Is Moral Status Done with Words? A Reply to Coeckelbergh’s Performative View of Moral Status
Research output: Contribution to journal › Research article › Contributed › peer-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 language | English |
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Article number | 10 |
Number of pages | 11 |
Journal | Ethics and Information Technology |
Volume | 26 (2024) |
Issue number | 1 |
Publication status | Published - 6 Feb 2024 |
Peer-reviewed | Yes |
External IDs
ORCID | /0000-0003-1654-1111/work/162845443 |
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Scopus | 85187162606 |
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Keywords
- Coeckelbergh, Declaration, Moral Status, Performativity, Searle, Speech Act Theory