Joseph Henrich has shown in his book "The WEIRDest people in the world" that our Western individualism, also in questions of ethics, is ultimately an unintended consequence of the marriage and family policy of the Catholic Church from the 5th century onwards, which led to a lasting weakening of the family clan structures that had dominated until then (and which still dominate most societies all over the world!), and to people becoming more and more individuals who came together and collaborated with other non-related people of their own will, for example in monasteries, cities, guilds, universities, etc....
Our very particular Western way of thinking and living and seeing the world is thus, according to Henrich, an effect of this accidental cultural "mutation" in the early Middle Ages.
But if this is true - and I think that Henrich's theory is correct - then our morality focused on the autonomous, free individual, including its universalism, is also only the product of this accidental decision of the Church to weaken the family structures. However, many people today regard liberal ethics as something quasi absolute, as the ultimate ethical standard, which even serves to state something like moral progress.
But this is sloppy thinking, because something contingent like the cultural evolution and its "mutations" can never produce something absolute. There is simply no standard beyond evolution with which the processes of evolution, be they moral or not, can be judged as real progress or regress, because the very standards themselves have evolved. To claim that Western liberalism is the pinnacle of cultural history is as nonsensical as to claim that biological evolution is a true progress because it led to me, Homo sapiens, the pinnacle of everything that exists.
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Since when do liberal ethics equate with individualism? How do the policies of the Roman Catholic Church translate into liberalism? The Democrats are, if anything, champions of collectivism, of people uniting to effect social change, and it's the Republicans who swoon over Ayn Rand-style "Supermen." who are victims of godless communism.
Storm1752
Level 8
May 4, 2023
2
We have been here before in former posts, Thibauld seems not to understand the difference between the modern use of liberal and the traditional use of libertarian. Whether that is due to simple misunderstanding or a deliberate ploy designed to mislead to a prior conclusion, I do not know.
@Fernapple @Storm1752 - Yes, we have been here before, but certain people don't seem to understand the basic distinction between the ethical focus on the rights and needs of the individual human being (= liberalism in all its varieties) on the one side, and the focus on the well-being of the community (families, tribes, nations) and the common good on the other side, which is typical of all communitarian philosophies, or of conservatism in general.
And the Occident / the West is, compared with other cultures, rather individualistic, which is not my personal opinion, but the result of research done by anthropologists like Joseph Henrich or social psychologists like Jonathan Haidt.
It would be rather helpful to get some education on these issues instead of playing with words like "liberal", especially within the American framework
Progress is not linear, no.
But neither is there no progress at all, but progress always does depend upon talent, effort and investment, and talent, effort and investment, will alway migrate to the places where talent, effort and investment are made to feel secure. Which usually means in history, wherever at the time, the rights of humans are most respected, and given the most democratic voice, to protect that talent, effort and investment. Family may sometimes be a threat to that, and sometimes an aid to that, but it is a vast oversimplification of history to think that it is the main or even the only issue.
History is far more complex than that. The moral intellectual and economic leadership of the world has changed many times, though many shifts of geography and many cycles of decline fall and rebirth. The Islamic golden age, followed when the Arab conquers brought a degree of security and freedom to the heavily enslaved people of the old middle east, liberating their suppressed intellectual and commercial power. China has gone through a dozen or more cycles, of increasing tyranny following corruption, leading to economic decline, then great ages of innovation, following revolution. Rome grew a stable and lasting empire, because its early republican values, meant that it was, despite being a tyrant by todays standards, far more liberal to the conquered than most short lived empires of the day, who saw conquest only as a prerequisite to genocide and the imposing of their own cultures. And it declined, in part, because so many people within it, came to see their own local leaders, even though they were monarchs, as better protectors of their talents, efforts and investment, than a corrupt distant and failing imperial government.
Revisionist historians, almost alway observe some truth about the world, yet human ego and narcissism, almost alway results in them over simplifying history in order to overstate the importance of their case, simply because it is theirs. It is well to remember this when reading them, however much they may make the ride seem like fun at the time.
Fernapple
Level 9
May 4, 2023
1
Well, first of all, progress depends on some standard or reference, so that you are able to measure it (just as any kind of movement needs an inertial frame of reference to be measured; there is not movement in a void), but this standard must not be part of the progress, it has to exist beyond it.
Second, my OP was about moral progress, not progress in general (I'd say there is no doubt that there is progress in technology or science, but morality is somewhat different
@Thibaud70 That is not a problem since there may well be several ways to measure moral progress, though the default one which is used almost universally within secular communities, is that it is measured against human wellbeing and health. And no, that is not a relativist thing which can only be measured within one cultural setting. Since I know that if I step on a sharp stone this morning, it will hurt my foot, while if I step on two sharp stones this afternoon it will hurt both feet, and having both feet hurting is certainly worse than having one hurting. That is an absolute measure, and provides a perfectly good frame of reference.
Yes, some would argue that in some cultures a pain in the foot can be seen as a good thing. For example, there could be cultures where hitting your foot with sharp stones, could be seen as a display of loyalty to the community. But that can be measured against, firstly, the evolutionary purpose of pain, in helping us to avoid debilitating injury, measured against the benefits of deeper involvement with community. And secondly against an ad populum value of whether a hypothetical person with no existing culture, would choose to join a culture, which included a, hitting your feet with stones ritual, over one which did not, all other things being equal. Plus anyway cultural relativism is in this frame an absurd position, given that we are part of a culture which already values wellbeing, and most of us are not planning a change to that anyway, While as far as I know there has never been a culture which did not see human wellbeing as a value, though there have of course been many that saw the wellbeing of some as more valuable than others.
I have long felt that our American focus on hyper individualism has been corrosive to our society and also a main roadblock to us ever making any social progress on reforming our economic system from being too capitalistic. And as a result, we have had increasingly bare-knuckles capitalism ever since the 70s, with a corresponding increase in wealth and income inequality.
TomMcGiverin
Level 8
May 4, 2023
2
Capitalism used to be "the American way." Now it is only the corporate way and corporate capitalism is not our friend.
@DenoPenno Corporations have no loyalty to nation states, nor do they care about which nations they do business with or not, only that they get their max profits, so they have no scruples about locating in or doing business with the most corrupt, brutal, or undemocratic countries in the world, as they act nations in and of themselves...
They will attach themselves to whatever countries provide them with conditions of little or no taxes, along with little or no regulation of them.
@TomMcGiverin True, and many forget that during WW2 armaments and munitions were sold equally to both sides with no restrictions. This is why I find it strange today that people have fits saying the U.S. is going to start something with Russia by supplying weapons to the Ukraine. In the name of profits both sides in a conflict will end up with weapons any way you look at it.
I have to laugh (through my tears) at the way the American political far right worry so much about phony Replacement Theory. MAGA acolytes are afraid that immigrants are diluting White Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture and values. What they fail to appreciate is that people from abroad who choose the USA for the most part do so because of the values that make America great: rule of law, individual freedom, religious freedom, economic and educational opportunity, upward mobility,...and to this they add interesting foods and music! Give a MAGAt his head and he will kill the goose that lays golden eggs. 
Flyingsaucesir
Level 8
May 4, 2023
6
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