This chapter considers the proposal that in virtue of possessing rational agency capacities at a threshold level, beings qualify as persons. However, this proposal faces the problem of empirical variance: on any plausible understanding of the capacities that constitute rational agency capacity, these capacities vary by degree. Thus, if I am morally more significant than a lizard or even a gorilla because I possess more rational agency capacity, why am I not morally less significant than Albert Einstein or Mother Teresa because I possess less rational agency capacity than they have? The chapter explores several responses to the problem and concludes that none are promising. Nevertheless, since all the alternatives are counterintuitive in some way or another, it is argued that one should not dismiss any proposed resolution of this puzzle—neither basic equality nor its rejection—just on the ground that it has some counterintuitive implications.
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