Question

How are moral agency and moral status related?

Answer 1

Moral agency is an individual's ability to make moral judgments based on some commonly held notion of right and wrong and to be held accountable for these actions. Moral agency is the sole basis for moral status. It is both a necessary and a sufficient condition for moral status. To have moral status is to be morally considerable, or to have moral standing. It is to be an entity towards which moral agents have moral obligations. If an entity has moral status, then we may not treat it in just any way we please; we are morally obliged to give weight in our deliberations to its needs, interests, or well-being.