Who Counts? Ethics in the Treatment of Animals and AI

The Michael Shermer Show

Michael Shermer

Dialogue, Science, Reason, Michaelshermer, Natural Sciences, Skeptic

4.4 • 921 Ratings

🗓️ 8 March 2025

⏱️ 87 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Michael Shermer and Jeff Sebo explore moral philosophy, focusing on animal rights, sentience, and consciousness. They discuss the definitions of morality, ethical pluralism, and the divide between consequentialism and deontology. The conversation examines who belongs in our moral circle, the ethics of insect farming, the future of animal agriculture, abortion, and whether advanced AI could be considered sentient beings or even co-citizens.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to The Michael Shermer Show.
0:16.0	All right. Hey, everybody. It's Michael Shermer. It's time for another episode of the Michael Shermer Show. Yes, always, as always brought to you by Skeptic Magazine. Look at this one. This is a
0:24.5	recent one on Animal Minds. What do they think? We're not asking, do they think, we're saying,
0:31.2	what did they think? My guest today is going to really love that one. He's Jeff Seibo. Is that right, Sebo or Sebo? Sebo.
0:42.7	Sebo, yes, okay. Before you speak up, let me give you a proper introduction here. He's an associate professor of environmental studies, affiliated professor of bioethics, medical ethics, philosophy, and law.
0:50.3	He's director of the Center for Environmental and Animal Protection, director of the Center for Mind, Ethics and Policy,
0:56.2	and co-director of the Wild Animal Welfare Program at New York University, NYU.
1:01.7	Cool. He lives in Manhattan. His new book, here it is, The Moral Circle.
1:05.5	Who Matters, What Matters, and Why.
1:09.2	Jeff, great read. Thanks for coming on to talk to me about this.
1:11.5	And thank you for writing a short book.
1:13.1	Thank God.
1:14.2	Some of these books I get, they're like 800 pages long.
1:17.2	It's like, get to the point.
1:18.9	And I'm guilty.
1:19.9	I wrote a 500 pages.
1:20.9	I'm never doing that again.
1:22.4	Right.
1:22.8	Yeah.
1:23.2	Well, thank you for having me on, and you are welcome because it is very difficult, as you know, to write a short book.
1:28.9	Well, and you're a philosopher, even harder.
1:31.8	Yeah, exactly.
	...

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