Reification as a vice

Rethinking bioethics beyond moral status

Bibliographic Data

ID24226914
AuthorsAnna Smajdor (0000-0002-9752-6302)
Year2026
Volume47
Issue6
Pages523-541
Publication date2026-12-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueMetamedicine (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0166-2031 • E-ISSN: 1573-1200
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1007/s11017-026-09768-z
PMID42625118
OpenAlexW7203872586
LanguageEN
References cited46

In this paper, I argue for an expansion of moral concern in bioethics beyond sentience-based and status-based frameworks. Drawing on Lukács' and Honneth's work on reification, I show that even where the sentience, species membership, or moral status of an entity is unknown, there are compelling ethical reasons to be concerned about the creation, manipulation, and use of such entities. I reconceive reification not just as a social pathology but as a moral vice: a disordered, objectifying mode of perception. Understood in this way, reification provides a flexible normative framework that applies across a wide range of entities, including humans, non-human animals, plants, ecosystems, and even inanimate objects. This vice-based approach helps explain why certain modes of interaction are ethically flawed regardless of the moral status of the entity in question. This facilitates a more inclusive ethical sensibility suited to emerging biotechnologies and the ecological challenges that pose an increasingly complex challenge for bioethics.

Bioethics · ecosystems · emerging biotechnologies · Environmental ethics · Georg Lukács · Honneth · inanimate objects · moral concern · moral status · moral vices · non-human animals · Objectification · Plants · Reification · Sentience · species membership · Bioethics and Human Rights Issues · Ethics and bioethics in healthcare · Philosophical Ethics and Theory