Technology and Our Expanding Moral Circles

Josh Nesbit is the co-founder and CEO of Medic Mobile, a nonprofit technology company advancing globale health equity. This post contains personal opinions, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Medic Mobile.

Almost every week, there’s a new article about technology’s double-edged effects on our generation - e.g. our changing memory, the war on quiet, or the fear-inducing “Always-On Attention Deficit Disorder” - with half of “internet experts” claiming Millennials will suffer from hyperconnected lives.

Many worry about tech’s impact on empathy and presence. Look at those 20-somethings on their iPhones at the dinner table ... they don’t care about each other, the people around them, or living in the moment. We’re all doomed.

Not so fast. Let’s tack a step back and look at empathy - more specifically, our moral circles, as articulated by philosopher Peter Singer. We psychologically and emotionally draw a line around those who deserve our moral attention. If you’re inside my line, I’m concerned about you. If you’re outside, tough luck. Decision framing does matter, but there’s been an important trend towards expanding our moral circles as society has evolved.

A crude and incomplete summary - over time, these circles started with ourselves and nuclear families, then extended to additional family, friends, local neighbors, our social class, people in our state, people in our nation, on outwards. Singer says:

“If I have seen that from an ethical point of view I am just one person among the many in my society, and my interests are no more important, from the point of view of the whole, than the similar interests of others within my society, I am ready to see that, from a still larger point of view, my society is just one among other societies, and the interests of members of my society are no more important, from that larger perspective, than the similar interests of members of other societies... Taking the impartial element in ethical reasoning to its logical conclusion means, first, accepting that we ought to have equal concern for all human beings.”

What’s our current status? In an interesting study, thousands of individuals across six countries participated in a public good distribution experiment - the research showed that, “as country and individual levels of globalization increase, so too does individual cooperation at the global level vis-à-vis the local level.” We may not have much control over our country’s trade and globalization indexes, but once individuals get online, we rarely turn back. Increasingly, we are citizens of the internet.

I think this is a good thing. Mobile phones and the web may provide the push we need to extend our circles to everyone, for the first time in history. The bulk of the next billion mobile connections will be in developing, rural areas around the globe. Whether it’s via text message, a Twitter exchange, or a comment thread on Reddit, global conversations will become more common.

There are 6 billion mobile subscriptions, more than four billion mobile users, 800 million Facebook users, and 300 million people on Twitter. Those 20-somethings tapping away on their phones aren’t disregarding humanity, they’re showing up for a conversation at a much bigger, digital table. Physical space no longer owns our experience of each moment. The bottom line is that other people matter, too; this is hard to hear if you’re in someone’s immediate surroundings and you are deemed less important or less in need of attention. The benefits will outweigh this initial social awkwardness, though, and may help us tackle big challenges requiring unprecedented levels of empathy and understanding.