The “Core”

A metaphor familiar to ethicists and political philosophers is that of the “expanding circle” of justice. Circles, of course, have a centre. At the centre of the justice circle stands, as a matter of historical fact, that ominous presence: the prosperous, white, heterosexual, able-bodied, cisgendered etc. man (incidentally, I am guilty as charged). The idea behind the metaphor, then, is to suggest that, as a matter of historical description as much as normative prescription, our circle of moral concern must expand beyond this narrow centre. It must expand in concentric bursts to incorporate, piece by piece, outsiders into its periphery: people of colour, women, homosexuals, the disabled, non-human animals, and even (God forbid!) the working class.

Metaphors are just metaphors. But they do (to deploy another metaphor) frame our imaginative conceptions of philosophical problems. So it’s worth pointing out that while the metaphor of the expanding circle might be descriptively accurate, it’s normatively inadequate. This is because circles, even expanding ones, still have centres and peripheries. Even once we’ve included those who were once excluded, we do so only by moving them into the periphery—social Neptunes around a privileged sun. Perhaps this means we should find a better metaphor (the melting pot of justice? The frontier of ethical inclusion? – both seem problematic). Or perhaps we should just acknowledge that the metaphor should only carry our thinking so far, if not abandon it all together.