 Deriving the moral standing of beings from agreements reached by other contractors not only assumes that contractors have tuistic preferences, an assumption rejected by many contractarians, but it also potentially makes the moral standing of those beings contingent on the nature of the tuistic preferences and interests held by others (Tanner 2013). Contractors may agree to protect only certain kinds of animals, and they may make agreements to protect animals only when doing so does not conflict with their own, more narrowly construed interests. As a result, the status of those who cannot participate in the initial situation for various reasons, such as the disabled and animals, remains a contentious issue in contractarian thought.