question is a living adult human being, she or he also possesses these other kinds of inherent value. Kant thought this this was the only kind of intrinsic moral value, but, I have explained why I disagree with this view. However, I will continue to employ Kant's term "dignity" to refer to the specific kind of intrinsic moral value that living, sentient, moral agents that have attained full moral agency or autonomy possess. Artificial moral agents, such as corporations and robots, do not have "dignity" in this sense. Living sentient alien species who are capable of being treated as full moral agents, will probably also have this kind of inherent value, but since we do not know of any such creatures, we can defer this question as speculative at this time.

Adult human beings who possess the usual complement of developed psychological capacities necessary for full moral agency or moral autonomy, and who have been sufficiently socialized so as to understand the concept of moral duty, have "dignity" because they are not only capable of having moral obligations, but because they actually do have them, and as a consequence of having moral obligations, also must have certain rights. Thus, having dignity is a sufficient ground for having rights. But, as I have emphasized it is not a necessary condition for having rights. There can be, therefore, things whose moral standing makes them capable of being ascribed meaningful rights, but which do not have the status of fully competent moral agents.

Thus far in this discussion I have avoided using the terms "person" and "personhood." These terms have been the topics of extended philosophical controversy, as Warren's discussion in Chapter 4 of her book, attests. My use of the term "moral agency" tracks many of the key features of the ways in which philosophers have wanted to use the terms "person" and "personhood." On maximalist view of personhood, any entity that exhibits some of the capacities associated with moral agency to at least some degree, can be considered to be a "person," even though they may not have attained the standing of autonomous moral agents. On a minimalist view, only entities that have attained full moral agency or basic moral autonomy, can be called "persons." But this is too restrictive since it would imply that human individuals do not become persons until they graduate from high school.

Using the maximalist sense, a intelligent adult chimpanzee who has been taught to use signs to communicate with human beings, can be regarded as a person, and so can young children, and certain categories of human adults with impaired psychological abilities, such as those with advanced dementia. Corporations are also regarded as "legal persons" and should also, I believe, be regarded as moral persons with respect to their social responsibilities and other sorts of moral obligations which they can possess. Governments, and some other kinds of organizations with centralized internal decision-making structures, would also be legal and moral persons in this sense, albeit non-living, artificial ones.

However, corporations, governments, chimpanzees, dolphins, intelligent androids, and extra-terrestrial life forms, are not human. The question to which we must not turn our attention is whether or not being human confers upon an entity some additional moral stature.

Biosocial Moral Communities

Several years ago my aunt spent $20,000 on chemotherapy for one of her cats, which, unfortunately, succumbed to cancer nevertheless. My own values would not permit me to do this; I would much rather spend that kind of money on humanitarian relief and medical assistance to endangered human beings living in other countries, with whom I have no personal relationship.

However, I do understand why people like my aunt feel so strongly about their pets. Her cat was her constant companion, and a source of joy to her. She regarded it as a member of her family and did not think that she could just let it die when treatment might have saved its life.

People who have such social relationships with domestic animals attach a kind of moral status to them that does not reflect their intrinsic biological properties. Warren proposes that there is a distinct principle of moral status, what she terms the Interspecific Principle, that accounts for these intuitions, under which "non-human members of mixed social communities have a stronger moral status than could be based upon their intrinsic properties alone" (168).

Pets and other domestic animals acquire greater moral stature because they are regarded as members of mixed moral communities comprised of individual entities with different kinds of moral status. This particular source of moral status is based upon an entity's relational properties to other members of these mixed moral communities. However, for Warren, the Interspecific Principle need not assign the same moral stature or the same rights to all domesticated animal and plant species.

She quotes Mary Midgley's observation that human social communities have throughout history included non-human species, but that different animals play different roles and have different moral statuses:

Pets, for example, are...surrogate family members and merit treatment not owed either to less intimately related animals, for example to barnyard animals, or, for that matter, to less intimately related human beings....The animal welfare ethic of the mixed community...would not censure using draft animals for work or even slaughtering animals for food so long as the keeping and using of such animals was not in violation...of a kind of evolved and unspoken social contract between man and beast. (129)

For Warren, wild animals, those which are not members of human social communities, "should not lie on the same spectrum of graded moral standing as family members, neighbors, fellow citizens, fellow human beings, pets, and other domestic animals. Wild animals, are, however, parts of natural biological communities, or ecosystems, and we may have moral obligations towards them derived from their relationship to these natural ecological communities. Separate treatment is also required for members of invasive species, whose presence degrades the ecosystems into which they are introduced, and also to endangered species, whose survival as a distinct life form is threatened, most often, by patterns of human activity. Some environmental ethicists have proposed that "wilderness areas" which remain essentially untouched by the hand of man, deserve special protection. Conflicts can arise, for instance, between protecting the integrity of natural ecosystems, and protecting the lives of members of certain species who are parts of them, as well, of course, between human interests, and the interests of members of various sentient animal species.

Warren proposes a distinct principle of moral status, the Ecological Principle, to handle cases involving wild animals, species, and ecosystems:

Living things that are not moral agents but that are important to the ecosystems of which they are a part, have, within the limits of principles 1-4, a stronger moral status that could be based on their intrinsic properties alone; ecologically important entities that are not themselves alive, such as species and habitats, may also legitimately be accorded a stronger moral status than their intrinsic properties would indicate (p. 166).

This is a principle for assigning moral stature to individual entities that is distinct from the level of moral standing that entity has based upon its intrinsic properties. It can be used to either add or to substract stature. So for instance, animal species that we call "vermin" and "pests" have less stature on their levels of moral standing than otherwise comparable organisms. Livestock that is raised for human food, such as cattle, pigs, and chickens, have lower stature than pets, and protected endangered wild species. So-called "charismatic species" such as panda bears and koalas (that have big eyes and are furry), are generally seen by humans as having higher moral statures than their not so cute and cuddly cousins.

The variability and (frankly) arbitrariness of these kinds of moral judgments, indicates that they are based on our perceptions of an entity's relational value, either to human beings, to other plant or animal species, or to an ecosystem, that is, to what J. Baird Callicott has termed "biosocial communities." Humans live in such biosocial communities, and so do many other plants and animals. All life forms are dependent on the biotic community as a whole, and the Earth's natural systems, for their survival and well-being. Biosocial moral communities are comprised of individuals and other entities having different kinds of moral standing and stature within them.

It may seem somewhat surprising that Warren takes the position that the Ecological Principle can be (but she says need not be) extended to include "moral obligations towards water, air, plant and animal species, or other elements of the biosphere that are neither living organisms nor sentient beings." (167). It is surprising because, as she acknowledges, entities that are not alive, "cannot be harmed in the ways that living things and sentient beings can," and, "it is implausible to insist that our obligations regarding them must be understood as obligations towards them." Nevertheless, she insists that we should allow non-living entities, like natural ecosystems, to be the direct objects of our moral obligations, because "human beings may be more inclined to protect these vulnerable elements of the natural world it they accept moral obligations towards them."

This is a consequentialist argument that bases the claim to moral standing for non-living elements of natural ecosystems on the utility of this belief for modifying human behavior towards the Earth. It is, she thinks, a policy we might adopt "if we wish humanity to survive and flourish into the distant future" (168). The crucial point, however, is that "to say that these elements of the natural world may legitimately be accorded moral status is not to be committed to the claim that they have intrinsic value, i.e., a value that is entirely independent of the needs and desires of any living or sentient being" (167). Put differently, moral standing can be based entirely upon the derived rather than the intrinsic values of certain classes of moral patients.

On my theory of moral status, many non-living things will have various kinds of moral standing derived solely from their value to other entities that have intrinsic value in themselves. For instance, common artifacts such as my car or bicycle have the moral status of personal property, and on that account other people should not damage or destroy them. On a conventional way of thinking about such moral obligations, the obligations derived from something having the status of personal property are not owed to the bicycle or car, but to their owner. They are obligations "regarding" or "concerning" these objects, not obligations "towards" them. The moral (and legal) obligations in such cases are owed to me; I am the moral patient in the relationship, not my property. The bicycle and the car themselves cannot be moral patients or the objects of our moral responsibilities on this view.

The terminological distinctions I have drawn between "moral status," "moral standing," and "moral stature" and the additional idea of "moral plateaus" provide a more adequate theoretical vocabulary for talking about these issues than does Warren's single term "moral status." On my view, some inanimate objects can have moral standing, and can function as the objects of moral responsibilities, even though they lack intrinsic value and should therefore not be regarded as "ends in themselves." Being alive, being sentient, and being capable of moral agency are intrinsic properties that provide sufficient conditions for moral standing. But they are not necessary conditions. Some kinds of entities that have none of these intrinsic properties can, on my theory, nevertheless function as moral patients.

As I have already mentioned, I am committed to the view that organizations such as corporations and governments, can be regarded as moral and legal "persons" and can be ascribed moral and legal rights and obligations. Corporations and governments are not alive and do not die, nor are they sentient, and have no intrinsic value in themselves. But nevertheless it is scarcely conceivable that we can understand the nature of rights and responsibilities within human moral communities without attributing a kind of moral agency to these kinds of organizations that is not reducible to the agency of their human operators.

If we grant moral standing to corporations, governments and other organizations, then there is no reason to withhold this moral status from wilderness areas, endangered species, and various non-living elements of complex ecosystems. In order to create the kind of global ethics that I envision, we will also have to ascribe moral statuses to deceased persons and to future persons, neither of which are presently alive. I see no principled reason why we cannot treat them as kinds of moral patients toward whom we can have responsibilities, although they will occupy different moral statuses within the overall framework of my axiology for a global ethics.

We can also have moral obligations towards certain kinds of "unowned" inanimate objects, such as rivers and streams, wetlands, marine reserves, even towards stones. This will perhaps become less counter-intuitive when we consider some examples that Warren relies upon to motivate her seventh (and last) principle of moral status, the Transitivity of Respect.

Taking Stock of Moral Status

In the last series of sections I have been developing a theory of moral status that is designed to explain what sorts of things can function as the objects of the moral responsibilities of moral agents. The account I have offered is rather expansive in that it proposes that moral agents can have moral obligations and responsibilities towards a great many sorts of things. Before moving on to the discussion of how this theory of moral status functions within an ethics of global responsibility, it might be wise to take stock of what I have claimed thus far.

On my theory of moral status, living, sentient moral agents, in particular those moral agents who have achieved full moral stature and who possess the psychological capacities necessary for moral autonomy, can have moral responsibilities towards or concerning:

1. Other moral agents
2. Other sentient creatures
3. Other living organisms
4. Organizations
5. Ecosystems and features of the natural environment
6. Artifacts which are assigned the status of property
7. Former persons
8. Future persons

One might wonder whether this list leaves anything in the universe out. What sorts of things cannot be the objects of moral responsibilities?

Well, as I suggested earlier, there are certain things which cannot be the objects of our moral responsibilities because they cannot be harmed and are not depending on us in any way. The planet Jupiter, or the Carina Nebula, for instance, are things of this sort. We can causally affect these kinds of things but we cannot harm them. Several years ago, on December 7, 1995 to be precise, the Galileo Jupiter probe plummeted into Jupiter's gaseous mass traveling at 100,000 mph. Before it disintegrated it sent back radio signals to receivers on Earth revealing information about the atmosphere of the largest planet in our solar system. We humans causally affected Jupiter, but we did not harm it, nor could we. Jupiter is the not sort of thing which can be harmed and hence we cannot have moral responsibilities towards or concerning it.

Closer to home, it would seem that we cannot have moral responsibilities towards atoms, for instance, boron, the element with the atomic number 5. Atomic elements and chemical compounds have the moral status of things to which we can do anything we please. Considered in themselves, atomic elements and molecules have no moral standing.

But gold is also an element. For centuries human beings have ascribed monetary value to gold, but gold, considered in itself, has no intrinsic value. If I acquire some pieces of gold so that they are owned by me, then they are my personal property and other moral agents may have moral obligations concerning them which mediate their moral relationship to me, their owner. But this is an observer-relative kind of moral status. Pieces of gold are not "ends in themselves" and therefore do not have intrinsic moral standing. The moral standing of pieces of gold is wholly derived. In cases where a moral patient's moral standing is wholly derived, we say that we can have obligations "concerning" those things, but not "towards" those things. We can only have moral responsibilities towards things which have some kind of intrinsic moral standing.

Complex material objects composed of large numbers of atoms and molecules can also acquire derived moral standing. For instance, the pebble that I found on the beach and took home and placed on my coffee table to use as a paper-weight, has acquired the status of an artifact and has also become my personal property. If you take the stone from my coffee table now you have committed theft. Locke thought that we can appropriate (almost) anything we please from nature and by "mixing" our labor with it, and thereby convert it into our personal property. But I do not think that this account of how property is acquired can be correct. If I swim in the Atlantic Ocean I am mixing my labor with it, but the Atlantic Ocean does not thereby become my property. If I spray paint graffiti on your boat, I have mixed my labor with it, but that doesn't make it mine. The so-called "Lockean proviso" (the almost) was his stipulation that one must be careful to leave enough natural resources for others. But the details or exactly how property is acquired need not detain us now.

Human artifacts are those things that have been taken from their natural conditions and intentionally shaped or designed by human action. The class of human artifacts includes everything from neolithic "dawn stones" to the great pyramids at Giza, to the Eiffel Tower, to the notebook computer with which I am writing this sentence. The class of human artifacts can includes immaterial things, intellectual property, such as copyrights and patents. Both material and immaterial human artifacts can acquire derived moral status, for instance, as property, or as works of art such as a painting or a novel, and when they do so, human moral agents can have moral responsibilities concerning them which mediate their moral relationship to the owners of those things.

Certain kinds of organizations, such as corporations and governments, are also artifacts, social artifacts, since they are intentionally designed social structures. We conventionally ascribe to them the moral status of "artificial persons" and regard them as capable of having certain kinds of moral and legal rights and obligations. But organizations that are artificial persons have a wholly derived kind of moral status that is dependent on our social institutions. Their status as artificial persons attributes to them a kind of moral agency which, however, is not wholly reducible to the moral agency of their human creators and operators. Although people sometimes talk as though they think they have moral obligations towards governments, corporations, and other sorts of artificial persons, this is, strictly speaking incorrect because they have no intrinsic moral standing.

Excluded from the class of human artifacts are those features of the world that have been unintentionally causally effected by human action. For instance, the glaciers in Greenland are melting in part because of human actions, but the glaciers are not human artifacts. Glaciers and other non-living elements of the earth's ecosystem have no intrinsic moral value, but they can acquire derived moral status, on my account, through their relationship to living things which have some form of intrinsic moral standing. Wild plants and animals may also be causally affected by human action in unintentional ways, and they are also not artifacts, though we may have moral responsibilities towards them because of their intrinsic properties which give them intrinsic moral standing.

Most artifacts have derived moral standing; that is we can have moral responsibilities towards or concerning them due to their observer-relative properties, It is plausible, but incorrect, to assume that artifacts can only have derived moral status. It is incorrect because human beings have been intentionally shaping and designing certain plant and animal species for 10,000 years. For instance, maize, or corn, is a cereal grain that was first domesticated about 9,000 years ago in the highlands of what is now central Mexico. Wild maize had ears and kernels much smaller than our present day corn, which has been selected, hybridized, and genetically engineered to have properties that make it more useful to human beings. The corn plants we grow today are human artifacts, but they are also living organisms, and thus, on my theory of moral status have a basic kind of intrinsic moral standing.

Similarly for certain animal species. Domesticated animals have been specifically bred to suit human interests. The dachshund, for instance, was bred by German hunters to flush out badgers and small animals like rabbits. According to the Wikipedia, "The flap-down ears and famous curved tail of the dachshund have deliberately been bred into the dog. In the case of the ears, this is so that grass seeds, dirt and other matter do not enter into the ear canal. The curved tail is dual-purposed: to be seen more easily in long grass and, in the case of burrowing dachshunds, to help haul the dog out if it becomes stuck in a burrow." Dachshunds, other breeds of dogs, domestic cats, cattle, pigs, chickens and other livestock animals, are all human artifacts. But they are also sentient psychological organisms, and thus have a kind of intrinsic moral standing in themselves, apart from whatever derived moral status they might have due to Warren's Interspecific Principle or some other observer-relative principle for ascribing moral status. Living things which are artifacts, or property, or have some relationship to the survival or well-being or interests of other living things, can have derived moral status in addition to whatever moral status they acquire because of their intrinsic properties.

We have designed our naming conventions so as to exclude ourselves, human beings, from the class of human artifacts, even though we have been extensively shaped and designed by human action. Wild hominids, such as existed a million years ago, and who were our ancestors, were well-adapted to survive as nomadic hunter-gatherers. Modern humans, like you and me, however, have been domesticated so as to be better adapted to living in cities, which are themselves just collections of human artifacts. Civilization, which is etymologically, the practice of building cities, required that we tame ourselves so as to inhibit and redirect certain instinctual behavioral patterns that became maladaptive when we started living in close contact with and cooperating with large numbers of non-kin, that is, with strangers. Nevertheless, if we changed our naming conventions and began regarding ourselves as human artifacts, the same argument would apply: since we would still have the intrinsic properties sufficient for intrinsic moral standing, our moral status would not be wholly derived.

The moral status of former and future persons is also not wholly derived. Since former persons had and actual future persons will have the same intrinsic properties, life, sentience, and moral agency, that ground our moral status, they have (tenselessly) intrinsic moral standing as persons in addition to whatever forms of derived moral status they may be assigned. We can have moral responsibilities towards them, not just concerning them,

Some future persons may be genetically engineered or cloned from existing human genetic materials. They would be artifacts in the same way that genetically engineered corn and cloned sheep now are, but we would probably be wise to exclude them from the class of human artifacts as we do for ourselves. The science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" which was the basis of the film Bladerunner, contemplates the moral consequences of our not doing this. The androids in Bladerunner were composed entirely of organic compounds and were physically indistinguishable from normal humans, though they were specifically created to work on the Mars colony and were designed to live for only four years. Nevertheless, these androids are living, sentient moral agents and so have all of the intrinsic properties sufficient for personhood. Deckard, the bounty hunter whose job it was to hunt down and kill escaped androids, was a murderer.

This seems to have exhausted the set of things which can function as moral patients, that is, which can have moral status as objects of the moral responsibilities of moral agents. However, I have omitted thus far discussing one other kind of entity that can have this status -- ourselves. The question which we must now address is: Can human moral agents have moral responsibilities towards themselves?" As will shortly become clear, the way in which I answer this question will have important theoretical consequences.