May Topic:
Are We Making Ethical Progress?
Are ethics becoming more ‘enlightened ‘or do they change simply in response to changes in social circumstances?
When: May 10, 2017 at 7:30 pm
Where: YWCA 7 Temple Street; Cambridge, MA
Topic Moderator: Kiril Sinkel
The last several centuries, say from the time of Locke, Rousseau and Voltaire to the present, the West has undergone a remarkable and massive revolution in its ethical understanding and in its social institutions. I will not try to list these changes here – they are too well known and encompass such social progress as the move from monarchy to democracy, progress I the rule of law, outlawing of slavery, extension of equal rights to previously disadvantaged classes, etc, etc.. To get a sense of how much the West has changed over this time; just imagine what a shock it would be for an educated person of the 17th century to be suddenly thrust into today’s world. Such a person would find that nearly every social attitude that had seemed perfectly settled and non-controversial has been overturned, thrown into question or become problematic in some way or other. A 17th century person simply could not function in today’s world without radical reeducation. On the other hand, to us living in the 21st century, these massive changes are our pride, proof that we have made ethical progress frequently after bitter struggle, that we are now more enlightened than our predecessors.
But is our ethical progress really based on improvements in understanding or is it simply the response to changed circumstances? For example is it a coincidence that slavery and serfdom were outlawed just as they were becoming uneconomic? Is it coincidence that the women’s liberation movement coincided with unprecedented declines in pregnancy rates and technologically-driven reductions in household work? Of course not all recent changes have been liberalizing. For example torture, whose absolute prohibition had been regarded a settled issue, is now again practiced and defended as necessary. Targeted extra-judicial killings, until recently considered exclusively a practice of ruthless dictatorships, are now sometimes practiced even by democracies ostensibly committed to the rule of law. Ethical commitment to diversity and to accepting peoples from other cultures is under attack in response to relatively localized political unrest. How might this ethic fare if there were to be massive migrations, say in response to climate change?
Discussion Questions
This brings us to this month’s discussion question. Are our ethics fundamentally based on principle or are they instead primarily adaptive to our social circumstances? I propose that we consider this question empirically. So let’s consider the examples offered above as well as any to be suggested during the discussion. Let’s try to determine:
1. What the drivers of our understanding of ethics is.
2. How durable any given set of ethics is in the face of changing social circumstances..
Reading
Philosophy Café - Test 