Do All Creatures, Great and Small, and Made From Silicon, Have Rights? (with Jeff Sebo)

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4.7 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 31 March 2025

⏱️ 76 minutes

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Summary

Should monkeys have the same rights as humans? What about elephants, ants, or invertebrates? NYU philosopher Jeff Sebo makes the case for expanding your moral circle to many more beings than you might expect, including those based on silicon chips. Listen as Sebo and EconTalk's Russ Roberts discuss to whom and what we owe moral consideration, how we determine a being's intrinsic moral significance, and why we have ethical obligations to others, anyway. They also discuss human exceptionalism--the idea that humans should be prioritized over other beings.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, Conversations for the Curious, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.
0:07.9	I'm your host, Russ Roberts, of Sholem College in Jerusalem and Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
0:13.8	Go to EconTalk.org, where you can subscribe, comment on this episode, and find links and other information related to today's conversation.
0:21.2	You'll also find our archives with every episode we've done going back to 2006.
0:26.7	Our email address is mail at econtalk.org.
0:30.0	We'd love to hear from you.
0:36.7	Today is March 12, 2025, and my guest is author and philosopher Jeff Sebo of New York University.
0:44.8	Our topic for today's conversation is his new book, The Moral Circle, Who Matters, What Matters, and Why.
0:53.6	Jeff, welcome to Econ Talk.
0:56.2	Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
0:58.0	What is the moral circle?
1:00.5	The moral circle is a metaphor for our conception of the moral community.
1:06.4	So when we make decisions, when we select actions or policies, to whom are we accountable,
1:12.3	to whom do we have responsibilities, who do we extend consideration?
1:16.4	Normally, we might extend consideration only to some humans, though many of us now recognize.
1:22.3	We really owe consideration, at least to all humans and many animals like mammals and birds
1:27.1	affected by our actions and policies.
1:29.3	So this book is about should we go farther than that?
1:32.3	And if so, how far should we go?
1:34.3	You start with a provocative, entertaining scenario that you come back to now and then, and maybe we will as well in our conversation.
1:46.0	You've got some roommates.
1:48.0	One's Carmen.
	...

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