If we project out in the future, the first scenario posits continuing increased moral improvements (as the “improvement trend” continues) and the second posits moral degeneration (as the values drift away from our own).
Someone might consider this semantics, but doesn’t the “values drift around” model imply that there is neither progress nor degeneration for the values in question, since it’s just random drift?
In other words, if there is the possibility of progress in some values, then that implies that some values are better or worse than ours; and if others just show random drift and there’s no meaningful “progress” to speak of, then those values drifting away from ours doesn’t make them any worse than ours, it just makes them different.
I realize that you did explicitly define “degeneration = moving away from ours” for the drifting values, but it feels weird to then also define “progress = moving away from ours in a good way” for the progress-y values; it feels like you are trying the operation defined for the domain of progress-y values in a domain which it isn’t applicable for.
I realize that you did explicitly define “degeneration = moving away from ours” for the drifting values, but it feels weird to then also define “progress = moving away from ours in a good way”
If I decomposed a bit more, I’d say that we need to distinguish the values of others, and the state of the world, and whether things are moving towards our values, away from our values, or just drifting.
So “progress”, in the sense of my post, is composed of a) other people’s values moving towards our own, and b) the state of the world moving more towards our own preferences/values. “Moral degeneration”, on the other hand, is c) people’s values drift away from our own.
I see all three of these happening at once (along with, to some extent “the state of the world moving away from our values”, which is another category), so that’s why we see both progress and degeneration in the future.
Someone might consider this semantics, but doesn’t the “values drift around” model imply that there is neither progress nor degeneration for the values in question, since it’s just random drift?
In other words, if there is the possibility of progress in some values, then that implies that some values are better or worse than ours; and if others just show random drift and there’s no meaningful “progress” to speak of, then those values drifting away from ours doesn’t make them any worse than ours, it just makes them different.
I realize that you did explicitly define “degeneration = moving away from ours” for the drifting values, but it feels weird to then also define “progress = moving away from ours in a good way” for the progress-y values; it feels like you are trying the operation defined for the domain of progress-y values in a domain which it isn’t applicable for.
If I decomposed a bit more, I’d say that we need to distinguish the values of others, and the state of the world, and whether things are moving towards our values, away from our values, or just drifting.
So “progress”, in the sense of my post, is composed of a) other people’s values moving towards our own, and b) the state of the world moving more towards our own preferences/values. “Moral degeneration”, on the other hand, is c) people’s values drift away from our own.
I see all three of these happening at once (along with, to some extent “the state of the world moving away from our values”, which is another category), so that’s why we see both progress and degeneration in the future.