There is a question whether human morality is actually improving over centuries in some meaningful sense, or whether it is just a random walk that feels like improving to us (because we evaluate other people using the metric of “how similar is their morality to ours” which of course gives a 100% score to us and less to anyone else).
I think that an important thing to point out here is that our models of the world improve in general. And although some moral statements are made instinctively, other moral statements are made in form of implications—“I instinctively feel X. X implies Y. Therefore, Y.”—and those implications can be factually wrong. Importantly, this is not moral realism. (Technically, it is an implied judgment that logically coherent systems of morality are better than logically incoherent ones.)
“The only thing that matters are paperclips”—I guess we can only agree to disagree.
“2+2=5, therefore the only thing that matters are paperclips”—nope, you are wrong.
From this perspective, a part of the moral progress can be explained by humans having better models of humans and the world in general. (And when someone says “a difference in values”, we should distinguish between “a difference in instincts” and “shitty reasoning”.)
I like to think that there is a selection process going on.
Over long time scales, cultures that satisfy their people’s needs better have—other things being equal—higher chances of continuing to exist.
Moral systems are, to a large degree, about people’s well-being—at least according to people’s beliefs at that time. And that is partly about having a good model of people’s needs.
Spartans, Mongols, Vikings, and many others beg to disagree.
I’m with Viliam that we have better models of morality. The Mongols would be quite disappointed by our weakness. And at least they ruled the biggest empire ever. But their culture got selected out of the memepool too.
I’m very grateful that we are alive despite having nukes and that people and culture at this time are less violent and more collaborative is for sure one reason for that.
Vikings might still disagree from their perspective.
There is a question whether human morality is actually improving over centuries in some meaningful sense, or whether it is just a random walk that feels like improving to us (because we evaluate other people using the metric of “how similar is their morality to ours” which of course gives a 100% score to us and less to anyone else).
I think that an important thing to point out here is that our models of the world improve in general. And although some moral statements are made instinctively, other moral statements are made in form of implications—“I instinctively feel X. X implies Y. Therefore, Y.”—and those implications can be factually wrong. Importantly, this is not moral realism. (Technically, it is an implied judgment that logically coherent systems of morality are better than logically incoherent ones.)
“The only thing that matters are paperclips”—I guess we can only agree to disagree.
“2+2=5, therefore the only thing that matters are paperclips”—nope, you are wrong.
From this perspective, a part of the moral progress can be explained by humans having better models of humans and the world in general. (And when someone says “a difference in values”, we should distinguish between “a difference in instincts” and “shitty reasoning”.)
I like to think that there is a selection process going on.
Over long time scales, cultures that satisfy their people’s needs better have—other things being equal—higher chances of continuing to exist.
Moral systems are, to a large degree, about people’s well-being—at least according to people’s beliefs at that time. And that is partly about having a good model of people’s needs.
These two coevolve.
One of dimensions where human morality is definitely improving is violence control.
Spartans, Mongols, Vikings, and many others beg to disagree.
I’m with Viliam that we have better models of morality. The Mongols would be quite disappointed by our weakness. And at least they ruled the biggest empire ever. But their culture got selected out of the memepool too.
We have nukes, we are still alive and we have one of the lowest violence victims counts per capita per year in history.
I’m very grateful that we are alive despite having nukes and that people and culture at this time are less violent and more collaborative is for sure one reason for that.
Vikings might still disagree from their perspective.