 For a humanist like Mulhall, the capacity to participate in distinctively human forms of life is neither necessary nor sufficient for full moral status (as McMahan (2005) appears to assume). That status is established merely by our recognition of an individual as a human being, heir to the same “shocks and ills” as we are. Human beings with radical cognitive disabilities suffer “grave misfortune,” not reduced status if they are unable to share in the distinctive forms of our common life in which their embodiment has “embedded” them. Non-human animals with similar attributes have lower moral status but suffer no comparable estrangement or loss. Their participation in their own species’ distinctive forms of life—if there are any—does not depend upon, and might well be impaired by, their possession of the cognitive attributes of normal adult humans. 