Peter Singer

And clearly that's not the case.

But I think that...

It's objective in the sense that any being capable of reasoning could understand the reasons that we give for acting in the ways that we say are the way you ought to act.

So that's what makes it larger than just ourselves or even our species.

I do think that if you say that –

you're denying the fact that others are like you, that I'm like you, and that you are justified in ignoring that fact.

So you're missing some fact about the situation or you're not giving it attention or weight.

And

If we are going to talk ethically, I think that's not justifiable.

So what I'm saying is, you know, yes, there's a selfish way of reasoning that you can engage in, but you are just looking at it from that perspective and that's a narrower perspective, one that, you know, again, maybe we, our ancestors evolved and survived because they took that perspective.

But we can look at things from a broader perspective, this point of view of the universe, and say, well, is it a bad thing that somebody is suffering?

And I think when we do that and we understand what suffering is, then we can say, yes, that is a bad thing.

And that's something that you're ignoring when you only look at Sean Carroll's suffering and not at the suffering of others that you're causing.

Yes, there's some sense in which some moral agents may have a higher status.

They may be able to suffer more, for example.

So there are some non-human animals who we may decide that they are also, well, they're certainly agents.

We may even say that they're moral agents in some cases.

But maybe they have a more limited perspective on the world, more limited cognitive capacities, and possibly they're not capable of suffering as much or enjoying life as much.

And there's one sense then in which they matter less than we do.

I'm not saying that every moral agent is of equal worth in some deep sense, but I am saying that any being capable of having conscious experience matters and ought not to be ignored.