Abstract

Our moral valuation of nonhuman and human beings alike may arise in sympathy, the realization in feeling of a significant commonality between self and others; in scrupulous observance of policy, the affirmation in practical consistency of a system of relations with others; and in piety, the attitude of boundless appreciation and absolute scruple with respect to objects as sacred - that is, as valued for the sake of adequate valuation of the holy. Differences between the moral status of humans and that of nonhumans are to be explained not by any single criterion such as the capacity to suffer or to make contracts, but rather by finding the relative positions of humans and nonhumans on continua of feelable commonality, policy considerateness, and sacredness. Investigation of these differences must take into account the way basic religious apprehensions (or the absence thereof) organize these frames of reference.