The argument from marginal cases is used in animal ethics to challenge the assumption that all and only human beings possess full moral status. It observes that whatever characteristic is proposed as the ground of that status, such as rationality, self-awareness or language use, is lacking in certain human beings sometimes called marginal cases, including infants, the severely cognitively disabled and people in a permanent coma, even though these humans are still granted moral status. Since some non-human animals meet these same criteria at least as well as marginal-case humans do, the argument concludes that consistency requires either extending comparable moral status to those animals or withdrawing it from the marginal-case humans, a dilemma pressed by philosophers such as Peter Singer against any sharp species-based line drawn around moral status.
Facts
Origin YearSourced to the subject's own accountApproximate 3rd-century CE dating of Porphyrys treatise; the argument saw a separate modern revival in the 1970s by writers including Peter Singer and James Rachels, per the same source. Classification
Position KindSourced to the subject's own account Sources
1. Argument from Marginal Cases (Wikipedia)
WikipediaArgument from marginal cases (Wikipedia), on Porphyry
Daniel Dombrowski writes that the argument can be traced to Porphyrys third-century treatise On Abstinence from Eating Animals.
Argument from marginal cases (Wikipedia), introduction
The argument from marginal cases (also known as the argument from species overlap) is a philosophical argument within animal rights theory regarding the moral status of non-human animals.
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