Is Moral Status Done with Words? A Reply to Coeckelbergh’s Performative View of Moral Status

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

Abstract

This paper critically examines Coeckelbergh’s (2023) performative view of moral status. Drawing parallels to Searle’s social ontology, two key claims of the performative view are identified: (1) Making a moral status claim is equivalent to making a moral status declaration. (2) A successful declaration establishes the institutional fact that the entity has moral status. Closer examination, however, reveals flaws in both claims. The second claim faces a dilemma: individual instances of moral status declaration are likely to fail because they do not conform to established moral discourse conventions, and reliance on declarations becomes both unnecessary and implausible for explaining widespread collective recognition of moral status. As for the first claim, accepting it undermines the potential for meaningful moral disagreement. As a remedy, this paper proposed a shift in perspective: interpreting moral status claims as assertions rather than declarations. This refined perspective provides a more plausible framework for understanding moral status and avoids the pitfalls associated with the performative view.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number10
Number of pages11
JournalEthics and Information Technology
Volume26 (2024)
Issue number1
Publication statusPublished - 6 Feb 2024
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

ORCID /0000-0003-1654-1111/work/162845443
Scopus 85187162606

Keywords

Keywords

  • Coeckelbergh, Declaration, Moral Status, Performativity, Searle, Speech Act Theory