Culture has also produced radical Islam. Just look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuAAK032kCA to get a bit more pessimistic about the natural moral zeitgeist evolution in culture.
What fraction of the population, though? Some people are still cannibals. It doesn’t mean there hasn’t been moral progress. Update 2011-08-04 - the video link is now busted.
The persistence of the taboo against cannibalism is an example where we haven’t made moral progress. There’s no good moral reason to treat eating human meat as any different than meat of other animals, once the animals in question are dead, though there may be health reasons. It’s just an example of prejudice and unreasonable moral disgust.
Culture has also produced radical Islam. Just look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuAAK032kCA to get a bit more pessimistic about the natural moral zeitgeist evolution in culture.
What fraction of the population, though? Some people are still cannibals. It doesn’t mean there hasn’t been moral progress. Update 2011-08-04 - the video link is now busted.
The persistence of the taboo against cannibalism is an example where we haven’t made moral progress. There’s no good moral reason to treat eating human meat as any different than meat of other animals, once the animals in question are dead, though there may be health reasons. It’s just an example of prejudice and unreasonable moral disgust.