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Dead ancestors are not minds that experience anything.
Ancestor worshippers- who are the people whose opinions we're discussing- would disagree. Wikipedia:
Sure, but there's a fact of the matter: It's not that we don't value the experiences or well-being of dead ancestors; it's that we hold that they do not have any experiences or well-being — or, at least, none that we can affect with the consequences of our actions. (For instance, Christians who believe in heaven consider their dead ancestors to be beyond suffering and mortal concerns; that's kind of the point of heaven.)
The "expanding circle" thesis notices the increasing concern in Western societies for the experiences had by, e.g., black people. The "narrowing circle" thesis notices the decreasing concern for experiences had by dead ancestors and gods.
The former is a difference of sentiment or values, whereas the latter is a difference of factual belief.
The former is a matter of "ought"; the latter of "is".
Slaveholders did not hold the propositional beliefs, "People's experiences are morally significant, but slaves do not have experiences." They did not value the experiences of all people. Their moral upbringing specifically instructed them to not value the experiences of slaves; or to regard the suffering of slaves as the appointed (and thus morally correct) lot in life of slaves; or to regard the experiences of slaves as less important than the continuity of the social order and economy which were supported by slavery.
I am fairly confident that I haven't understood your point, as it doesn't seem to me to address the discussion above. My interpretation of your post is that it claims that people engaged in ancestor worship were factually wrong about whether their dead ancestors still counted as humans- e.g. whether or not they experienced anything. However, this is irrelevant to the question under discussion- of whether or not ancestor worship is a counter-example to the claim that most people throughout history haven't cared about non-humans. All that matters for this claim is whether or not most ancestor-worshippers thought that their ancestors qualified as people.
I think the point that fubarobfusco was trying to make with that was a partial refutation of the "narrowing circle" thesis that says we care less about people not like us today than in the past. S/he was trying to say, "we haven't stopped caring about anyone we used to care about, we've just stopped believing in them. If we still believed our dead ancestors had feelings, we'd still care about them."
You're correct that all that matters for the question "did ancestor-worshippers care for non-humans" is whether the ancestor-worshippers thought their ancestors were human.
You know, I think you're wrong about that. They talked about how savages needed to be ruled by civilised man, and the like, rather than claiming that they were the same as us but who gives a damn?
Therefore, by substitution, we don't experience anything in response to knowledge about things that will happen after we're dead?
What? Sorry, I don't see the connection.
(It's my impression that the belief of ancestor-worshipers is not that their actions today fulfill the past living desires of now-dead ancestors, but that their actions today affect the experiences of their dead ancestors today.)
I haven't read the article by gwern that Qiaochu linked, so I didn't know that it referred specifically to ancestor worship rather than the more general (believed) evaporation of respect for ancestors' desires as a terminal value.