Many authors, in particular Hofstadter and Joshua Greene, have made the case for a principle of moral distribution in which the fundamental unit is not the individual human mind. Hofstadter talks about soul sizes, and how some people have larger souls, whereas Joshua Greene advocates a new and sophisticated understanding of moral exchange in cases of Us versus Them (not Me versus Us). Their reasoning seems more consistent and effective than Singer’s to me.
I suppose all of them can be considered consequentialist, so that property alone cannot be what distinguishes the arguments at hand from those brought forth by Singer and Bentham.
I highly recommend Moral Tribes for Effective Altruists and Ineffective non-altruists alike.
Many authors, in particular Hofstadter and Joshua Greene, have made the case for a principle of moral distribution in which the fundamental unit is not the individual human mind. Hofstadter talks about soul sizes, and how some people have larger souls, whereas Joshua Greene advocates a new and sophisticated understanding of moral exchange in cases of Us versus Them (not Me versus Us). Their reasoning seems more consistent and effective than Singer’s to me. I suppose all of them can be considered consequentialist, so that property alone cannot be what distinguishes the arguments at hand from those brought forth by Singer and Bentham. I highly recommend Moral Tribes for Effective Altruists and Ineffective non-altruists alike.