ope actions that we judge to be either morally good or bad are those that involve moral persons (whether human or non-human), both as the sources and recipients of these actions. This implies that in judging the morality of an action, itis first necessary to determine whether the doers and recipients of these actions are moral persons. Given this, before we study the various ethical theories and their applications, we must first clarify what it means to be a moral person. We, for instance, need to be clear about the defining features of moral personhood and the kinds of beings that can be regarded as moral persons. A significant part of being a moral person is being morally accountable for one’s actions; for when moral persons act as doers of morally evaluable actions, they may deserve moral blame or praise for these actions. A thorough understanding of the nature of moral personhood thus requires an examination of its corollary concept of moral accountability. This chapter, divided into two parts, examines the nature of moral personhood along with the concept of moral accountability. The first part, which examines the nature of moral personhood, accounts for the significance of moral personhood in terms of possession of moral rights, explains the classification of moral persons into moral agents and moral patients, and examines the different views on what constitutes the qualifying features of moral personhood. The second part, which deals with nature of moral accountability, clarifies the difference of moral accountability from related concepts, and explicates the conditions for attributing moral accountability. A. Moral Personhood aE In judging whether an action is morally good or bad, or morally right or wrong, we determine whether this action conforms to ot violates our moral standards or principles. For instance, we judge an act of killing to be morally wrong because it violates our moral principle which states that we ought not kill or that we ought to respect a person’s right to life. In doing so, we, however, already assume that the entities or beings involved in the action (its source and receiver) have moral status or are moral persons. ‘When we say, for instance, that killing is morally wrong, we presumably refer to acts of killing that involve humans only, as when a terrorist kills innocent people or a policeman kills an unarmed drug suspect. We presumably do not refer to instances of this act that only involve animals, as when a spider kills a mosquito or a cat kills a mouse. And this is because for an action to be either morally good or bad, its source and recipient must both be moral persons. We generally regard humans as moral persons both in terms of being sources and recipients of actions, while we do not generally regard animals as moral persons at least in terms of being sources of actions—they may be regarded as moral persons but only in terms of being recipients of the actions of moral persons (as when humans kill or hurt them). Things, of course, are more complex when we consider the cases of humans who do not clearly fall under the category of normal human beings (like those who do not exhibit mental abilities) and animals which are not clearly sentient (those that do not 20 Chapter 2. | Moral Personhood and Accountabilityexhibit recognizable pain behaviors). These cases would require a deeper examination of what a moral person is, which we shall endeavor to do in the next sections. In any case, all these considerations show that moral personhood plays a critical role in making moral judgments. Moral judgements only apply to actions involving moral persons. Thus, before we can apply our moral standards to evaluate the morality of an action, we first need to determine whether the action under consideration is indeed morally evaluable, That is, we first need to ascertain whether the said action involves moral persons. The concept of moral personhood is complex; and to help us get a better handle of it, let us inquire into the following, First, what does being a moral person entail? Or what are the consequences when an entity is regarded a moral person? Second, what are the ways to be a moral person? Or are there different ways of being moral persons ? Third, how does one qualify as a moral person? Or what must an entity have or be capable of doing to be considered a moral person? The first question is about the significance of moral personhood; the second is about its structure; and the third is about its basis. To address these questions, we shall examine the minimum definition of moral personhood in terms of possession of moral rights, the division of moral persons into moral agents and moral patients, and the claims of the different theories of personhood. Moral Persons and Rights Moral persons are beings or entities having moral status or standing. Being so, they are the appropriate objects of moral concern. That is chey are the kind of entities or beings we ought to be concerned about with regard to whether the actions that they do or the actions done to them are morally good or bad, But what is it with moral persons that makes them objects of moral concern? Or what does being a moral person entail such that it is an object of moral concern? A prior question is, what does it mean to bea person? One standard way of defining personhood is in terms of possession of rights: 0 be a person is 0 be a bearer of rights. M legal person, in this sense, is one who possesses legal rights. Applying this to moral personhood, moral persons are those who possess moral rights. Consequently, itis their possession of moral rights that makes moral persons objects of moral concern. It is, however, important to note that the possession of moral rights is merely the minimum definition of moral personhood; for, as we shall later on elaborate, there are moral persons who, in addition to having moral rights, also have moral duties or obligations. In what follows, let us then elaborate on what moral rights are, Let us begin by clarifying what rights are in general, after which let us look into the various kinds of rights to see the unique features of moral rights. Rights, to begin with, are entitlements. They refer to interests one (i.e. the bearer of rights) is allowed to pursue or actions one is allowed to do. When we say, for instance, that humans have the right to live, we mean that humans are entitled or allowed to do things that are necessary to continue with their existence in this world, And when we say, on the other hand, that we do not have the right to take another person's life, we basically mean that we are not entitled, allowed, or permitted to take another person’ life. Rights correlate with duties; as such, they are better understood when compared and contrasted with each other. Duties are actions that we ought to do or perform. They are expressed in the form of commands, laws, or imperatives, like the duties expressed in the Ten Commandments. In this connection, one main difference between rights and duties Ethics: Theories and Applications | Unit! 21concerns whether one deserves sanctions (penalties, punishments, or blame) for failing to satisfy them. On the one hand, failure to exercise a right does not merit any sanction; that is, one does not deserve to be punished or blamed for it. For instance, if students do not use the resources in their school library (say they do not read or borrow the books in the library), which they have the right to, they do not deserve to be punished for it. On the other hand, failure to perform a duty merits a sanction. For instance, if students do not follow the rules and regulations of their school, such as those pertaining to appropriate attire while on campus or to proper behavior when taking examinations, they deserve to receive the punishments imposed by the school on such violations of its rules and regulations, ‘Though rights and duties are different, they, however, imply each another, On the one hand, rights imply duties in that one’s possession of a right requires certain duties from other people. For instance, if I have the right to use the resources in the university, then other people have the duty not to prevent me from using such resources if I decide to do so. If | have the right to know certain information, then certain people have the duty to provide me such information. On the other hand, duties respect rights in that a person's duty is intended to respect another person's right. For instance, it is our duty not to kill a person because every person has the right to live. Another, we have the duty to respect the privacy of other persons because every person has the right to privacy. ‘There are two general ways by which rights are classified. The first is on the basis of the kind of duties imposed by rights, whether these duties are only duties of non-interference or duties of provision as well. If one’s possession of a right imposes only the duty of non- interference on other people, the said right is a negative right. But if it likewise imposes the duty of provision (or positive performance), in addition to the duty of non-interference, on the other people, the said right is a positive right, Certain rights are by nature negative or positive. The previous example concerning the right of a student to use the resources in the library is a negative right. Other people should not interfere with the student’s exercise of this right. The previous example concerning the right to information is regarded as positive. Not only should other people not interfere with a person's exercise of his/her right to know certain information, but some people also have the duty to provide him/her with the information to which he/she has the right to know. A baby’s tight to live, obviously, is positive since his/her parents have the duty to provide him/her the necessary resources for him/her to live, in addition to the duty of other people not to interfere in his/her natural desire to go on living. Some other rights, however, are either positive or negative in light of certain factors. The right to education, for instance, in consideration of the duty that it imposes on the state, is negative or positive depending on the economic condition of the state, If the state, given its economic condition, can supply the resources needed for its citizens to avail of this right, then it is just proper that such a right be treated by the state as a positive one. The second general way of classifying rights is in terms of how rights are acquired (or their mode of acquisition). Under this mode of classifying rights, rights are either contractual, legal, or moral, Contractual rights are the rights that we acquire when we enter into an agreement or a contract with some other persons or institutions. The terms 2 Chapter 2 | Moral Personhood and Accountabilityof the contract specify what these rights are. Contractual rights are either formal when the rights of the parties of the contract, along with their correlative duties, are explicitly stated usually in some written document; or informal, if such rights and duties are merely implied. Examples of formal contractual rights are the rights of employees in a company and of the students in a school. Examples of informal contractual rights are the rights of individuals in romantic, friendly, and familial relationships. Legal rights are the rights that we acquire when we become citizens ofa certain country or state. The constitution of the state provides for these rights. When some Filipinos, for instance, fought for the Spanish colonialization of the Philippines, it was presumably because they wanted Filipinos to be Spanish citizens; for this would subsequently give Filipinos the same legal rights enjoyed by the Spaniards at the time. When a migrant renounces his/her former citizenship to convert to another, he/she is presumably after some legal rights he/she would enjoy as a result, such as rights pertaining to healthcare benefits, tax benefits, retirement pensions, and acquisition of Properties, among others. Meanwhile, moral rights are rights acquired when one becomes a moral person or a member of the moral community. Having moral rights is entailed by being a moral person; but one becomes a moral person, and thus acquires moral right when one possesses the defining qualities of moral personhood, which may include sentience (the capacity to experience pleasure and pain) and rationality (the capacity to know and choose freely). The section on the criteria for moral personhood shall expound on these two qualities. Human beings are moral persons in virtue of possessing these qualities, It is in this light that we understand the expression “human rights” as referring to the moral rights of humans. For when we speak of human rights, we refer to the moral rights of humans that are over and above, or better yet, higher than their legal rights. This explains why the exercise of certain legal rights are deemed to lead to violations of certain human rights. Examples are the legal rights that are discriminatory. For instance, there was a time in our country when there was no legal prohibition for companies to make age as a condition for employment and to specify the age of their preferred applicants in their newspaper ads. Clearly, their legal right to do so at the time would lead to age discrimination which prompted the government to institute the Anti-Age Discrimination in the Employment Act in 2016, By the same light, we refer to the moral rights of animals as “animal rights.” It may be legal to treat certain animals in certain ways in some other countries (such as the practice of raising dogs for human consumption), but such ways can be said to violate animal rights generally. If, in the future, intelligent machines will prove to have the morally relevant qualities for moral personhood, say sentience and rationality, then we will perhaps speak of “machine rights,” which will then refer to the moral tights of these intelligent machines. All these considerations imply that moral rights are higher than both legal and contractual rights. For we judge the morality of legal and contractual rights on the basis of whether they respect or violate human rights, and not the other way around. Ifbeing a person entails possession of rights, then being a moral person entails possession of moral rights. What is at stake in the question of whether an entity—say a human embryo, a human fetus, a brain-dead human, an animal, a corporation, or an intelligent machine—is a moral person is whether this entity has moral rights and, consequently, Ethics Theories and Applications | Unit 1 23whether other moral persons have certain moral duties or obligations towards this entity. (In the movie Bicentennial Man [1999], the robot wanted to be recognized as a person by the government so he would be recognized as having rights, especially the right to marry the person he so loved.) But what are moral rights? Or mote precisely, what kind of rights are moral rights? Like legal and contractual tights, moral rights impose duties of either non-interference or provision and thus, are either negative or positive, But unlike legal and contractual rights, moral rights are acquired through possession of the defining features of moral personhood. Furthermore, as they are used to justify the acceptance or rejection of legal and contractual rights, moral rights are higher than these two other kinds of rights. Moral Agents and Patients If humans are moral persons in virtue of their possession of certain qualities (other than being human), moral persons, in principle, can either be human or non-human. Non- human moral persons, in this regard, would refer to those possessing the defining features of being a moral person but not of being a human being. They may include animals, aliens, and artificial entities like corporations and intelligent machines. A more general division among moral persons, however, is the one based on whether moral persons act as sources or as receivers of morally evaluable actions, Moral persons, regardless of whether they are human or non-human, are either the ones performing such actions or those to whom such actions are being done. Moral persons, in this consideration, are distinguished into moral agents and moral patients (or moral recipients) (see Floridi 2011, 184; Haksar 1998, 5632). When moral persons act as the sources of morally evaluable actions, in that they are the doers of such actions, they are classified as moral agents. But when they act as the receivers of such actions, in that such actions are done to them, they are classified as moral patients. When a person, say Juan, helps another person in need, say Maria, Juan is the moral agent while Maria is the moral patient. The distinction and relation between moral patients and moral agents can also be explained in terms of the possession of moral rights and duties. In general, moral agents perform morally evaluable actions because it is their moral duty to do so; while morally evaluable actions are done to moral patients because it is their moral right that such actions be done to them. For instance, parents, as moral agents, take care of their young children for it is their moral obligation to do so; while these children, as moral patients, are taken care of by their parents because it is their moral right to receive such care from their parents. Thus, when one’s rights are being respected, he/she acts as a moral patient, but when one performs one’s moral duties, he/she acts as a moral agent. In the previous example, the parents act as moral agents because they are performing their moral duties, while the children act as moral patients because their right is being respected. In another context, however, the dynamics of parent-child relation may be the other way around: When parents are already weak due to old age, and when their grown-up children take care of them, it is the children who are acting as moral agents, and the parents as moral patients. Some refinements would have to be made on this distinction, however, in light of the fact that while all moral persons are moral patients, only some are or can be moral agents 24 Chapter 2 | Moral Personhood and Accountabilityas well. All human persons, for instance, can be receivers of morally evaluable actions; but only some of them can be sources of such actions. Normal human adults and infants, being moral persons, are moral patients; but only the normal human adults or humans already capable of making informed decisions can be moral agents. Another way of saying this is that all moral persons have moral rights, but not all have moral duties as well. Given that all moral persons are moral patients, but not all are moral agents as well, we can thus have a more specific distinction between two classes of moral persons. The first consists of moral persons who cannot be moral agents, which we can refer to as non-agentive moral persons. The second consists of moral persons who can be moral agents, which we can refer to as agentive moral persons. Another way of expressing this distinction is that non-agentive moral persons are moral persons who can only function as moral patients; while agentive moral persons are moral persons who, in addition to being moral patients, can also function as moral agents. Standard (or paradigmatic) examples of agentive moral persons are normal human adults, while those of non-agentive moral persons are human infants and mentally challenged humans. (Some arguably consider, among others, some collective agents, such as corporations, as moral agents; and animals—or some kinds of them—as moral patients.) Now, since only those who possess and perform moral duties can be morally accountable for their actions, a further difference between agentive and non-agentive moral persons is that only agentive moral persons can be morally accountable for their actions. Specificaly, this means that only agentive moral persons can deserve moral blame or praise for their actions. Ie must be noted, however, that being the source, of the agent, of an action is only one of the necessary conditions for moral accountability (we shall discuss the necessary conditions for moral accountability in the next part of this chapter). As such, while moral agents can be morally accountable for their actions, they are not always so because it will still depend on whether the other conditions are satisfied. In sum, moral persons are generally classified as either moral patients when they act as the receivers of morally evaluable actions, or moral agents, when they act as the sources of such actions. In consideration of the fact that while all moral persons are moral patients but only some are or can be moral agents as well, a more specific distinction is made between agentive and non-agentive moral persons. Agentive moral persons are moral persons who can be moral agents; while non-agentive moral persons are moral persons who cannot be moral agents. Consequently, agentive moral persons possess both moral rights and duties, and can be morally accountable for their actions; whereas non-agentive moral persons only have moral rights and, though objects of moral concern, cannot be morally accountable for their actions, One conceptual advantage of having the distinction between moral agents and moral patients, and the more specific distinction between agentive and non-agentive moral persons, is that it avoids confusion in assigning moral personhood to certain entities. For instance, it may be thought that a certain entity, say a human fetus, a comatose patient, or a patient in persistent vegetative state, cannot be a moral person because of its incapacity to perform actions that can be either morally good or bad. Given the previous distinctions, this is obviously mistaken. It mistakenly assumes that all moral persons are moral agents, or, more specifically, agentive moral persons, Ethics: Theories and Applications | Unit 1 25Criteria for Moral Personhood What gives moral persons their moral rights and duties? In virtue of what qualities or characteristics they possess that moral rights and duties are attributed to them? In other words, what are the criteria by which entities are regarded as moral persons? Views about such criteria are generally referred to as theories of personhood. These theories are concerned either with identifying such criteria or with qualifying the nature of such criteria (in terms of their mode of existence and attribution). We shall refer to views concerned with the former as criterial theories of personhood, while with the latter as meta-criterial theories of personhood. Criterial theories of — Personhood Protest in front of the United States personhood take either a uni-criterial approach when Sarason they assume that there is only one quality that sufficiently defines moral personhood, or a multi-criterial approach when they assume that a combination of two or more qualities is what is sufficient to define moral personhood (Warren 1997, 3-148). Uni-Criterial Theories Uni-criterial theories of personhood identify a single essential quality for moral personhood. For this kind of theories, let us briefly examine the genetic, life, rational, sentient, and relational theories of personhood. The genetic theory claims that the defining quality of a person is the possession of the human DNA or his/her membership in the species Homo sapiens. This theory, in effect, only considers humans as moral persons; and automatically excludes all forms of non-human entities (all types of animals, spiritual beings, and, possibly, aliens) from the moral community. This theory is used to justify the view that human zygotes are already persons. One question about this theory is why genetic uniqueness is only morally valuable in Homo sapiens (to which some respond by invoking religious views). But some further criticize this theory for its outright denial of the moral status of non-human beings that may possibly display morally valuable characteristics such as rationality (as in the case of collective agents such as corporations, spiritual entities, complex intelligent machines, and possibly aliens) and sentience as in the case of animals, simply on the basis that they do not have the human DNA. For these critics, this denial of personhood to these non-humans is baseless and discriminatory as a form of “speciesism,” in the language of Peter Singer. The Jife theory contends that the defining feature of personhood is possession of life or simply being alive. Under this view, anyone or anything that is alive is automatically a person. “Life, in all its forms, is sacred” seems to be the principle behind this theory. In its extreme version, however, this theory will include even insects and micro-organisms in the moral community (see, for instance, the religion called Jainism). Such entities, because they are alive, will consequently be regarded as having moral rights. Needless to say, this view can lead to extremely impractical situations, for how can we possibly avoid killing micro-organisms and some insects as we go about our day to day life? Besides, some animals have to kill other animals for their own survival. 26 Chapter 2 | Moral Personhood and AccountabilityThe rational theory contends that the defining feature of personhood is the capacity for rationality, which consists of the capacities for reason and free choice/will. For this view, only rational beings, human or non-human, are moral persons. (Immanuel Kant’s deontological ethics, which will be discussed in a subsequent chapter, assumes this view.) This theory has the problematic consequence of unnecessarily excluding beings which are not capacitated with rationality but which we nonetheless also regard as objects of moral concern. They include human infants (especially the severely disabled newborns), mentally challenged humans, comatose patients, patients in persistent vegetative state, and certain kinds of animals, among others. The sentient theory claims that the defining feature of personhood is sentience, i.e., the capacity to experience pleasure and pain, or as some would prefer to put it, the capacity to suffer, (Hedonistic consequentialism, which shall be discussed in a subsequent chapter, assumes this view.) A sentient being may also be rational, such as a normal human adult, but for this view, it is its sentience alone that gives it a moral status. While this theory will accommodate entities who may not be rational (such as animals, human infants, and mentally challenged humans), it will, however, exclude certain entities who have lost their capacity for sentience, such as humans who, due to some accident or disease, are suffering from paralysis or are in a persistent vegetative state. Others also claim that this theory will also not justify why we should be concerned with preserving ecological systems, whose members, such as trees and rivers, are not sentient beings. Finally, some criticize it for its counter-intuitive consequence of giving moral priority to a healthy animal whose sentient capacity is intact over a human whose sentient capacity has been impaired. The relational theory claims that the defining feature of personhood is the relationships one has with other entities. These relationships are caring relationships which bring about moral duties or obligations to the caring parties. This theory is often limited to human relationships. One typical example is the caring relationship of a mother with her child. This relationship gives rise to the mother’s moral obligations towards her child. Consequently, this relationship is what gives moral status to the child: itis in virtue of being in this relationship that the child is a moral person. This theory, however, can be extended to include human relationships with nonhumans (animals and plants, for instance), or to ecological relationships of humans with the rest of nature. (This view is assumed in different respects in care ethics and the biocentric view in environmental ethics, which shall be discussed in subsequent chapters.) One problem with this view is that beings not in caring relationships would have no value at all, or would have no value outside of the caring relationships that they may be in. The moral standing of a child, for instance, will depend on the caring relationship of his/her mother with him/her. This runs counter to our moral intuitions that children (or all persons for that matter) are morally valuable in themselves, regardless of whether other people care for them or not. Without or outside of caring relationships (say the child was unfortunately born in an uncaring environment), the child, or any human for that matter, deserves moral consideration. Another problem is that not all our caring relationships with certain things would necessarily make these things worthy of moral consideration—an interesting illustration is the case in the movie Castaway (2000) where the main character treats a ball asa person out of the need for a companion. Exhics: Theories and Applications | Unit 1 7Multi-criterial Theories Multi-criterial theories of personhood identify a combination of two or more qualities that sufficiently defines moral personhood. They usually combine some of the particular criteria advanced by the uni-criterial theories. An example is Mary Anne Warren's (1946— 2010) theory, usually called the cognitive theory of personhood, which defines a person as one who has the capacities for: (1) consciousness, and in particular the capacity to feel pain; (2) reasoning; (3) self-motivated activity; (4) communication; and (5) self-concept and self-awareness (Warren 1999, 205). It shall be observed that Warren's theory combines the rational and sentient theories of personhood; the last three features can be explained as emerging from the development or combination of the first two—sentience and rationality. Most of the problems of the uni-criterial theories come in the form of excluding entities from the moral community which we naturally believe should be there as well. These problems can be remedied by taking the multi-criterial approach, but only if this approach is understood in a certain way. This is because a combination of features can be understood in two ways: conjunctively or disjunctively (in its inclusive form). Under the conjunctive construal, which we shall simply refer to as the strict interpretation, the combination requires the occurrence of all its component features; whereas under the disjunctive construal, which we shall simply refer to as the liberal interpretation, the combination only requires the occurrence of at least one among its component features. Take the sentience-rationality combination in Warren's cognitive theory. Under the strict interpretation, this theory implies that entities are persons only if they possess both features of sentience and rationality. Consequently, entities that (a) are neither sentient nor rational, (b) are sentient but non-rational, and (c) are rational but non-sentient, are not persons. Under the liberal interpretation, on the other hand, entities are persons if they possess either sentience or rationality, or both. Consequently, entities that are both sentient and rational, rational but non-sentient, and sentient but non-rational, are persons. It shall be observed that the multi-criterial approach, under the strict interpretation, is counter-productive; for instead of expanding the moral community of the uni-criterial approaches, it all the more restricts it. Thus, if the point of taking the multi-criterial approach is to be able to prevent the exclusivity of the uni-criterial approach, to accommodate more entities into the moral community, the multi-criterial approach has to be liberally understood. The multi-criterial approach (henceforth liberally understood), depending on the number of features that will be accommodated in the desired combination, however, has the danger of unnecessarily expanding the moral realm, thereby unnecessarily including inappropriate entities in the moral community (such as the micro-organisms, if the life criterion will be included in the combination). Thus, the question now is: what is the right or appropriate combination of features? This may be a subject for debate. For our purposes, the appropriate combination should consistently account for (1) the distinction of moral persons into moral agents and patients, and (2) the feasibility or plausibility of the three dominant (normative) ethical theories that we shall consider in this book, namely consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics. This combination consists of the features of rationality, sentience, and relationality. First, to account for the existence of moral agents, we need to include rationality in the combination. For without reason and will, there will be no such things as moral agents 28 Chapter 2 | Moral Personhood and Accountabilitywho have moral duties and are thereby morally accountable for their actions. To account for the existence of non-rational moral patients (or the non-agentive moral persons, such as infants, mentally challenged humans, comatose patients, and animals), we need to include some of the other features as well. But among the other features, it is only sentience and relationality that prove to be meaningful. The abilities to suffer (sentience) and be in a caring relation (relationality) are meaningful bases for possession of moral rights; but the mere possession of human DNA and life are not, As previously shown, the genetic criterion unnecessarily restricts moral persons to humans only; while the life criterion unnecessarily expands moral persons to include micro-organisms. It seems absurd to regard an entity (say an animal) as a non-person just because it is not human, and an entity (say a micro- organism) as a person just because it is alive. Second, ethical theories assume that there are beings to which their moral principles appropriately apply. Such beings are the moral persons from the viewpoint of these theories. For instance, the moral principle that states that we ought not to lie only applies to beings who are capable of lying and beings who are capable of being lied to. Such beings are the moral persons in so far as this moral principle is concerned. Considering the three ethical theories that we shall focus on in this book, what then should moral persons be to make sense of these theories? To properly answer this, let us quickly look into what these ethical theories claim (these claims will be elaborated in the following chapters). Generally, consequentialism judges the morality of actions in terms of the quality of their consequences; deontology judges the morality of actions in terms of their adherence to moral duties or conformity to laws that define the moral duties; and virtue ethics judges the morality of actions in terms of the general character of persons who perform such actions. Accordingly, to make sense of all these ethical theories, moral persons should either be sentient, rational, or relational for they are the kinds of beings to which the moral principles of these theories appropriately apply. The moral significance of the features of sentience, rationality, and relationality are highlighted in varying ways in the different versions of the three ethical theories. For instance, sentience is highlighted in hedonistic consequentialism (which regards pleasure as the intrinsic good); rationality is highlighted in Kantian deontology and the Aristotelian version of virtue ethics; relationality is highlighted in some versions of virtue ethics such as care ethics, Confucian ethics, and Buddhist ethics. (Relationality is also highlighted in the ecocentric theory in environmental ethics.) The details of these ethical theories shall be spelled out in subsequent chapters. One may later on prefer an ethical theory and, along with this, a certain criterion of moral personhood. In considering these theories as having equal plausibility (that is, equal possibility of being correct), at least as an initial stance and in the spirit of open-mindedness, we are in effect regarding moral persons as entities possessing any one or more of the features of sentience, rationality, and relationality. In sum, the most acceptable multi-criterial approach, for our purposes, is the one that is liberally understood and which combines the features of sentience, rationality, and relationality. Specifically, this means that we regard the following kinds of entities as moral persons: (1) those possessing any one of these features (they are either merely sentient, merely Ethics: Theories and Applications | Unie1 29rational, or merely relational); (2) those possessing any two of these features (they are either both sentient and rational, both sentient and relational, or both rational and relational); and (3) those possessing all three features (they are sentient, rational, and relational). Meta-Criterial Theories Meta-criterial theories of personhood, instead of identifying the criteria or the morally relevant features for personhood, qualify the nature of these criteria in terms of their mode of existence and attribution. There are two prominent theories of this kind: the social and gradient theories of personhood. The social theory contends that personhood is a social construct or is a mere creation of society. This is because what eventually gets accepted as the criteria for moral personhood is solely a matter of social agreement. This means that personhood is not a natural kind or an intrinsic quality of an entity, as it is allegedly something merely imposed on an entity by society. A person’ on this view, is thus any entity that society recognizes as a person. Being so, personhood (or what counts as a person) may change from one society to another. ‘The gradient theory, on the other hand, claims that personhood. comes in degrees since moral persons possess the defining features of personhood in varying degrees. As entities differ in the degree in which they possess or are able to exercise the morally relevant features, their degree of personhood allegedly also differs. As such, it is meaningful to speak of an entity being a greater or a lesser moral person than another. Suppose we consider rationality as the criterion of personhood, this means that the person who is more rational has greater personhood, or is more of a person, than the person who is less rational. If both rationality and sentience were the criteria, then a person who is both rational and sentient has greater personhood than the person who is either merely rational or merely sentient. Consequently, the one with the greater personhood has moral priority over the one with the lesser one. This theory has been used to justify why, in a situation where we have to choose between the life of a mother and that of her baby in her womb, the life of the mother is to be preferred. These two theories are criticized for, among others, their problematic consequence of justifying the inhumane treatment of one group of persons by another group. For instance, in the case of the social theory, it may justify how, in the past, slaves were treated as mere properties by their masters. For this theory, the practice of slavery would be justified in societies that regarded slaves as non-persons. In the case of the gradient theory, it will justify the phenomenon of the inhumane act of ethnic cleansing, where the perpetrators think of themselves as belonging to a superior race or as having moral ascendancy over those that they exterminate. B. Moral Accountability A concept closely related to moral personhood is moral accountability. Moral agents, as discussed above, can be morally accountable for their actions towards moral patients. In discussing the nature of moral accountability, we first clarify its meaning in terms of how ir relates to the various uses of the word “responsibility” and differs from the legal kind of accountability; after which we examine the conditions for its attribution and factors influencing its degree. 30 Chapter | Moral Personhood and AccountabilityAccountability and “Responsibility” We understand accountability as the deservingness of blame or praise for the actions that we perform. Accountability is a natural product of our rationality, which consists of our reason (or intelligence) and free will (or freedom). In the practical context of performing actions, our reason enables us to distinguish between right and wrong actions, while our free will enables us to choose which action that we would like to perform. Consequently, we deserve blame for freely choosing to perform an action we know to be wrong (or for freely choosing not to perform an action we know to be right); while we deserve praise for freely choosing to perform an action we know to be right (ot for freely choosing not to perform an action we know to be wrong). ‘Two things are worth emphasizing when it comes to accountabili First, accountability involves both praise and blame (or reward and punishment), for it is usual to associate accountability with blame or punishment only (see Uniake, 2010, 602). As we put the blame on people for their wrongdoings, we should also praise them for their good deeds. Second, deservingness is not negated by actualities. A person may deserve to receive something and yet may not actually receive it. But the fact that he/she does not receive it does not negate the fact that he/she deserves to receive it. Immanuel Kant’s view on the relationship between morality and happiness sheds light on this point. According to Kant, the goal of morality is not happiness but the deservingness of happiness; and so, the morally good person is one who deserves happiness regardless of whether or not he/she is in fact happy. It may happen, for whatever reason, that the person who deserves to be happy is not actually happy; and the person who does not deserve to be happy is happy. This, however, does not change the situation that the morally good person deserves to be happy. The same holds true in the case of moral accountability. The person who deserves moral blame, for instance, may not really be experiencing the mental sufferings (such as guilt or shame) that go with moral blame. He/she may in fact be happy with the wrongdoing that he/she has intentionally done, and pethaps even feel proud about it. But this possibility does not change the fact that he/she deserves moral blame for his/her wrongdoing. Now, it is customary to use the word “accountability” interchangeably with the word “responsibility.” Aside from sharing a meaning with the word “accountability,” the word “responsibility,” however, has other meanings with which accountability may be confused. Another meaning of responsibility is causation (see Uniake, 2010, 596). Here, being responsible for something simply means being the cause of that something. The entities that can be responsible in this sense involve both inanimate entities, like storms and stones, and animate ones, like animals and humans. Thus, we sometimes say, for instance, that the storm was responsible for the floods that devastated the city; and that the lion was responsible for the death of the deer. In saying these, we simply mean that the storm caused the floods and the lion caused the death of the deer. We surely do not mean, in addition, that the storm and the lion were accountable for these events. When the cause of something is a person, say a human person, the person is usually referred to, in philosophy, as an agent (or personal agent). (In contrast, a non-personal cause, such as an inanimate object, is usually just referred to as a cause.) Being an agent is one necessary condition for accountability, in that the person accountable for an action Ethics: Theories and Applications | Unit 1 31must be the action’s agent. But there are other necessary conditions for accountability, as we shall later on discuss. Consequently, just by being an agent of an action does not immediately make someone accountable for this action. In this sense, when we say that Juan was responsible for the writings on the wall, we simply mean that Juan did the writings on the wall, or he was the agent of the said action. But it will be wrong to immediately infer from this that Juan, therefore, deserves either blame or praise for this action. [It will be recalled that in discussing moral persons, we did not state that moral agents are morally accountable for their actions, but rather can be morally accountable for such. And this is precisely because being morally accountable for actions requires conditions other than being the cause of actions.] Still, another meaning of the word “responsibility” is duty or obligation, or having certain duties or obligations towards other people (see Zimmerman, 2010, 607-08). ‘When we say that parents have certain responsibilities towards their children, we mean that parents have certain duties or obligations towards their children. This particular meaning of responsib: ty is closely related to accountability in that the act of performing and not performing one’s duties gives rise to accountability. Parents, for instance, are accountable for not performing their duties towards their children, which is what is usually meant when we say that parents are responsible for their children. Michael Zimmerman (2010, 608), in this connection, refers to responsibility understood as the possession of duties as prospective responsibility, the kind of responsibility directed towards what will or may happen. In contrast, he refers to the responsibility understood as accountability as retrospective responsibility, the kind of responsibility directed towards what had happened already. Having duties towards a person concerns future actions towards this person; but being deserving of blame or praise for an action concerns an action that has already been done. Thus, the parents’ prospective responsibility toward their children consists of actions that they have to do towards their children as a matter of duty; but their retrospective responsibility towards the same consists of actions that they have already done to their children for which they deserve blame or praise. In light of the three uses of the word “responsibility,” when we ask, “Who is responsible for this action?” (assuming that we have in mind a particular human individual), we may be asking either of the following: 1. Who causes this action? 2. Whose duty is this action? (or Who is tasked or has the obligation to do this action?) 3. Who should be blamed or praised for this action? These three questions are related in certain ways, but it is important not to confuse them. For the person who causes the action may or may not be the one tasked, or has the 32 Chapter 2 | Moral Personhood and Accountabilityobligation, to perform the action, and, consequently, may or may not deserve blame or praise for this action. Moral and Legal Accountability To further understand the nature of moral accountability, let us briefly examine what makes moral accountability different from the other types of accountability? For our purposes, let us focus on the differences moral accountability has with legal accountability. One difference is the kind of standards or principles used in ascertaining the quality (rightness or wrongness) of an act, for which one may deserve blame or praise. Legal accountability uses legal standards (laws/statutes) whereas moral accountability uses moral standards (moral rules or principles). As statues do not always embody moral rules (like laws that are discriminatory), legal accountability, likewise, does not always reflect moral accountability. Consequently, the person who deserves moral blame may not deserve legal punishment; and the person who does not deserve moral blame may deserve legal punishment, Furthermore, assuming that they embody moral rules, statutes are not always properly implemented. Consequently, the person who deserves moral blame may not be legally punished; and the person who does not deserve moral blame may be legally punished. Another difference concerns their kind of sanctions or penalties for wrongdoers. Legal sanctions for criminal offenses—especially in penal systems following the classical theory in criminal justice—are said to be external in that they come in the form of physical punishments (like being deprived of physical freedom as when one is put to jail). Moral sanctions (moral blame or fault), on the other hand, are said to be internal in that they come in the form of mental sufferings such as guilt or remorse, shame, self-hatred, low self-esteem, and the like. Conditions for Moral Accountability The conditions for moral accountability can be classified into two general sets. We shall call the first the attribution conditions (or assignment conditions) for they determine whether moral accountability can be attributed or assigned to a person for an action that he/she has done. Under this set are the incriminating conditions, which would make one morally accountable for the action under consideration; and the excusing conditions, which would spare one from moral accountability for the action under consideration. We shall call the second set the degree conditions because they determine the degree of one’s moral accountability. Under this set are the mitigating and aggravating conditions. The conditions are regarded as mitigating when they lessen the degree of one’s moral accountability; while they are regarded as aggravating when they increase it. Analysis of the degree conditions assumes that the person whose action is under consideration is held morally accountable for the action in question; what is being determined is simply the degree of his/her moral accountability. The Attribution Conditions As earlier noted, agency or causation is one necessary condition for accountability. According to the agency condition, a person is only accountable for actions in which he/she is the cause. This condition, however, is not sufficient for there are two other necessary conditions: the Ethics: Theories and Applications | Unit 1 33knowledge condition, referring to the condition in which a person knows or has the capacity to know the moral quality (the moral goodness or badness) of his/her action; and the intentionality condition, referring to the condition in which a person intends or freely chooses to perform an action he/she is doing. Taken together, these three conditions constitute the incriminating conditions . A person is accountable for an action if and only if he/she: (a) is the agent of the action; (b) knows or has the capacity to know that the action is good or bad; and (¢) intentionally performs the action. It is necessary for all these conditions to concur to make a person morally accountable for his/her action (Haksar, 1998, 5633). If at least one of them does not occur, then the petson is excused from moral accountability. In other words, moral accountability cannot be assigned to this person. The conditions in which at least one of the three attribution conditions does not occur constitute the excusing conditions for moral accountability. We may, however, refer to the absence or non-occurrence of each of the incriminating conditions as follows: non- agency for the agency condition, ignorance for the knowledge condition, and involuntariness for the intentionality condition. In this light, we can express the excusing conditions as consisting of non-agency, ignorance, and involuntariness. Now, if the non-occurrence of at least one of the incriminating conditions excuses one from moral accountability, it follows that the occurrence of at least one of the excusing conditions (being the negations of the attribution conditions) excuses one from moral accountability. Specifically, a person is not morally accountable for an action that occurred if he/she failed to have at least one of the following: (a) volition to perform the act; (b) knowledge whether the act is either good or bad (or have the capacity to know such); or (c) intention to perform the act. It might be that this person: (1) did the action and knew the action to be good or bad, but it was not his/her intention to do so; (2) did the action and intentionally did so, but he/she did not know it to be either good or bad; or (3) simply did not do the action or was not the one who did the action. The ignorance condition, however, needs some qualification and elaboration. Consider the case of a young child who mistook a real gun for a toy and, wanting to play with his older brother, shot and eventually killed the latter. The young child did not really intend to kill his older brother; he just wanted to play with him. But even if the child did want to kill his older brother, assuming it was an immediate reaction to their quarrel, he did not know yet or fully understand the immorality of killing a person. In this case, it is appropriate to excuse the child from moral accountability. But now consider the following situation. Suppose a factory manager did not or failed to do preventive measures to protect the health of his workers from the hazardous fumes emitted in his factory. As a result, a number of his workers got seriously sick. Later on, when an investigation was done, this manager explained that he did not know then that such fumes were hazardous, Should the manager be excused from accountability in virtue of his ignorance? Was this a case where the ignorance condition truly occurred? We surely would not excuse him from accountability. For not only was he capable of knowing the effects of the factory fumes on the health of his workers, but it was in fact his duty to know such things. A distinction can thus be made between the following two kinds of ignorance. The first, called blameless ignorance, refers to the kind of ignorance where the ignorant person 34 Chapter 2 | Moral Personhood and Accountabilitycannot be said to have known better, either because it is not really the duty of the person to know what he/she is ignorant of, or because the person does not have the capacity to know what he/she is supposed to know. Blameless ignorance is the excusing or exempting type of ignorance. The second, which we shall call blamefiul (or blameworthy) ignorance, refers to kind of ignorance where the ignorant person can be said to have known better, because the ignorant person has the capacity to know what he/she should have known and it is his/her duty to know it. This is an irresponsible kind of ignorance for it results from the ignorant person's negligence to do his/her duty to know certain things. Blameful ignorance is thus not an excusing kind of ignorance. In our previous examples, the ignorance of the child was blameless, while that of the factory manager was blameworthy. To further shed light on this distinction, let us briefly examine the example provided by Haksar (1998, 5633): “In order to be morally accountable, an agent does not always have to know or even have the correct opinion about what the moral requirements are. The capacity for finding out such things can be enough. For instance, some Nazis who persecuted Jews may have thought sincerely that they were doing the right thing; but if they could and should have known better, then they can be censured for moral negligence. Had they thought things through, which they could and should have done, they would have realized how wrong such acts were.” We can gather from Haksar’s remarks that it can be granted that some Nazis did not know that what they did to the Jews was morally wrong because they sincerely thought that what they were doing was right. Nonetheless, their ignorance does not excuse them from their moral accountability, for they could and thus should have known better. They did not think things through, of which they were very much capable. This then was a case of blameful ignorance. But what determines whether a person should know better in a given situation? The following considerations are helpful: Does the person have the capacity to know what he/she ought to know in a given situation? And given the person's role in a given situation, is it his/her duty to know what ought to be known in such a situation? What determines one’s capacity to know can vary depending on the nature of the given situation. Tt can include maturity, mental health, and access to relevant information. On the other hand, what determines one’s duty to know is one’s role in a given situation. For instance, being a factory manager, to know whether the fumes emitted in one’s factory are toxic or detrimental to the health of the workers is within the range of information that one in that position has the duty to know. The Degree Conditions Moral accountability comes in degrees. Some of the circumstances surrounding the actions we have knowingly and intentionally performed affect the degree of our moral accountability for these actions. We refer to these circumstances or factors as the degree conditions of moral accountability. When these conditions tend to lessen the degree of moral accountability, they are regarded as mitigating; but when they tend to increase such degree, they are regarded as aggravating. There are four such conditions (see Velasquez, 2014, 60-61). The first is the degree of knowledge of the moral wrongfulness of the action along with the relevant facts related to the action. Here, the more knowledgeable a person Ethics: Theosies and Applications | Unit 35is, the greater is his/her moral accountability. The less knowledgeable a person is, the lesser is his/her moral accountability. Suppose, for instance, that a defective design of a certain kind of car resulted in accidents which killed and seriously injured some people, During the investigation, it was found out that an employee overseeing the manufacture of the cars and the chief engineer, who headed the committee that designed the car, knew about the defective design of the car; but they connived to hide the information from the management. Given that both are accountable for the incidents that resulted, who deserved a higher degree of accountability? From the viewpoint of who understood the seriousness of the defective car design and the risks it entailed more, the chief engineer would have a higher degree of accountability than the employee. ‘The second is the degree of pressure ot difficulty in life that forces one to perform a wrongdoing. There are moments where we feel forced to do certain actions we know to be morally wrong. Becatise we know such actions to be morally wrong and choose to perform them anyway, we are then morally accountable for these actions. But the degree of pressure (or the difficulty in life that we are addressing) that leads us to perform such actions affects the degree of our moral accountability. Here, the greater the pressure, the lesser the moral responsibility. The lesser the pressure, the greater the moral accountability. Thus, suppose two people were guilty of stealing the same amount of money. One did it to pay for the operation of his daughter suffering from a serious ailment. The other did it to be buy an expensive gadget for his own enjoyment and pleasure. Given that both were accountable for their actions, who had the higher or lesser degree of accountability? The one who stole to be able to pay for the medical operation did it under a greater pressure or difficulty in life, and thus have a lesser degree of accountability. The third is the degree of the intensity (or seriousness) of the injury caused by the wrongdoing. The greater the intensity of the injury, the greater the moral accountability. ‘The lesser the intensity of the injury, the lesser the moral accountability. Again, suppose two people stole the same amount of money. One stole it from someone who intended to use the money to pay for the operation of his/her ailing daughter, The other one stole it from someone who intended to use the money to buy an expensive gadget for his/her own enjoyment and pleasure. Who had the higher degree of accountability? The intensity of the injury caused by the one who stole the money from the petson who intended to use the money to pay for the operation of his/her ailing daughter was greater compared to the other one who also stole the same amount of money from the person who intended to use the money for personal pleasure. Thus, the former person deserved a greater degree of accountability. (In the novel Les Miserables, Jean Valjean stole a loaf of bread from a bakery. His moral accountability would have been greater if he had stolen it from a poor person who had it for his family’s dinner.) ‘The fourth is the degree of involvement (ot participation) in a group or collective act of moral wrongdoing, The greater the involvement, the greater the moral accountability. ‘The lesser the involvement, the lesser the moral accountability. This condition explains why the accountability of an accomplice, one who helps someone accomplish the latter's criminal intention, is lesser than that of the principal criminal, the one who actually and directly does the criminal act. 36 Chapter | Moral Personhood and AccountabilitySummary In this chapter, we examined the nature of two related concepts, namely moral personhood and moral accountability. Moral judgments concern the actions of moral persons; for it is to them that moral principles properly apply. Moral persons are minimally defined as the bearers of moral rights; for while all moral persons have moral rights, some also have moral duties. Having moral rights and/or duties are what is entailed by being moral persons. Moral persons are classified as either moral patients, when they act as the receivers of morally evaluable actions; or moral agents, when they act as the sources or doers of morally evaluable actions. More specifically, moral persons are either agentive, when they can act as moral agents; or non-agentive when they can only be moral patients. There ate various theories of personhood that advance different criteria for moral personhood. But based on the moral agent-moral patient distinction and the three ethical theories of consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics, the morally relevant qualities for moral personhood are sentience, rationality, and relationality. An approach that disjunctively combines these three qualities proves to be most reasonable given the two considerations. Moral accountability, on the other hand, refers to the deservingness of moral blame or praise for the actions one has performed. Though closely related, accountability differs from the other meanings of responsibility—pertaining to causation and possession of duties. Moral accountability differs from legal accountability in terms of their standards (moral and legal standards, respectively) and their sanctions (internal for moral accountability and external for legal accountability). The conditions of moral accountability concern their attribution and determination of degrees. With regard to their attribution, the incriminating conditions are agency, knowledge, and intentionality; while the excusing ones are non-agency, ignorance, and involuntariness. With regard to the determination of degrees, the conditions consist of degree of knowledge, pressure, intensity of wrongdoing, and degree of involvement. These conditions are mitigating when they tend to lessen the degree of accountability; while they are aggravating when they tend to increase it. There are, needless to say, some issues about moral personhood that are still being debated and resolved by moral philosophers. These issues include whether potential persons should already be treated as having moral rights (see, for instance, Tooley, 2009 and Warren, 2009), and whether collectivities (like the corporations) should be treated as having moral duties (see related discussions in the chapter on business ethics). With regard to moral accountability, there are still discussions on how to account for the influence of luck or circumstances not within the control of agents in the determination ofaccountability (the phenomenon called moral luck). Ethics isan on-going philosophical investigation of the nature of morality, As we come to know more about the nature of things and as we face emerging realities brought about by technological developments, we need to continuously re-examine our ethical beliefs, such as our belief on which should be included in the community of moral persons. Exhies: Theories and Applications | Unit 1 a7_ Review Questions 38 1 2. 3. 4. yy Compare and contrast the two kinds of moral persons. Identify and explain the kinds of rights. Give examples for illustration. Differentiate the various approaches to moral personhood. Identify and explain the necessary conditions for the attribution of moral accountability. Give examples for illustration. Identify and explain the factors or conditions that affect the degree of one’s moral accountability. Give examples for illustration. Discussion Questions Are all human beings moral persons? Explai Are all moral persons human beings? Explain. When a person does not appear to feel shame or guilt or show remorse for a wrongdoing that he/she has freely and knowingly done, would it still matter to say that he/she is morally accountable for his/her wrongdoing? Explain. Do you think that intelligent machines can be held morally accountable for their actions that injure humans? Explain. Do factors beyond our control, like our social environment, biological make-up, and the particular situations we find ourselves in (like being in the wrong place at the wrong time), significantly affect our moral accountability for our actions? Explain. Refer to the play Oedipus Rex by Sophocles. Do you find Oedipus morally accountable for killing his father and marrying his mother? Defend your answer. Refer to Jose Rizal’s novel Noli Me Tangere. In the story, Ibarra was arrested for insurrection and the evidence used against him was a letter he gave to Maria Clara. For some reasons, Maria Clara gave his letter to the authorities. Do you find Maria Clara morally accountable for the arrest of Ibarra? If yes, how would you evaluate the degree of her moral accountability given the conditions surrounding her act? Chapter 2:| Moral Personhood and Accountability