 The threshold conception is not tied to any particular account of the grounds for moral status. Different grounds, discussed in section 5, might involve membership in a group, the capacity for sentience, and so on. To put the threshold conception more broadly, so as to cover any ground for moral status, and any degree of moral status, whether high or low, one could state it thus: for any X that is a sufficient ground for having n-degree of moral status, this status is not altered by factors such as how much of X a being has, how well it displays X, or the number of other features sufficient for n or lower degrees of moral status the being possesses. The threshold conception leaves it open whether having some other feature (e.g., parts of X or something lesser but akin to X) might be grounds for a lesser degree of moral status and whether yet other features (e.g., more complex capacities) might be grounds for higher degrees of moral status. FMS is a central example of this approach: all beings that meet the threshold qualifications for FMS have the same status and this status is full.