Moral Status: Agents,Patients and or Quasi-agents!

Tom Regan did a splendid job in identifying what Mattew Silliman once called " Moral Valuers" as "Subjects of a life" (SOAL), but he took it a step further as he further qualified SOALs as either being moral agents or moral patients. Moral agents according to Regan "have the ability amongst others to bring impartial moral principles to bear on the determination of what, all considered, morally ought to be done and, having made this determination, to freely choose or fail to choose to act as morality, as they conceive it, requires". In contrast, he defines moral patients as "those who lack the prerequisites that would enable them to control their own behavior in ways that would make them morally accountable for what they do. In other words, moral agents can do wrong whereas moral patients can't cause harm since they can't do what is wrong!
As Regan expatiates, moral agents include fully conscious mature humans while most non-human animals, children and or handicapped(mental, social or physical) adults classify as moral patients. Some non-human animals as we have come to learn from media exposure or personal experiences due to intensive training have moved a step up from being just moral patients evident in their prowess in acquiring and communicating in human language; no matter how limited it may be. This special group of patients can't be awarded moral agency just yet especially since these abilities are products of external factors much more than internal mental capacities and for such a new term t describe them; quasi-moral agents.
At the forefront of these classification scheme is animal rights activist Steve Sapontzis; author of "Morals, Reasons,and Animals". Quasi moral agency may seem as a very gigantic step from moral patiency but it just goes to show us how very much alike non-human animals are to children and i don't think any mature fully conscious moral agent out there will support labs testing shampoo products or new drugs and medications on 5 year olds.