“The question is not, Can they reason?, nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? Why should the law refuse its protection to any sensitive being?” – Jeremy Bentham (1789)
This Topic explores who our moral consideration should expand to, with a particular focus on farmed animals as a case example.
Key Material
Radical Empathy - Open Philanthropy Project (15 mins.)
Moral Progress and Cause X (5 mins.)
The Expanding Circle pg. 111-124 ‘Expanding the Circle of Ethics’ section (20 mins.)
Suffering in Animals vs. Humans (13 mins.)
Animal Welfare (20 mins.)
Animal Liberation, Chapter 3 - Down on the factory farm (60 mins.)
On “fringe” ideas - What does it take to keep ourselves open to new possibilities in what the most important problems in the world are? (10 mins.)
On Caring - How can we feel an appropriate emotional reaction to the sheer magnitude of the world’s problems? (20 mins.)
Further Reading
Our descendants will probably see us as moral monsters. What should we do about that? - 80,000 Hours - A podcast featuring Professor Will MacAskill about what we should do if we are making major moral mistakes today. (Podcast - 1h 50m)
Practical ethics given moral uncertainty Will MacAskill presents a framework for making decisions under moral uncertainty, and offers some implications of this (5 mins.)
The Drowning Child and the Expanding Circle - Philosopher Peter Singer’s famous drowning child thought experiment, which asks us to develop global empathy. (15 mins)
Dominion - Dominion uses drones, hidden and handheld cameras to expose the dark side of modern animal agriculture. (Film - 2 hours)
Social Movement Lessons From the British Antislavery Movement - Sentience Institute - This report aims to assess (1) what factors led the British government to abolish the transatlantic Slave trade in 1807 and then human chattel slavery in 1833, and (2) what those findings suggest about how modern social movements should strategize. (2.5 hours)
All Animals Are Equal - The opening chapter of Animal Liberation (1975), widely regarded as the founding text of the animal rights movement. (25 mins.)
The Importance of Wild-Animal Suffering - Centre on Long-Term Risk - An argument for us to take into account the wellbeing of animals that live in the wild. (40 mins.)
The Narrowing Circle (see here for summary and discussion) - An argument that the “expanding circle” historical thesis ignores all instances in which modern ethics narrowed the set of beings to be morally regarded, often backing its exclusion by asserting their non-existence, and thus assumes its conclusion. (30 mins.)
2017 Report on Consciousness and Moral Patienthood - An investigation into what types of beings merit moral concern. (6 hours, skimmable)
The Subjection of Women - An essay published in 1869 by John Stuart Mill, with ideas he developed with his wife Harriet Taylor Mill arguing for the emancipation of women (10 mins.)
Loving-Kindness and Compassion Meditation: Potential for Psychological Interventions - A widely cited study into meditation based psychological practices to increase kindness and compassion. (40 mins.)
The Better Angels of Our Nature - Illustrates why we live in the most peaceful time ever in history, by looking at what motivates us to behave violently, how these motivators are outweighed by our tendencies towards a peaceful life and which major shifts in history caused this global reduction in violence. (Book)
Ethical.diet - A tool that explains which diet changes have the biggest effects on animal welfare.
