I think this post has a good typology of different kinds of moral circle expansion, but it didn't really convince me that the moral circle itself is a bad metaphor. If you define a person's moral circle as "the set of all beings that they treat with a non-negligible amount of altruistic concern", which I think is pretty close to the way it's used casually, then the four kinds of moral-belief-change can all expand this circle. You shouldn't treat "moral circle expansion" as synonymous with any one of them, but I think it's still useful to have a category that includes all of them.
Even in the ancient world, sometimes enlightened self-interest would tell you not to pillage your enemy's city (much) if you could do better by collecting taxes or tribute from it over time. But if you're just going to go back home, self-interest would still say that you might as well steal what you can while the stealing is good. (It's the whole "roving bandit vs stationary bandit" thing.)
And before cities there wasn't very much around to pillage, except possibly livestock (or slaves)...
I would also add that ‘expanding circle’ rhetoric tends to conflate differences in *absolute moral worth* with differences in *relative moral obligation*.
Only the former says, “X shouldn’t be cared about at all”. The latter says, “X *should* be cared about, but it’s someone else’s job to do it.”
Not making the distinction often comes off as accusing people who take the “not my responsibility” view of denying that foreigners or future people have equal moral worth in an absolute sense. (I literally just came across an EA post encouraging people to reconsider their view that people in their own country “matter more” than foreigners.)
An expanding sphere of *moral responsibility*—particularly a responsibility to actively benefit rather than merely refrain from harming—seems like an important additional thing people mean when they talk about the expanding circle.
I think this post has a good typology of different kinds of moral circle expansion, but it didn't really convince me that the moral circle itself is a bad metaphor. If you define a person's moral circle as "the set of all beings that they treat with a non-negligible amount of altruistic concern", which I think is pretty close to the way it's used casually, then the four kinds of moral-belief-change can all expand this circle. You shouldn't treat "moral circle expansion" as synonymous with any one of them, but I think it's still useful to have a category that includes all of them.
Even in the ancient world, sometimes enlightened self-interest would tell you not to pillage your enemy's city (much) if you could do better by collecting taxes or tribute from it over time. But if you're just going to go back home, self-interest would still say that you might as well steal what you can while the stealing is good. (It's the whole "roving bandit vs stationary bandit" thing.)
And before cities there wasn't very much around to pillage, except possibly livestock (or slaves)...
I would also add that ‘expanding circle’ rhetoric tends to conflate differences in *absolute moral worth* with differences in *relative moral obligation*.
Only the former says, “X shouldn’t be cared about at all”. The latter says, “X *should* be cared about, but it’s someone else’s job to do it.”
Not making the distinction often comes off as accusing people who take the “not my responsibility” view of denying that foreigners or future people have equal moral worth in an absolute sense. (I literally just came across an EA post encouraging people to reconsider their view that people in their own country “matter more” than foreigners.)
An expanding sphere of *moral responsibility*—particularly a responsibility to actively benefit rather than merely refrain from harming—seems like an important additional thing people mean when they talk about the expanding circle.