My response to these questions is simply this: Once the neurobiology, sociology and economics is in, these questions will either turn out to have answers or to be the wrong questions (the latter possibility being the much more probable outcome). The only one I know how to answer is the following:
Do the concepts of “moral error” and “moral progress” have referents?
The answer being: Probably not. Reality doesn’t much care for our ways of speaking.
A longer (more speculative) answer: The situation changes and we come up with a moral story to explain that change in heroic terms. I think there’s evidence that most “moral” differences between countries, for example, are actually economic differences. When a society reaches a certain level of economic development the extended family becomes less important, controlling women becomes less important, religion becomes less important, and there is movement towards what we consider “liberal values.” Some parts of society, depending on their internal dynamics and power structure, react negatively to liberalization and adopt reactionary values. Governments tend to be exploitative when a society is underdeveloped, because the people don’t have much else to offer, but become less exploitative in productive societies because maintaining growth has greater benefits. Changes to lesser moral attitudes, such as notions of what is polite or fair, are usually driven by the dynamics of interacting societies (most countries are currently pushed to adopt Western attitudes) or certain attitudes becoming redundant as society changes for other reasons.
I don’t give much weight to peoples’ explanations as to why these changes happen (“moral progress”). Moral explanations are mostly confabulation. So the story that we have of moral progress, I maintain, is not true. You can try to find something else and call it “moral progress.” I might argue that people are happier in South Korea than North Korea and that’s probably true. But to make it a general rule would be difficult: baseline happiness changes. Most Saudi Arabian women would probably feel uncomfortable if they were forced to go out “uncovered.” I don’t think moral stories can be easily redeemed in terms of harm or happiness. At a more basic level, happiness just isn’t the sort of thing most moral philosophers take it to be, it’s not something I can accumulate and it doesn’t respond in the ways we want it too. It’s transient and it doesn’t track supposed moral harm very well (the average middle-class Chinese is probably more traumatized when their car won’t start than they are by the political oppression they supposedly suffer). Other approaches to redeeming the kinds of moral stories we tell are similarly flawed.
My response to these questions is simply this: Once the neurobiology, sociology and economics is in, these questions will either turn out to have answers or to be the wrong questions (the latter possibility being the much more probable outcome). The only one I know how to answer is the following:
The answer being: Probably not. Reality doesn’t much care for our ways of speaking.
A longer (more speculative) answer: The situation changes and we come up with a moral story to explain that change in heroic terms. I think there’s evidence that most “moral” differences between countries, for example, are actually economic differences. When a society reaches a certain level of economic development the extended family becomes less important, controlling women becomes less important, religion becomes less important, and there is movement towards what we consider “liberal values.” Some parts of society, depending on their internal dynamics and power structure, react negatively to liberalization and adopt reactionary values. Governments tend to be exploitative when a society is underdeveloped, because the people don’t have much else to offer, but become less exploitative in productive societies because maintaining growth has greater benefits. Changes to lesser moral attitudes, such as notions of what is polite or fair, are usually driven by the dynamics of interacting societies (most countries are currently pushed to adopt Western attitudes) or certain attitudes becoming redundant as society changes for other reasons.
I don’t give much weight to peoples’ explanations as to why these changes happen (“moral progress”). Moral explanations are mostly confabulation. So the story that we have of moral progress, I maintain, is not true. You can try to find something else and call it “moral progress.” I might argue that people are happier in South Korea than North Korea and that’s probably true. But to make it a general rule would be difficult: baseline happiness changes. Most Saudi Arabian women would probably feel uncomfortable if they were forced to go out “uncovered.” I don’t think moral stories can be easily redeemed in terms of harm or happiness. At a more basic level, happiness just isn’t the sort of thing most moral philosophers take it to be, it’s not something I can accumulate and it doesn’t respond in the ways we want it too. It’s transient and it doesn’t track supposed moral harm very well (the average middle-class Chinese is probably more traumatized when their car won’t start than they are by the political oppression they supposedly suffer). Other approaches to redeeming the kinds of moral stories we tell are similarly flawed.