Growing moral relations : critique of moral status ascription / Mark Coeckelbergh.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Coeckelbergh, Mark.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ethics.

Physical Description:

xvi, 239 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan, [2012]

Summary:

"New scientific and technological developments challenge us to reconsider the moral status of entities such as chimpanzees or artificially intelligent robots: what place should we give them in our moral world order? Engaging with a variety of theoretical sources, this book offers a relational approach to moral status that questions individualist and objectivist assumptions made in these discussions, and proposes a less dualistic view by emphasizing the entanglement of natural, social, and technological relations. But it also asks why it is so hard to move towards a more relational understanding. The author's answer is an original discussion of the conditions of possibility of moral status ascription. Influenced by Heidegger and Wittgenstein, he argues that our specific way of ascribing moral status, and indeed the very project of moral status 'ascription', is made possible by, and limited by, particular linguistic, social-cultural, natural-bodily, material-technological, religious-spiritual, and historical-spatial conditions. The 'living' moral epistemology that emerges from this 'philosophical yoga' -an exercise in becoming more aware of your moral breathing - urges us to recognize that changing our moral thinking depends on the growth of our relations and hence of our form of life"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note:

Acknowledgements

Introduction

The Problem of Moral Status

PART I: MORAL ONTOLOGIES: FROM INDIVIDUAL TO RELATIONAL DOGMAS

Individual Properties

Appearance and Virtue

Relations: Communitarian and Metaphysical

Relations: Natural and Social

Relations: Hybrid and Environmental

Conclusion Part I: Diogenes's Challenge

PART II: MORAL STATUS ASCRIPTION AND ITS CONDITIONS OF POSSIBILITY: A TRANSCENDENTAL ARGUMENT

Words and Sentences: Forms of Language Use

Societies and Cultures (1): Forms of Living Together

Societies and Cultures (2): Forms of Life

Bodies and Things: Forms of Feeling and Making

Spirits and Gods: Forms of Religion

Fences, Walls, and Maps: Forms of Historical Space

Moral Metamorphosis: Concluding the Transcendental Argument

General Conclusion

References

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 219-224) and index.

ISBN:

9781137025951

1137025956

OCLC:

785873657

Online:

Cover image