Ethics and the problem of subjectness criteria

The article discusses a problem that straddles normative ethics and metaethics. This problem is the domain of moral judgment. My first thesis is that moral rules are meaningful only in a world where subjects, or selves, exist. In a world where there are no subjects (however we define a subject), or in a world where there is only one subject, ethics is impossible. The argument for the thesis is that moral rules can only be instantiated in the form of judgments that include terms referring to (1) subjects, or (2) subjects' interests (such as survival, avoiding suffering, happiness and the good life). If this condition is not met, then moral judgments lack their domain. It follows that the existence of other subjects is a necessary (but maybe not sufficient) condition for making any moral judgment, and hence for moral philosophy. My second thesis is that the definition of subject ought to be a fundamental issue for ethics. To define subject means to set necessary and sufficient conditions, on the basis of which we can determine the truth of any proposition of the type x is a subject for any thing x. This definition determines what kind of creatures we include in our moral concerns. Finally, I briefly discuss various models of subjectivity: biographical, self-conscious, perspectival and minimal-experiential subjectivity. Biographical subjects (i.e. most people) are able to combine elements of knowledge about themselves into more or less coherent causal sequences - biographical narratives. I raise the problem of the criterion on the basis of which people tend to arrange different subject-types into the hierarchy of moral concern. Elements of subject-types low on the hierarchy are either denied moral concern or treated as secondary therein. My hypothesis is that it happens on the basis of species-similarity (based on shared biological characteristics or belonging to the same species) and/or subjectivity-similarity (based on belonging to the same subject-type). As biographical subjects, we believe that we must first and foremost take care of other biographical subjects; as members of the species H.s. we must care about its other members. If that is true it is unclear why the shared subject-type serves as the basis for justifiable moral concern. How can similarity be justified as a criterion for moral concern? I conclude that moral concern on the bases of species-similarity and/or subjectivity-similarity is devoid of explicit philosophical justification. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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