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  • Perspective
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When development constricts our moral circle

Nature Human Behaviour volume 9, pages 1537–1545 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Many people believe that our ‘moral circle’ expands as we grow up. We first care for family members and friends, then gradually extend this care to distant others. Some scholars argue that this presumed broadening of moral concern is driven by our increasing capacity to recognize, through reason, that the suffering of strangers matters as much as the suffering of those we love. Yet, recent research complicates this story. In several domains, younger children start out with a more expansive moral circle than older children and adults. Younger children are more likely than their older counterparts to judge relationally, physically and phylogenetically distant others as worthy of help or protection. These findings suggest, counterintuitively, that development may not widen our moral circle but may sometimes narrow it. This Perspective raises the possibility that, rather than focusing on overcoming biases against caring for distant others, we should also recognize that, in some domains, we possess an early-emerging tendency to care for them.

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Fig. 1: Moral expansion and constriction in development.

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Acknowledgements

We thank P. Bloom, F. Boffey and the ECR Penguins Writing Group for valuable feedback on many of the ideas discussed here.

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  1. These authors contributed equally: Julia Marshall, Matti Wilks.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Cognitive and Psychological Sciences, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA

    Julia Marshall

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    Matti Wilks

  3. Global Priorities Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Lucius Caviola

  4. School of Psychological Science, University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia, Australia

    Karri Neldner

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Marshall, J., Wilks, M., Caviola, L. et al. When development constricts our moral circle. Nat Hum Behav 9, 1537–1545 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02212-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02212-7

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