You write, “Again, maybe it’s the pathological contrarian in me, but I have to call bullshit on all of this—moral progress does exist, man’s nature has changed and can change again”
It depends on what time frame we’re discussing. Certainly the human body and mind can continue to evolve as it always has. But neither have changed meaningfully for thousands of years, and are unlikely to do so for a long time to come.
Man’s nature is that we are made of thought psychologically. The content of thought changes all the time, but the nature of thought does not. The content of thought reflects the nature of thought, and so we see the same kinds of themes recur over and over. So long as the nature of thought, how it operates, remains static the human condition is unlikely to change in a fundamental manner.
Does moral progress exist? To know that we’d have to remove the scientific and resulting economic progress, and see how people act without such benefits. My guess is that the starving people of tomorrow will act pretty much like the starving people of the past.
Stimulating comment! Building upon it, perhaps it could add value if we separate human nature which we are born with and likely hasn’t changed much over the last few millennia, from human nature embedded within culture and institutions and various mindsets and frameworks.
In other words, what do we mean by “human morality”? If we restrict it to our innate human nature, then it probably hasn’t made any progress. But if we look at our abilities to form larger and more constructive and cooperative networks, then the increase in moral progress has been immense over the last century or two.
Hi Roger, I agree with comments. Yes, there has been important progress within the content of thought. But because that kind of morality is just ideas, it’s not permanent or durable. It can change quickly based on particular local circumstances. It is of course nonetheless an important project to keep working on.
Here’s an example which may add to what we’re exploring.
To my knowledge, every ideology ever invented has inevitably subdivided in to competing internal factions. The universality of this experience suggests the source of the division is something that all ideologies have in common. This can not be their content, for the content of ideologies varies widely. What all ideologies have in common is what they’re all made of, thought.
And so we see many very different ideologies all follow a similar path of internal division, due to the nature of the medium in which all the ideologies exist.
Yes, cultural mindsets and institutions are impermanent and dynamic. But that implies they can improve as well as deteriorate. Twelve thousand years ago most people were part of a band with a moral circle or network of three or four dozen people. Today we see networks of cooperation that involve billions in some cases. Part of this is from the creation of rules, institutions, norms, and behavioral mindsets which allow us to increasingly solve the problems of cooperation. We have become more moral or at least our morality has become more effective and broader in scope.
Yes, culture can improve, and has. Is our morality more effective? That’s a tricky one.
Consider that we have thousands of massive hydrogen bombs aimed down our own throats, and we generally find this ever present existential threat too boring to bother discussing. It seems we have a ways to go yet in achieving effective morality.
I think we’re basically agreeing that culture can both improve and deteriorate. The history of modern Germany perhaps offers one example of that. High culture, to primitive barbarism, and then back to high culture.
You write, “Again, maybe it’s the pathological contrarian in me, but I have to call bullshit on all of this—moral progress does exist, man’s nature has changed and can change again”
It depends on what time frame we’re discussing. Certainly the human body and mind can continue to evolve as it always has. But neither have changed meaningfully for thousands of years, and are unlikely to do so for a long time to come.
Man’s nature is that we are made of thought psychologically. The content of thought changes all the time, but the nature of thought does not. The content of thought reflects the nature of thought, and so we see the same kinds of themes recur over and over. So long as the nature of thought, how it operates, remains static the human condition is unlikely to change in a fundamental manner.
Does moral progress exist? To know that we’d have to remove the scientific and resulting economic progress, and see how people act without such benefits. My guess is that the starving people of tomorrow will act pretty much like the starving people of the past.
Stimulating comment! Building upon it, perhaps it could add value if we separate human nature which we are born with and likely hasn’t changed much over the last few millennia, from human nature embedded within culture and institutions and various mindsets and frameworks.
In other words, what do we mean by “human morality”? If we restrict it to our innate human nature, then it probably hasn’t made any progress. But if we look at our abilities to form larger and more constructive and cooperative networks, then the increase in moral progress has been immense over the last century or two.
Hi Roger, I agree with comments. Yes, there has been important progress within the content of thought. But because that kind of morality is just ideas, it’s not permanent or durable. It can change quickly based on particular local circumstances. It is of course nonetheless an important project to keep working on.
Here’s an example which may add to what we’re exploring.
To my knowledge, every ideology ever invented has inevitably subdivided in to competing internal factions. The universality of this experience suggests the source of the division is something that all ideologies have in common. This can not be their content, for the content of ideologies varies widely. What all ideologies have in common is what they’re all made of, thought.
And so we see many very different ideologies all follow a similar path of internal division, due to the nature of the medium in which all the ideologies exist.
Yes, cultural mindsets and institutions are impermanent and dynamic. But that implies they can improve as well as deteriorate. Twelve thousand years ago most people were part of a band with a moral circle or network of three or four dozen people. Today we see networks of cooperation that involve billions in some cases. Part of this is from the creation of rules, institutions, norms, and behavioral mindsets which allow us to increasingly solve the problems of cooperation. We have become more moral or at least our morality has become more effective and broader in scope.
Yes, culture can improve, and has. Is our morality more effective? That’s a tricky one.
Consider that we have thousands of massive hydrogen bombs aimed down our own throats, and we generally find this ever present existential threat too boring to bother discussing. It seems we have a ways to go yet in achieving effective morality.
I think we’re basically agreeing that culture can both improve and deteriorate. The history of modern Germany perhaps offers one example of that. High culture, to primitive barbarism, and then back to high culture.