Q By content, philosophers and others refer to the subjective experiences of nonhuman animals, especially the higher animals That the higher animals have experiential lives with unfolding sets of experiences is widely accepted today The nature of these experiences and of the lives that contain them have come to be important for three reasons some human beings are also incapable of these feats Accordingly, if we nevertheless extend moral standing to these humans, then what reasons we have for not extending it to at least the higher animals? If we not extend moral standing to humans with radically impaired lives, then how ever many of them gain entry into the moral domain through the interests of other humans, they count for nothing, morally, in their own right, and so arguably can be treated in the way that other creatures who are not members of the moral community are treated at the present time Moral Standing Some accounts of moral standing or moral consideration turn upon cognitive abilities in human and nonhuman animals alike, and if decisions about how to treat creatures in part turn upon their moral standing, then the cognitive abilities of animals matter It is sometimes claimed, for example, that in order to have moral standing a creatures must be (1) autonomous, or (2) able to make choices about how to live its life, or (3) able to plan out its life over time, or (4) able to act for reasons, or (5) capable of agency Depending upon how these notions are unpacked, some creatures will be incapable of these intellectual feats Thus, this way of conferring moral standing runs into the argument from marginal cases, that is, unfortunate humans, since Value of Life Increasingly today, on all sides, it is recognized that quality of life, not life itself, is what matters essentially The value of a life is determined by the quality of the life being lived There is debate over how to determine quality of life, not least over whether the issue is primarily a subjective or an objective one One of the central difficulties with objective accounts is that, while by objective criteria a life could be going well, by subjective criteria it might be going badly A person might have all the calories needed to function well, yet still not think there lives are going well The subjective element is about how the life looks from the point of view of the creature living it, and the subjective element seems to require some account of the subjective experiences of creatures QUALITY OF LIFE FOR ANIMALS Content, Richness, and Value 439