M. Coeckelbergh 
Growing Moral Relations 
Critique of Moral Status Ascription

New scientific and technological developments challenge us to reconsider our moral world order. This book offers an original philosophical approach to this issue: it makes a distinctive contribution to the development of a relational approach to moral status by re-defining the problem in a social and phenomenological way.

Table of Content

Acknowledgements Introduction – The Problem of Moral Status PART I: MORAL ONTOLOGIES: FROM INDIVIDUAL TO RELATIONAL DOGMAS Individual Properties Appearance and Virtue Relations: Communitarian and Metaphysical Relations: Natural and Social Relations: Hybrid and Environmental Conclusion Part I: Diogenes’s Challenge PART II: MORAL STATUS ASCRIPTION AND ITS CONDITIONS OF POSSIBILITY: A TRANSCENDENTAL ARGUMENT Words and Sentences: Forms of Language Use Societies and Cultures (1): Forms of Living Together Societies and Cultures (2): Forms of Life Bodies and Things: Forms of Feeling and Making Spirits and Gods: Forms of Religion Fences, Walls, and Maps: Forms of Historical Space Moral Metamorphosis: Concluding the Transcendental Argument General Conclusion References Index

About the author

MARK COECKELBERGH teaches philosophy at the University of Twente, The Netherlands, and is member of the 3TU. Centre for Ethics and Technology. He is the author of
Liberation and Passion (2002),
The Metaphysics of Autonomy (2004),
Imagination and Principles (2007), and numerous journal articles on ethics, including ethics of information technology and robotics, medical ethics, and environmental ethics.