I made a graphic of the expanding moral circle—free to use
The “expanding moral circle”—the idea that moral concern has (or, at least, should) widened over time from family, to community, to nation, to all humanity, and (arguably) outward to all sentient beings—was developed by W.E.H. Lecky (1869) and popularized by Peter Singer in The Expanding Circle (1981). This concept is has really resonated with me throughout the years and eventually led to me study farm animal welfare as an academic economist.
Naturally, I was looking around for a visualization of it that I liked enough to hang on my office wall and replace the simpler one in my slide deck, but nothing was cutting it.
So I made one.
A few notes on the design: composition, layout, and curation are mine; illustrations were generated with ChatGPT and edited in Canva (~20 hours total). I tried to make the inner rings feel intimate and the outer rings feel expansive, with subjects (people, species) chosen to span all continents. I intentionally included invertebrates and farm animals, with a hen taking center stage at the bottom to highlight the enormous anthropogenic suffering that billions of chickens face every day.
To convey a sense of “mind-opening,” all circles are monochromatic and (mostly) self-contained except the outermost one.
I also intentionally excluded “future beings” and “the Earth”, which are commonly thrown in there. “Future beings” was excluded because (i) time is not specified in the graphic itself, so it’s not saying that future beings are not already in these circles and (ii) I couldn’t think about how to visually depict future beings. “The Earth” was excluded because, ultimately, it is sentience that gives the Earth moral relevance anyway. Most importantly, this structure just more classic. It’s the one explicitly mentioned by W.E.H. Lecky back in the 19th century.
The Bentham quote provides a criteria for moral relevance (i.e. moral patienthood), with which many—probably most—people who discuss the moral circle concept agree: “The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?”
Feel free to use it with credit (“Graphic by Trevor Woolley”).
My hope is that a more visually appealing depiction of the expanding moral circle might encourage other nerds like me to display it and spark conversations or to include it in their own slide decks when teaching.
If anyone wants a higher-resolution version or has suggestions for improvements, let me know in the comments.
Hey Trevor, great work! I have wanted a graphic like this in the past and will almost certainly use it in the near future!
Thank you, Joey! I’m a sucker for pretty visuals and I knew I couldn’t be the only one wanting something that better captures the beauty of this concept and its meaning to me. Hopefully it gets a little traction and helps us convey the message a tad more clearly. Pass it on!
Nice, Except there’s a flower in the “Sentience” circle. Maybe new Rethink behavioural research has brought something to light? :D
Don’t forget the rocks in there too! Someday, maybe science will find evidence for meaningful rock and flower sentience lol.
Really though, those were just meant as pretty background to give the image more life.
Was I then reading too much into the tree being outside the last circle? 😄
Bro just don’t make any assumptions and keep your scout mindset on point...
I also took that to be deliberate to show the bounds!
That was my original intention, actually! But then I liked the look of including a little bit of the animals’ environment around them within the sentient circle, so technically it’s no longer logically consistent with respect to plants.
The human pictures look historic, so the vibe is not future focused to me, so it does seem like you are excluding future humans and digital sentience. An alien or a transhuman/cyborg may be too much, but maybe an astronaut and/or an AI? After all, digital sentience may soon become dominant.
You’re right! In fact, even present humans are excluded from my moral circle because I like to keep it restricted to the 19th century humans lol.
But I like where you’re going with it. I even wonder if I could actually keep running with the 19th century theme by depicting the future through that lens, like the Worlds Fair.
This is sick! I’d pay for a tee-shirt or sticker with the same design.