criterial standing

Compiled with AI assistance and selectively reviewed. Please consult the cited passages; the books remain the authoritative source. About this companion

Editorial synthesis · provisional

Definition

Criterial standing is RB3’s critical name for admitting beings to moral consideration through a qualifying property such as sentience or being a subject-of-a-life. It appears in the book’s comparison of Singer and Regan. The proposal preserves their humane conclusions and distinct arguments while recording the author’s objection to treating moral concern as a gate whose boundary humans administer.

Explanation

Singer’s equal consideration of interests differs from Regan’s rights grounded in subjecthood. The entry keeps these positions attributed rather than merging them into one doctrine. It also treats the marginal-cases argument as the source presents it, not as permission to downgrade vulnerable humans whose capacities differ from a favored criterion.

The author shares the humane conclusion while challenging the qualifying machinery. The source says these properties do not yield an uncontested clean edge and locates a human gatekeeper at the center. This is its philosophical critique, not a new scientific adjudication of sentience in the listed animals or a consensus refutation of animal-rights theories.

Diamond’s fellow-creature response provides an antecedent, which the author then extends to regimes reproducing practices. The positive alternative concerns what constraint architectures do to already encountered striving. The entry therefore distinguishes criticism of a foundation from rejection of protection, care or resistance to cruelty.

Scope and attribution

Keep Singer and Regan distinct; record the author’s critique of qualification without withdrawing humane concern or asserting sentience findings.

AB — The Actual Book

Source-verified occurrence; see the printed-page references below.

Occurrence locators: 184, 185; Notes: 248.

RB3 — The Real Book, Volume III: Murmurations

The developed account belongs to RB3 in the cited local scope, with antecedents and qualifications retained.

Occurrence locators: 235, 236, 237, 239, 240.