The Evolution of Moral Standing Without Supervenience

Abstract

Abstract There is an alternative to the type of moral standing that hypothetically supervenes on other, base or subvenient, properties. Attributed moral standing results when people who have a naturally selected belief that they are worthy of moral consideration negotiate with others with the aim of being acknowledged as having moral standing and are successful. They could successfully negotiate with people who possessed supervenient moral standing. In a hypothetical evolutionary competition with the latter, they would replace them entirely. The result would be a moral community that excludes animals but that includes human infants. Membership in the moral community ends up being what it would be if moral standing supervened on the property of being human. The supervenience doctrine is also criticized on other grounds.