The case for progressive evolution has been laid out by Robert Wright, Matt Ridley, Peter Corning, Jon Stewart and others. If that includes moral progress—as it certainly seems to—then the future looks bright.
Of course the past is not necessarily a 100% reliable guide to the future. People might be reading the trends wrong. Or we might not yet be out of the woods. Or there might be setbacks. Or the technical problems might be Too Formidable. However, none of those objections looks terribly strong—so there’s a pretty good chance that we will make it.
The argument that the target is small is almost completely irrelevant. There are organisations aiming at the target. Optimisers have a long history of hitting small targets. Saying that the target is small means practically nothing.
For the references to Wright, Ridley, Corning, Stewart, see the bottom of this page.
I commented on part 3 - as follows:
For the references to Wright, Ridley, Corning, Stewart, see the bottom of this page.