Operationalising Moral Status
Approaching a Pragmatic Spectrum
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21598189 |
|---|---|
| Authors | David R Lawrence (0000-0002-8152-9410, Durham University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 34 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 608-622 |
| Publication date | 2025-10-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0963-1801 • E-ISSN: 1469-2147 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0963180126100115 |
| PMID | 42011103 |
| OpenAlex | W7155058672 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 31 |
Legal and ethical frameworks remain dominated by a broadly binary conception of moral status as the primary organising idea: entities are typically treated either as persons, with extensive rights, or as things, with at best limited protections. While many jurisdictions now recognise animal welfare and anti-cruelty duties, these measures generally stop short of acknowledging independent full moral status. This landscape is ill-suited to the diversity of entities whose capacities challenge existing categories, from nonhuman animals to unprecedented beings. This article proposes a pragmatic spectrum of moral status, conceptualised as a continuous gradient on which entities can be located according to their morally relevant capacities. Grounded in a triangulation of established ethical theories, the framework is structured by three anchor thresholds—sentience, consciousness, and sapience—allowing graduated protections to “kick in” at different points. The spectrum is applied using a multimodal approach to measurement, demonstrating how it can guide governance where current law leaves a vacuum. By moving beyond the person/thing distinction with a capacity-based continuum, this approach offers a flexible, anticipatory tool for recognising and responding to the moral claims of diverse entities while avoiding both overreach and neglect
Broad spectrum · Corporate governance · Grounded theory · Moral dilemma · Triangulation · Environmental law and policy · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Philosophical Ethics and Theory
Metacognition in nonhuman primates
Moral Status As a Matter of Degree?
An information integration theory of consciousness
The Historic Background of Corporate Legal Personality
Chimpanzees
Episodic-like memory during cache recovery by scrub jays
Consciousness
Moral Status
Regulating the Tyrell Corporation
What Is It Like to Be a Bat
Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves
| Highly cited | No |
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