Reification as a vice: rethinking bioethics beyond moral status
TL;DR
This paper argues for an expansion of moral concern in bioethics beyond sentience-based and status-based frameworks, and reconceive reification not just as a social pathology but as a moral vice: a disordered, objectifying mode of perception.
Abstract
In this paper, I argue for an expansion of moral concern in bioethics beyond sentience-based and status-based frameworks. Drawing on Lukács' and Honneth's work on reification, I show that even where the sentience, species membership, or moral status of an entity is unknown, there are compelling ethical reasons to be concerned about the creation, manipulation, and use of such entities. I reconceive reification not just as a social pathology but as a moral vice: a disordered, objectifying mode of perception. Understood in this way, reification provides a flexible normative framework that applies across a wide range of entities, including humans, non-human animals, plants, ecosystems, and even inanimate objects. This vice-based approach helps explain why certain modes of interaction are ethically flawed regardless of the moral status of the entity in question. This facilitates a more inclusive ethical sensibility suited to emerging biotechnologies and the ecological challenges that pose an increasingly complex challenge for bioethics.