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Ethics and Morality
'The Moral Circle': A Riveting Expansion of Ethical Concerns
Jeff Sebo's new book considers who matters, what matters, and why.
Posted January 28, 2025 Reviewed by Michelle Quirk
Key points
- He forcefully argues against human exceptionalism and uses science and philosophy to broaden ethical concerns.
- Sebo also challenges us to include all potentially significant beings in our moral community.
- He uses case studies such as lawsuits over captive elephants and debates over factory-farmed insects.
When I first learned of NYU philosopher Jeff Sebo's new book The Moral Circle: Who Matters, What Matters, and Why, I couldn't wait to get my hands on it, and I am thrilled I did. In his eye-opening work, Jeff examines the moral status of nonhumans and makes the case for extending moral consideration to a vast number and wide range of beings in the spirit of caution and humility. Jeff also discusses different case studies related to captive and wild animal welfare. For example, he surveys the risks and harms of factory farming and argues that many of these risks and harms also apply to new kinds of factory farming, such as insect farming. Here's what Jeff had to say about his challenging and compelling new book that expands the biodiversity of protected groups of animals and other entities.
Marc Bekoff: Why did you write The Moral Circle?
Jeff Sebo: I wrote The Moral Circle to address a growing confusion over which beings count in our moral community. When I started working on the book in June 2022, two news stories broke that illustrated how unsettled our ideas about moral standing really are. One case was about whether Happy, the elephant, could have a legal right to bodily liberty, and the other was about whether LaMDA, the large language model, could experience happiness and suffering. These stories underscored the stakes of the questions, “Which beings matter, and what do we owe them?” I wanted to offer a framework that recognizes the importance and difficulty of these questions and that encourages us to improve our interactions with a vast number and wide range of beings in the spirit of caution and humility—while facing the challenges that arise when we try to put such an expansive ethic into practice.1
MB: Who do you hope to reach?
JS: This book is for anyone with basic curiosity about the moral circle—anyone who wants to learn about who belongs in our moral community and what rights and protections they should enjoy. That includes scholars and students who want to learn about the possibility of sentience, agency, and other capacities in animals, AI systems, and other beings. It also includes policymakers who want to learn about how to consider risks for these beings when making decisions that affect them. Finally, it includes people who simply want to become more informed, thoughtful, and responsible citizens. For all audiences, I hope that the book can serve as a clear, concise, engaging introduction to questions like Which beings matter, and how much do they matter? What do they need, and what do we owe them? And what follows for our policies and priorities in a world reshaped by human activity?
MB: What are some of the major themes you consider?
JS: A central theme of the book is that we should accept the importance and difficulty of questions about the moral circle in equal measure. We interact with countless nonhumans whether we like it or not, and we need to consider how these interactions might be affecting them despite disagreement and uncertainty about whether they matter and what we owe them. This predicament calls for caution and humility: We should extend at least some moral consideration to all beings with at least a nonnegligible chance of mattering.
A second, related theme is that we should accept our responsibilities and limitations in equal measure. We clearly have the ability to make progress, and we should seek to do that. However, there will always be a limit to how much progress we can make, and it would be a mistake to aim for more than we can achieve or sustain. Expanding our moral circle thoughtfully requires working to build the knowledge, power, and motivation necessary for further progress without ever allowing our reach to exceed our grasp.
A third theme is that many beings might matter. Given the best information and arguments currently available, there is at least a nonnegligible chance that insects, future AI systems, and many other nonhumans are sentient, agential, or otherwise morally significant. Even if we owe more to individual elephants than to individual ants, for example, we should still extend at least some moral consideration to individual ants. And when we consider how many ants there are, we might find that our responsibilities to them matter a lot overall.
A fourth theme is that we might be affecting many beings. We now live in the Anthropocene, a new epoch in which human activity is a dominant influence on the planet. For example, factory farming not only imposes harms on animals but also amplifies global threats like pandemics and climate change that imperil us all. And AI development not only imposes risks on AI systems but also amplifies global threats like totalitarianism and great power conflict that imperil us all. We need holistic, large-scale thinking to address these threats.
A final theme is that we should reject human exceptionalism, the view that humans always matter more than nonhumans individually and collectively. We might be warranted in prioritizing humanity in many cases for now because we have special bonds with each other and a greater ability to help each other. But we should still support nonhumans much more than we do, and we should also improve our ability to support them over time. And if all goes well, then we might eventually have a responsibility to prioritize them over ourselves.
MB: Are you hopeful that as people learn more about the vast number of nonhumans who fall within the moral circle they will treat them all with more compassion, respect, and dignity?
JS: Yes, to a degree. On the one hand, we clearly have the capacity to expand our moral circle. We increasingly recognize that many animals have rich emotional lives and that industries like factory farming, deforestation, and the wildlife trade are morally unacceptable, for example. On the other hand, disagreement and uncertainty about the moral circle will likely last for a long time, and our incentive to maintain the status quo will likely last for a long time, too.
Overall I think that a moderate level of hope can be warranted in this kind of situation provided that we put in the work necessary to earn that attitude. While nothing is guaranteed, if we keep asking which beings might matter and what we might owe them with an open mind, and if we keep working to extend at least some moral consideration to everyone who at least might matter, then we can give respect and compassion a chance to prevail.
References
In conversation with NYU's Dr. Jeff Sebo, associate professor of environmental studies; affiliated professor of bioethics, medical ethics, philosophy, and law; director of the Center for Environmental and Animal Protection; director of the Center for Mind, Ethics, and Policy; and co-director of the Wild Animal Welfare Program.
1. MB: How does your book relate to your background? JS: My work has always focused on what we might owe to individuals we often overlook, such as farmed animals, wild animals, and future beings whose lives we shape today. In my previous work, I explored how our moral responsibilities extend beyond individual human interactions to broader interactions involving animals, global health, and the environment. The Moral Circle continues this project by inviting readers to think about how far these responsibilities might extend across space, time, biology, and materiality. It also weaves together my interests in science, ethics, and policy, since answering questions about what we owe particular nonhumans requires examining more than moral theory; it also requires examining what particular nonhumans are like, how we interact with them, and whether and how we can improve our interactions with them effectively and sustainably at scale.
The Edge of Sentience: Why Drawing Lines Is So Difficult; The State of Animal Consciousness, Sentience, and Emotions.
