Proportionality, Precaution and Judgments of Competence

It is one thing to endorse a theory of morality; it is quite another to be clear about how we come to identify members of the moral community, and the moral status of the entities within it.⁴²⁷ By itself, a definition of agency cannot offer an argument for making ascriptions of agency competence, let alone to identify whether an agent has the ability or potential to develop task and decisional competences. Devising such an argument may seem like a straightforward application of the theory to the empirical world. However, on closer examination, matters are not so simple.

The aim of the present chapter is twofold –to explain the epistemology of agency ascription under the PGC and from that to draw some preliminary conclusions about which entities may be able to develop task and decision-making competences. My argument relies upon and develops the framework devised by Beyleveld, Brownsword and Pattinson.430 The chapter begins by explaining the justification for accepting that there other agents apart from ourselves under the PGC, and then proceeds to examine whether entities who do not consistently display agency competence may nonetheless have the potential for developing specialised decisional competences.