One population neglected in a lot of conversation on moral circle expansion, and in Gwern’s consideration, is how the treatment of children after infancy has changed over time. I’m only knowledgeable of the history of the last couple hundred years as it relates to legal treatment, such as child labour laws. The study of how the treatment of children has changed will be complicated by the changing definition of ‘children’ over time; over time adulthood in societies has been treated to begin as early as the onset of puberty up to twenty years of age. That stated, people older than two or three and lower than the historical lower-bound for age of adulthood seem to have stably been regarded as ‘children’ throughout history.
Another kind of potential moral patient neglected in this conversation are abstract entities, such as concern for the overall health of a tribe, local community, or society; and, more recently in history, cultures and nations, the environment, and biodiversity. One thing all these entities have in common is there appears to be a common moral intuition one can evaluate their overall moral well-being that is greater than the sum of the well-being of their individual members (such as humans or other animals). This differs from how EA typically approaches similar entities, such as more often conflating their moral well-being with the aggregate well-being of their individual members. I’m guessing there are ways moral psychology regarding these entities differs significantly from how people think morally about individual moral patients. I don’t know enough about what those differences might be to comment on them, but to understand them better seems crucial to thinking about this topic.
Neat post! Feedback:
One population neglected in a lot of conversation on moral circle expansion, and in Gwern’s consideration, is how the treatment of children after infancy has changed over time. I’m only knowledgeable of the history of the last couple hundred years as it relates to legal treatment, such as child labour laws. The study of how the treatment of children has changed will be complicated by the changing definition of ‘children’ over time; over time adulthood in societies has been treated to begin as early as the onset of puberty up to twenty years of age. That stated, people older than two or three and lower than the historical lower-bound for age of adulthood seem to have stably been regarded as ‘children’ throughout history.
Another kind of potential moral patient neglected in this conversation are abstract entities, such as concern for the overall health of a tribe, local community, or society; and, more recently in history, cultures and nations, the environment, and biodiversity. One thing all these entities have in common is there appears to be a common moral intuition one can evaluate their overall moral well-being that is greater than the sum of the well-being of their individual members (such as humans or other animals). This differs from how EA typically approaches similar entities, such as more often conflating their moral well-being with the aggregate well-being of their individual members. I’m guessing there are ways moral psychology regarding these entities differs significantly from how people think morally about individual moral patients. I don’t know enough about what those differences might be to comment on them, but to understand them better seems crucial to thinking about this topic.