I’m fairly skeptical of this personally, partly because I don’t think there’s a fact of the matter when it comes to whether a being is conscious.
I would guess that increasing understanding of cognitive science would generally increase people’s moral circles if only because people would think more about these kinds of questions. Of course, understanding cognitive science is no guarantee that you’ll conclude that animals matter, as we can see from people like Dennett, Yudkowsky, Peter Carruthers, etc.
I would guess that increasing understanding of cognitive science would generally increase people’s moral circles if only because people would think more about these kinds of questions. Of course, understanding cognitive science is no guarantee that you’ll conclude that animals matter, as we can see from people like Dennett, Yudkowsky, Peter Carruthers, etc.
Agreed.