Ahlaki Statü Kavramı ve Teorileri

Öz

Ahlaki statüye (ahlaki konuma veya ahlaki öneme) sahip olmak, ahlaki faillerin ahlaki yükümlülüklere sahip olduğu veya sahip olabileceği bir varlık olmaktır. Ahlaki statüye sahip varlıklar belirli ahlaki haklara sahiptirler; onlara ahlaken yanlışlık yapılabilir. Kavram, 1970lerdeki tıbbi etik, hayvan etiği ve çevre etiğiyle ilgili uygulamalı etik tartışmalarından doğmuştur. Sonrasında o, uygulamalı etiğin başta biyoetik olmak üzere tartışmalarında önem taşımaya devam etmiştir. Hangi varlıkların, hangi gerekçelerle ahlaki statüye sahip olduğu konusunda birçok ahlaki statü teorisi ileri sürülmüştür. Bu çalışmada, ahlaki statü kavramını ve teorilerini inceleyeceğiz. Bunun için çalışmayı üç bölüme ayıracağız. İlk bölümde ahlaki statü kavramının tanımını, ortaya çıkışını ve önemini inceleyeceğiz. Daha sonraki bölümde ahlaki statü teorilerini, düzeyli ile düzeyli olmayan, dereceli ile dereceli olmayan ve tek-kriterli ile çok-kriterli olarak sınıflandırarak inceleyeceğiz. Son bölümdeyse, bu türleri karşılaştırarak değerlendirmeye çalışacağız. Bu değerlendirme sonucunda, dereceli ahlaki statü teorilerinin, dereceli olmayan ahlaki statü teorilerine göre daha makul gibi göründüğünü iddia edeceğiz.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Ahlaki statü
• ahlaki konum
• ahlaki önem
• biyoetik
• uygulamalı etik

The Concept and Theories of Moral Status

Abstract

To have moral status (moral standing or moral consideration) is to be an entity toward which moral agents have or can have moral obligations. Beings of moral status have certain moral rights; morally wrong can be done to them. The concept has emerged from applied ethics discussions about medical ethics, animal ethics, and environmental ethics in the 1970s. Subsequently it continued to be important in discussions of applied ethics, particularly bioethics. Many moral status theories have been put forward as to which entities have moral status on what grounds. In this paper, we will examine the concept and theories of moral status. For this, we will divide the study into three parts. In the first part, we will examine the definition, emergence and importance of the concept of moral status. In the next section, we will examine the theories of moral status by categorizing them into graded and non-graded, degreed and non-degreed, and uni-criterial and multi-criterial. In the last part, we will try to evaluate these types by comparing them. As a result of this assessment, we will argue that degreed theories of moral status seem more plausible than non-degreed theories of moral status.

Keywords

• moral status
• moral standing
• moral consideration
• bioethics
• applied ethics

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