When my now-wife and I were on our first date, she asked me what part of our everyday lives our grandkids would find morally shocking — what they would see the way we now look back on segregation and slavery. (Quite the first-date conversation, I realize.) We agreed, immediately, on what it was: exploiting animals, particularly animal testing and eating meat. Now, just to be clear, this was a conversation over sushi, and we both love a good steak. But we were also painfully aware of the suffering of livestock and laboratory animals, and believed that advancing technology would eventually make it unnecessary.
Technological advances have many virtues. They can make us richer and healthier, safer and more educated. Perhaps their most profound impact, however, is that they can expand our moral universe. Better technology gives us the opportunity to be better people — if we choose to use it that way.
