i imagine that the psychological capacities coul be high jacked by those political and ideological agendas a lot. And i mean, this notion of dehumanization is interesting to me. Sometimes it's not so much that you dehumanize the outgroup or the other, you actually do of them as being human and capable of suffering. But just by understanding whether something is included or excluded from our moral circles, a can't by itself explain these acts of violence.
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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.
