Problems with pragmatic approaches to setting a moral scope

Abstract

In Towards Justice and Virtue and "Distant Strangers, Moral Standing, and State Boundaries, "Onora O´Neil argues that questions of the form "To whom is one obliged to accord ethical treatment?" may be decides based purely on the actions of the agent in question. In particular, she claims that metaphysical accounts of personhood are not necessary to set a moral scope and that such accounts have failed in any case. While there can be no doubt that no account of personhood has achieved unanious acceptance, her account is found wanting based on the observation that actions are not sufficiente to separate all of those within our moral scope from aal of those outside it. Indeed, clear examples of entities not deserving ethical treatment fall under her umbrella of protection. Solving this problem requires just what she seeks to exclude from her theory - an account of personhood. By paper´s end, ir should be clear that any theory based purel y on the actions of agents will be insufficient to separate all the ethical wheat from chaff.