A possibility that I have mentioned here before has to do with positive feedback loops in an isolated society between economic growth and luxury spending on moral coherence.
On this account, people always had qualms about slavery but considered it to impractical to seriously consider abandoning it. When feeling rich they abandoned it anyway, either as conspicuous consumption or as luxury spending on simplicity. Having done so, it turned out, made them richer, affirming this sort of apparent luxury spending or conspicuous consumption as actually being moral progress.
Viewing them as an ecosystem of godshatter, increased power destabilized the balance of power between dissonant utility functions, allowing certain elements to largely erase others while still further increasing in power.
One problem with this story is that it passes some of the buck to economic growth, though only some, as access to resources and population are surely part of the answer there.
Another problem is that it doesn’t add up to normality, but proposed moralities should only add up to normality when approximated crudely, not when approximated precisely.
positive feedback loops in an isolated society between economic growth and luxury spending on moral coherence
Or as Saul Alinsky put it “[C]oncern with ethics increases with the number of means available and vice versa.” It is easy to be ethical when you have little at stake.
A possibility that I have mentioned here before has to do with positive feedback loops in an isolated society between economic growth and luxury spending on moral coherence. On this account, people always had qualms about slavery but considered it to impractical to seriously consider abandoning it. When feeling rich they abandoned it anyway, either as conspicuous consumption or as luxury spending on simplicity. Having done so, it turned out, made them richer, affirming this sort of apparent luxury spending or conspicuous consumption as actually being moral progress. Viewing them as an ecosystem of godshatter, increased power destabilized the balance of power between dissonant utility functions, allowing certain elements to largely erase others while still further increasing in power. One problem with this story is that it passes some of the buck to economic growth, though only some, as access to resources and population are surely part of the answer there. Another problem is that it doesn’t add up to normality, but proposed moralities should only add up to normality when approximated crudely, not when approximated precisely.
Or as Saul Alinsky put it “[C]oncern with ethics increases with the number of means available and vice versa.” It is easy to be ethical when you have little at stake.