Morality, Modality, and Humans with Deep Cognitive Impairments

Bibliographic Data

ID4795660
AuthorsWilliam Gildea (0000-0003-0885-1056, University of Warwick, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume74
Issue2
Pages546-568
Publication date2024-03-29
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Philosophical Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0031-8094 • E-ISSN: 1467-9213
PublisherOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/pq/pqad081
OpenAlexW4386818965
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited30

Philosophers struggle to explain why human beings with deep cognitive impairments have a higher moral status than certain non-human animals. Modal personism promises to solve this problem. It claims that humans who lack the capacities of "personhood" and the potential to develop them nonetheless could have been persons. I argue that modal personism has poor prospects because it's hard to see how we could offer a plausible account of modal personhood. I search for an adequate understanding of modal personhood by considering existing accounts and sketching new ones. But each account fails, either because it objectionably excludes some deeply cognitively impaired humans from the class of modal persons or because it makes modal personhood doubtfully relevant to moral status. And the modal personist cannot solve this problem by appealing to the misfortune suffered by modal persons

Cognition · Epistemology · Modal · Modality (human–computer interaction · Morality · Personhood · Sociology · Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science · Free Will and Agency · Neuroethics, Human Enhancement, Biomedical Innovations · Neuroscience · Philosophy · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment

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