Modern ethics excludes as many beings as it includes. 
 philosophy⁠, charity⁠, insight-porn  
  2012-04-24 –2019-04-27    finished  certainty

The Narrowing Circle

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2021-07-12 15:00:06

Modern ethics excludes as many beings as it includes. philosophy⁠, charity⁠, insight-porn 2012-04-24 –2019-04-27 finished certainty: likely importance: 8 backlinks

The “expanding circle” historical thesis ignores all instances in which modern ethics narrowed the set of beings to be morally regarded, often backing its exclusion by asserting their non-existence, and thus assumes its conclusion: where the circle is expanded, it’s highlighted as moral ‘progress’, and where it is narrowed, what is outside is simply defined away. When one compares modern with ancient society, the religious differences are striking: almost every single supernatural entity (place, personage, or force) has been excluded from the circle of moral concern, where they used to be huge parts of the circle and one could almost say the entire circle. Further examples include estates, houses, fetuses, prisoners, and graves.

One sometimes sees arguments for ethical vegetarianism which play on the Whiggish idea of moral progress following a predictable trend of valuing ever more creatures, which leads to not eating animals among other ethical positions; if one wishes not to incur the opprobrium of posterity, one ought to ‘skate where the puck will be’ and beat the mainstream in becoming vegetarian.

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