Part 6/11:
Understanding agents as goal-directed boundary-maintainers prompts profound moral questions. What is our duty toward these agents? If we consider living cells as agents that contribute to a collective, then cancer—cells that deviate and pursue their own interests—is an extreme form of misalignment. Cancer is a biological breakdown of cooperation, a failure in recognizing the larger whole.
Genghis Khan exemplifies a different kind of boundary—tribal, exclusive, and hierarchical. His example illustrates that an agent's alignment depends on shared identity and reciprocal relationships. When such shared identity is absent, harm and conflict arise.