There's a huge spread, just in the population, of how expansive people are. So we can be moral misers, or we can be kind of extreme altruists. And i think that people probably, to some extent within their lifetimes, can, ah, move along this dimension as well. But my hunch is that people perceive themselves, regardless of their actual capacity, to have sort of a limited amount of moral energy and concern.
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I was raised in the tradition of believing that everyone is of equal moral worth. But when I scrutinise my daily practices, I don’t think I can honestly say that I act as if everyone is of equal moral worth. The idea that some people belong within the circle of moral concern and some do not is central to many moral systems. But what affects the dynamics of the moral circle? How does it contract and expand? Can it expand indefinitely? In this episode I discuss these questions with Joshua Rottman. Josh is an associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Program in Scientific and Philosophical Studies of Mind at Franklin and Marshall College. His research is situated at the intersection of cognitive development and moral psychology, and he primarily focuses on studying the factors that lead certain entities and objects to be attributed with (or stripped of) moral concern.
