Good post and I basically agree, but worth mentioning that false negatives for moral patienthood seem generally worse than false positives. I can laugh at those who think rivers or forests are intrinsically worthy of care, but this type of failure isn't nearly as consequential as e.g., failing to consider nonhuman animals or future people
I'm assuming you didn't make the chart, but still, it's bad. We already have indirect duties to ecosystems via self - all people. But in themselves, ecosystems aren't the kind of things we can have direct duties toward. Also after people, presumable would be "rational agents" like aliens and conscious AI, then animals, which would necessarily include alien animals. Currently the debate is within Animalia, not Animalia as such. Insects have brains but no nociceptors; oysters have nociceptors but no brain. Anyway, just wanted to be pedantic.
moral circle expansion doesn't need to have always been good or monotonic for it to have been a huge driver of positive progress and a place to look for future progress.
Good post and I basically agree, but worth mentioning that false negatives for moral patienthood seem generally worse than false positives. I can laugh at those who think rivers or forests are intrinsically worthy of care, but this type of failure isn't nearly as consequential as e.g., failing to consider nonhuman animals or future people
I'm assuming you didn't make the chart, but still, it's bad. We already have indirect duties to ecosystems via self - all people. But in themselves, ecosystems aren't the kind of things we can have direct duties toward. Also after people, presumable would be "rational agents" like aliens and conscious AI, then animals, which would necessarily include alien animals. Currently the debate is within Animalia, not Animalia as such. Insects have brains but no nociceptors; oysters have nociceptors but no brain. Anyway, just wanted to be pedantic.
quick rough comment
moral circle expansion doesn't need to have always been good or monotonic for it to have been a huge driver of positive progress and a place to look for future progress.