(Have not read through Max’ link dump yet, which seems very interesting, I also feel some skepticism of the ‘new optimism’ worldview.)
One major disappointment in Pinker’s book as well as in related writings for me has been that they do little to acknowledge that how much progress you think the world has seen depends a lot on your values. To name some examples, not everyone views the legalization of gay marriage and easier access to abortion as progress, and not everyone thinks that having plentiful access to consumer goods is a good thing.
I would be very interested in an analysis of ‘progress’ in light of the different moral foundations discussed by Haidt. I have the impression that Pinker exclusively focuses on the ‘care/harm’ foundation, while completely ignoring others like Sanctity/purity or Authority/respect and this might be where some part of the disconnect between the ‘New optimists’ and opponents is coming from.
Your point reminds me of the “history is written by the winners” adage – presumably, most civilizations would look back and think of their history as one of progress because they views their current values most favorably.
Perhaps this is one of the paths that would eventually contribute to a “desired dystopia” outcome, as outlined in Ord’s book: we fail to realize that our social structure is flawed and leads to suffering in a systematic manner that’s difficult to change.
I have relatively little exposure to Hickel, save for reading his guardian piece and a small part of the dialogue that followed from that, but I don’t get the impression he’s coming from a position of putting more weight on Sanctity/purity or Authority/respect; in general I’d guess that few people in left-wing social-science academia are big on those sorts of moral foundations, except indirectly via moral/cultural relativism.
Taking Haidt’s moral foundations theory as read for the moment, I’d guess that the Fairness foundation is doing a lot of the work in this disagreement. In general, leftists and liberals seem to differ a lot in what they consider culpable harm, and Fairness/exploitation seems like a big part of that.
(Have not read through Max’ link dump yet, which seems very interesting, I also feel some skepticism of the ‘new optimism’ worldview.)
One major disappointment in Pinker’s book as well as in related writings for me has been that they do little to acknowledge that how much progress you think the world has seen depends a lot on your values. To name some examples, not everyone views the legalization of gay marriage and easier access to abortion as progress, and not everyone thinks that having plentiful access to consumer goods is a good thing.
I would be very interested in an analysis of ‘progress’ in light of the different moral foundations discussed by Haidt. I have the impression that Pinker exclusively focuses on the ‘care/harm’ foundation, while completely ignoring others like Sanctity/purity or Authority/respect and this might be where some part of the disconnect between the ‘New optimists’ and opponents is coming from.
Your point reminds me of the “history is written by the winners” adage – presumably, most civilizations would look back and think of their history as one of progress because they views their current values most favorably.
Perhaps this is one of the paths that would eventually contribute to a “desired dystopia” outcome, as outlined in Ord’s book: we fail to realize that our social structure is flawed and leads to suffering in a systematic manner that’s difficult to change.
(Also related: https://www.gwern.net/The-Narrowing-Circle )
I have relatively little exposure to Hickel, save for reading his guardian piece and a small part of the dialogue that followed from that, but I don’t get the impression he’s coming from a position of putting more weight on Sanctity/purity or Authority/respect; in general I’d guess that few people in left-wing social-science academia are big on those sorts of moral foundations, except indirectly via moral/cultural relativism.
Taking Haidt’s moral foundations theory as read for the moment, I’d guess that the Fairness foundation is doing a lot of the work in this disagreement. In general, leftists and liberals seem to differ a lot in what they consider culpable harm, and Fairness/exploitation seems like a big part of that.