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

Welcome to Econ Talk, Conversations for the Curious, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty. I'm your host, Russ Roberts of Shalem College in Jerusalem and Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Go to econalk.org where you can subscribe, comment on this episode, and find links and other information related to today's conversation. You'll also find our archives with every episode we've done going back to 2006. Our email address is mail at econalk.org. We'd love to hear from you. Today is March twelfth, twenty twenty five, and my guest is author and philosopher Jeff Sebo. Of New York University. Our topic for today's conversation is his new book.

The moral circle? Who matters, what matters, and why. Jeff, welcome to Econ Talk. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Uh what is the moral circle?

The moral circle is a metaphor for Our conception of the moral community. So When we make decisions, when we select actions or policies, to whom are we accountable? To whom do we have responsibilities? Who do we extend consideration? Normally we might extend consideration only to some humans, though many of us now recognize We really owe consideration at least to all humans and many animals like mammals and birds affected by our actions and policies. So this book is about. Should we go farther than that? And if so, how far should we go?

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