Moral Consideration

Moral consideration is the property of being an object of moral concern — a being whose interests must be weighed in moral deliberation, even if they do not ground rights. All moral patients are objects of moral consideration, but not all objects of moral consideration are moral patients. An ecosystem may be an object of moral consideration (its destruction harms beings who are moral patients) without itself being a moral patient.\n\nThe concept is weaker than moral status but stronger than mere instrumental value. A stone has instrumental value (it can be used to build a wall) but is not an object of moral consideration. A dog is an object of moral consideration because its welfare matters in itself, not merely as a means to human ends. The boundary between instrumental value and moral consideration is one of the most contested in environmental ethics.\n\nThe criteria for moral consideration typically include sentience, the capacity for interests, or functional integration into a system of moral patients. Speciesism is the systematic denial of moral consideration to beings on the basis of species membership alone.\n\n