James Okapal

A common interpretation of Philip K. Dick’s texts _Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?_ and _We Can Build You_ is that they attempt to answer the question “What does it mean to be human?” Unfortunately, these interpretations fail to deal with the fact that the term “human” has both metaphysical and moral connotations. Metaphysical meanings associated with theories of human nature and moral meanings associated with theories of moral status are thus blurred in the novels and in the literature that discusses them. This is problematic on many levels. The conclusion argued for in this paper is that we should carefully disentangle these meanings. Doing so has many benefits, both for literary criticism and moral philosophy. For literary criticism, disentanglement helps solve some puzzling elements of the texts that are unlikely to be solved if the entanglements are not undone. Furthermore, disentangling the moral and the metaphysical meanings of “human” provides an opportunity to showcase how theories of moral status can be used as an interpretive lens. For moral philosophy, exploring the entanglements of the novels can suggest new ideas about which non-humans—animals, robots, artificial intelligence—are part of the moral community. Finally, disentangling these meanings highlights problems that arise when one assumes that answers to metaphysical questions entail clear moral answers to questions about moral status.

To understand Rey's search for relationships and community one can make use of Aristotle's theory of friendship, which has three forms: friendships of utility, of pleasure, and of virtue. Friendships for the sake of virtue differ from the other two forms of friendship. These imperfect friendships are fundamentally self‐regarding and often short‐lived. Intimate friendships include values of virtue, pleasure, or usefulness. In the Star Wars universe, characters make choices about both these intimate and wider communities, and in doing so choose a set of values. If the choice of an intimate relationship is also a choice of a wider community and the community's values, the weight of such a choice becomes apparent. Rey's choice to claim the Skywalker name is significant as she's making a choice between two communities with irreconcilable values: the Jedi and the Sith.

The narrative world of the Alien universe is shot through with self‐interested motivations, many of which focus on money. Employees do not have Full Moral Status (FMS), but from the point of view of managers they are valuable assets, i.e., have instrumental value for what they can do to maximize profits. The company, or its agents, repeatedly violates the stringent restrictions on harming beings normally considered to have FMS. There are indications that Carter Burke tried to impregnate Ripley in Aliens by pushing a Facehugger onto her in the lab. This chapter questions what sort of protections would the crews of the Nostromo, Sulaco, and Prometheus have if stockholder theory were rejected. There are at least three different theories people can use to evaluate how each iteration of Weyland Industries treats its employees in the Alien films. These include stockholder theory, libertarian theories, and stakeholder theory.

The introduction to J. K. Rowling's short book "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" asks the question 'What is a beast?" This article looks at how the fictional narrative of this introduction struggles with different ways of distinguishing beasts from beings, i.e. determining the grounds of moral considerabiilty of non-human animals. The text settles on psychological characteristics as the key grounds, but puts forth a false dichotomy Kantian view that objects are either persons or things. The solution is to recognize a third category, moral patient.

Individuals who share friendships for utility or pleasure, Aristotle says, do not love each other in themselves, but in so far as some benefit accrues to them from each other. Friendships for utility aren't limited to business transactions, though. It's possible for Data to form relationships in order to achieve some other goal. An android without emotions is incapable of caring for another. Friendships can also be formed for the sake of pleasure and mutual enjoyment during communal activities. Friendship and consequentialism are psychologically incompatible, for the only states of mind relevant to assessing the value of an act's consequences are states like purposes, goals, and desires. There are multiple forms of friendship, which require emotion. There's a difference between acting out of friendship and acting for the sake of the friendship or some other goal, which suggests that genuine friendships can't be accommodated by consequentialist ways of thinking.

Theories about moral status help answer a variety of questions about events that occur throughout the Star Wars saga. This chapter examines what counts as merely a “thing” in the Star Wars galaxy. It highlights that moral relevance identifies the properties a creature must have in order to be morally considerable; it also determines the creature's degree of moral significance. Theories of moral relevance, understood in terms of the properties a creature must have to be morally valuable, fall into two important categories: those that focus on physical properties and those that focus on psychological properties. The chapter analyzes the numerous moral status issues that emerge in the Star Wars galaxy. In particular, the story of the Zillo Beast confronts us with questions about moral considerability, significance, and relevance.

During the 2020 US Open, Novak Djokovic was defaulted form the tournament for violating the Abuse of Balls Rule. Djokovic, in anger, hit a ball toward the back wall of the court, hitting an official. This was unintentional, i.e., a stroke of bad luck. This article uses the incident to discuss the nature of moral luck. In the end, the officials who let similar behavior by Djokovic be ignored, bear some responsibility for Djokovic's morally questionable behavior. More generally, officials who are entrusted with making judgments may have more responsibility for the outcomes of their silence than they want to recognize

Some have criticized pluralistic theories as failing to be decisive, in other words, pluralistic theories fail to produce judgments that are rational and justified. The argument starts by claiming that if a theory has neither the ability to justify actions through comparison nor the ability to guarantee a single answer about what one ought to do, then the theory is not decisive. The argument identifies the source of these failings in the pluralists commitment to incomparability and non-reductionism. I argue that pluralistic theories can be comparativist and that the demand for a single right answer is too stringent. Thus, it is possible for there to be rational, justified decisions in the presence of a plurality of factors

What is the relationship between moral status and moral agency. A Kantian holds that agency is necessary and sufficient for having moral status. However, in the two Blade Runner movies, the opposite is suggested. Each film ends with a replicant performing an act of kindness towards Rick Dekard. Each time, the replicant is acting morally in a way that was thought impossible. This article argues that within the narrative world of the movies, this flips the relationship between moral status and moral agency: you achieve moral agency by having and exercising the capacity to grant moral status to others.

How can we understand the way the Weyland Corporation in the Alien Franchise devalues its employees? How can we explain our repulsion at such treatment. This article surveys several foundations for the the employee-employer relationship including stockholder theory, stockholder theory, and libertarian theories. The stockholder theory may be the operating view of the corporation, but is is morally questionable due to refusing to grant employees full moral status. The libertarian view is willing to grant employees full moral status, but in attempting to morally justify poor treatment of employees, it relies on several unworkable assumptions highlighted by A. Hirschman's theory about exit, voice and loyalty. Stakeholder theory provides the foundation for understanding and condemning the poor treatment of employees in the Alien Franchise.

The first episode of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law raises questions concerning the moral responsibilities of superpowered individuals. It suggests that such individuals have a duty of beneficence towards others. But, to be a superhero requires that you perform acts that go beyond duty, i.e,, supererogatory acts. These two ideas, however, seem to be in tension: if you have a duty of beneficence than it is not clear that any of your actions can be supererogatory. A way between this apparent dilemma is to reconceptualize the actions of superheroes as making choices worthy of esteem that improve the character of the superhero.

The Harry Potter Cinematic Universe is a fertile ground for philosophical cultivation. In this essay, the films are used to explain and expand upon Aristotle’s theory of friendship. Aristotle’s theory identifies three types of friendship: friendships for virtue, pleasure, and utility. The Harry Potter films, however, suggest a modification of this view to allow for five types of friendships. Throughout the series we see that friendships for pleasure and utility come in both beneficent and maleficent forms. A key element in this distinction is whether the motivations for forming these friendships are other-regarding or self- regarding.

Ruth Chang views rational choice as a comparison between the properties borne by the objects under consideration. According to her Comprehensive Value Approach , each choice situation is rationally resolved by a single value that determines the choice for that situation. This CVA is supposedly distinct from Orthodox Approaches that deny the necessity of comprehensive values in rational choice. Chang’s defense of the CVA depends on specific issues, namely, features of choice situations, the problem of fragmentation, and the problem of the unity of values. According to Chang, the CVA, but not the OA, can adequately address these issues. Unfortunately, regardless of whether we take Chang’s arguments as defending a cautious conclusion that the Comprehensive Value Approach is a prima facie plausible view of rational choice or a bold conclusion that there are defects in the OA not found in CVA, the arguments are insufficient to support these conclusions