Talk:Argument from marginal cases

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November 2006

Two things to do for this page: Daniel Dombrowski's Babies and Beasts cites the person who originally articulated the Argument From Marginal Cases (at least in modern times in the West), and that should be noted here. Also, something should be mentioned in articles about animal liberation philosophy that links to this page. Thanks for creating this page. -Unnyn 19:46, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Slippery Slope

Its proponents hold that if animals do not have direct moral status due to their lack of rationality or other psychic ability, then neither do other members of society such as infants, the senile, the comatose, and the cognitively disabled, since there is no known ability that those marginal-case humans have that other animals lack.

I changed this second sentence of the article, because if one expresses the argument in this way, one should not wonder if one is opposed by slippery-slope-arguments. With the argument from marginal cases, one does certainly NOT want to prove that marginal case humans lack a moral status, but that if they do, which is accepted by the majority of people, then animals do, too. What use would it have for a philosopher of animal rights to prove that animals don't have a moral status?

My English isn't as good as it used to be, so if I accidentally changed the meaning of the sentence, please correct my mistakes. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.51.168.178 (talk) 10:01, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

--Owi 09:51, 18 June 2010 (UTC)