Jeff McMahan - Radykalne ograniczenie poznawcze (Radical Cognitive Limitation)

"Suppose that there are human beings whose overall psychological capacities
and potential are comparable to or lower than those characteristic of the
higher orders of nonhuman animals, such as chimpanzees. And suppose
that the limited cognitive capacities of at least some of these human beings
are congenital and resulted because the genes that coded for the growth
of their brains were different, or operated differently, from those that code
for the development of the brain in other human beings. I refer to these
human beings as the ‘radically cognitively limited’—though for brevity I
will often use the abbreviated term the ‘cognitively limited’.¹ None of the FN:1
claims I will make about the radically cognitively limited necessarily apply
to human beings who have, or have had, higher psychological capacities,
or who have the potential to develop higher psychological capacities.
The radically cognitively limited are considered disabled, and thus in the
same moral category as human beings who are physically disabled. They
are generally regarded as less fortunate than most other human beings, and
to have suffered a grave misfortune in being congenitally endowed with
lower psychological capacities. Yet, because they are human beings, they
are thought to have the same basic rights as others. They share our moral
status, including our claim to inviolability. They are also assumed to come
within the scope of relevant distributive principles—principles of justice
and equality. My main aim in this paper is to question and challenge these
various assumptions."...