Jeff Sebo, an Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at New York University, has established himself as a prominent figure in the fields of animal and environmental ethics. His latest book, “The Moral Circle“, set for publication in January 2025, explores the ethical implications of expanding our moral consideration to include a broader range of beings. This interview delves into his background, motivations, and insights into the evolving challenges and responsibilities we face in relation to nonhuman beings.
Tell us about your background and how you became interested in animal issues.
I became interested in animal ethics and advocacy when I was in college. I went to college at Texas Christian University, where I majored in philosophy and sociology. I took classes that examined our interactions with animals in both majors, and it became clear to me that our current domination, exploitation, and extermination of animals is clearly morally problematic despite being widely accepted in society. I went vegetarian about a year later and went vegan about a year after that, and I also started two student groups — one that engaged in animal advocacy and another that supported our local feral cat population. I then pursued a philosophy PhD at New York University, and in my final year there, I was lucky to be hired as the first postdoctoral researcher at the brand new NYU Animal Studies Initiative (now NYU Animal Studies). That allowed me to spend the first three years of my career doing research, teaching, and service related to animal minds, animal ethics, animal advocacy, and animal policy; and by the time that this position ended, I had enough momentum to keep working on those topics.
What was the motivation behind your latest book The Moral Circle?
The Moral Circle is about which beings belong in our moral community — in other words, which beings deserve to be treated with respect, compassion, and other kinds of consideration. We now accept that all humans are full and equal members of our moral community. But what about different kinds of nonhumans? For example, what about vertebrates like cows and pigs? What about invertebrates like ants and worms? What about plants and fungi? What about robots and chatbots? And if some (or many or all) of these beings do belong in our moral community, what follows for how we should treat them? There are quintillions of nonhumans in the world, and human activity is increasingly impacting them. As the dominant species, we have a responsibility to ask which nonhumans matter, how much they matter, and what we owe them, so that we can exercise our power and influence responsibly. In that spirit, I argue in this book that humanity should extend moral consideration to a vast number and wide range of nonhumans, and I discuss how we can build a better future for humans and nonhumans alike.
How do you define “human exceptionalism” and can it lead to harmful consequences?
Human exceptionalism is the view that humans always take priority over nonhumans. This perspective makes sense to an extent; in the same kind of way that I should generally prioritize members of my family, perhaps I should also generally prioritize members of my species. But there should be limits. Yes, I can feed my family before I feed other families. But does that mean that I can kill other families unnecessarily? Does it mean that I can neglect other families even when I have the capacity to help them? And does it mean that I can prioritize even trivial concerns that my family members might have over vital concerns that members of other families may have? Of course not. These limits apply at the species level too. Even if we can generally prioritize humans, that does not mean that we can harm or neglect nonhumans for no good reason, or that we can prioritize trivial human interests over vital nonhuman interests. And once we recognize that, it becomes clear that we have a responsibility to prioritize humans much less and nonhumans much more than we currently do.
What needs to change if we are to tackle the challenges we currently face?
Improving conditions for nonhumans requires three general kinds of change: knowledge, capacity, and political will. At present we have bottlenecks in all three respects. We know very little about what nonhumans are like and what we owe them. Even when we have this knowledge, we have very little capacity to act on it – very few resources, very few institutions, and very little infrastructure. And even when we have this knowledge and capacity, we have very little motivation to make use of it – very little interest in considering nonhumans as we update our social, legal, political, and economic systems. In my view, creating a better world for humans and nonhumans alike requires addressing all three of these issues at once. If we work to build the relevant knowledge, capacity, and political will at the same time, then these changes will all be mutually reinforcing; for example, our research will make our advocacy better informed, and our advocacy will make our research better motivated. It will still take decades to make real progress, but at least we can be heading in the right direction.
What future ethical quandaries might we face regarding animals? How can we best meet these challenges?
Right now, animal advocates focus mostly on improving conditions for captive terrestrial vertebrates. That includes farmed animals like cows and pigs, lab animals like mice and fishes, and companion animals like cats and dogs. In the future, animal advocates will need to expand focus by considering free-living animals, aquatic animals, and invertebrates as well. Yes, humans might not interact with these populations directly as much as we do with captive terrestrial vertebrates, but we still interact with them at vast scales. For example, human-caused climate change will affect animals all over the world by determining whether they can live at all and what kinds of lives they can have if they do, and we have a responsibility to improve conditions for everyone affected by our activity. Yes, our ability to do that work right now is limited, but this is why our responsibility is not to solve every problem right now, but rather to help as many animals as possible right now while building the knowledge, power, and political will that our successors will need to do more than we can currently do.
How might individuals and faith communities begin to practically expand their moral circle?
As a general principle, I think that we should avoid harming animals unnecessarily, and that when we do harm animals unnecessarily, we should help them to recover where possible. In our individual lives, that means that we should harm animals only when doing so is necessary for a vital purpose, like defending ourselves or others from imminent harm. It also means that we should help animals to survive in human-altered environments where possible, for instance by helping animals who are trapped in a fence, in a building, or on a highway. More broadly, it means participating in updating our shared systems to treat animals as subjects rather than objects. For example, how can faith communities update practices and traditions that depend on violence towards animals, like the consumption of meat? And how can governments update legal and political systems that treat animals like property and commodities, like federal and state “animal welfare” laws that give no weight at all to the welfare of the vast majority of animals? We all have a role to play in these processes, and we should all do what we can.
Professor Jeff Sebo is an Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at New York University, where he also serves as Affiliated Professor of Bioethics, Medical Ethics, Philosophy, and Law. He directs both the Animal Studies M.A. Program and the Mind, Ethics, and Policy Program, co-directs the Wild Animal Welfare Program, and is the Deputy Director of the Center for Environmental and Animal Protection.
Professor Sebo’s research spans moral philosophy, legal philosophy, philosophy of mind, animal and AI ethics and policy, global health, and climate ethics. His forthcoming book, The Moral Circle, will be published in January 2025, adding to his existing works, including Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves, Chimpanzee Rights, and Food, Animals, and the Environment.
Learn more about Professor Sebo’s work.
Learn more about The Moral Circle.
