What about infants who haven’t formed such representations or patients with severe impairment in minimally conscious states who can no longer form such representations?
I doubt infants are conscious and thus they are only indirectly morally important as in the future they will eventually become moral patients. ‘patients with severe impairment in minimally conscious states who can no longer form such representations’ People who could not form such representations would be complete vegetables, an example of such humans are people born without a cortex, and probably at least affectively speaking people with severe akinetic mutism. In the second case again like the infant, they will eventually regain such representations and so are indirectly morally relevant.
I understand this to mean that we care not only about current moral patients but also about potential ones, such as the infants and impaired patients. That would be consistent with people caring about embryos, but it would also match seeds and eggs of all kinds, which seem less clearly matching intuitions.
What about infants who haven’t formed such representations or patients with severe impairment in minimally conscious states who can no longer form such representations?
I doubt infants are conscious and thus they are only indirectly morally important as in the future they will eventually become moral patients. ‘patients with severe impairment in minimally conscious states who can no longer form such representations’ People who could not form such representations would be complete vegetables, an example of such humans are people born without a cortex, and probably at least affectively speaking people with severe akinetic mutism. In the second case again like the infant, they will eventually regain such representations and so are indirectly morally relevant.
I understand this to mean that we care not only about current moral patients but also about potential ones, such as the infants and impaired patients. That would be consistent with people caring about embryos, but it would also match seeds and eggs of all kinds, which seem less clearly matching intuitions.