Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 What Is Moral Status and Why Does It Matter?
- 2 How Is Moral Status Determined?
- 3 Selecting Criteria of Moral Status
- 4 Problems in Applying a Multicriteria Approach
- 5 Applying a Multicriteria Moral Status Test to Adults and Children
- 6 Legal, Policy, and Moral Implications of Children's Superiority
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
5 - Applying a Multicriteria Moral Status Test to Adults and Children
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 November 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 What Is Moral Status and Why Does It Matter?
- 2 How Is Moral Status Determined?
- 3 Selecting Criteria of Moral Status
- 4 Problems in Applying a Multicriteria Approach
- 5 Applying a Multicriteria Moral Status Test to Adults and Children
- 6 Legal, Policy, and Moral Implications of Children's Superiority
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Crabbed Age and Youth
Cannot live together:
Youth is full of pleasance,
Age is full of care;
Youth like summer morn,
Age like winter weather;
Youth like summer brave,
Age like winter bare.
Youth is full of sport,
Age's breath is short;
Youth is nimble, Age is lame;
Youth is hot and bold,
Age is weak and cold;
Youth is wild, and Age is tame.
Age, I do abhor thee;
Youth, I do adore thee;
O, my Love, my Love is young!
Age, I do defy thee;
O, sweet shepherd, hie thee!
For methinks thou stay'st too long.
William Shakespeare (1599)Everything is good as it leaves the hands of the Author of things; everything degenerates in the hands of man.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1762/1979, 37)Past and present cultural practices suggest it is reasonable to suppose that the moral status of any particular being can change over time. In particular, as noted at the outset, humans have historically been ascribed a lower moral status in their childhood than in their adulthood. As another example, many philosophers accept that a human's moral status can change as a result of losing conscious experience (i.e., by falling into a coma or persistent vegetative state). Based on the account of moral status developed in the preceding chapters, I consider here whether a change in moral status generally occurs between childhood and adulthood, or in the course of losing youthful characteristics, that is actually in a direction opposite to what has historically been supposed – that is, that aging amounts to a decline rather than an ascendance.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Moral Status and Human LifeThe Case for Children's Superiority, pp. 145 - 187Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010