Interesting work and this type of work is what originally brought me into EA. Just a word of caution and you probably know this already: I think perhaps moral progress in the past (like >50-100 years ago) was associated with colonization etc. So it might be wise to acknowledge other cultures of morality outside of the West. I am quite familiar with cultivating compassion within Tibetan Buddhism and other “moral work” by non-Westerners that comes to mind is the concept of Ubuntu. I think taking into account the historical and geographical diversity of moral projects might make your analysis more powerful as well, as it might show that many cultures in the past have undertaken projects of moral progress but perhaps not succeeded and learning from their mistakes might make for more robust outcomes. I like that you included Amartya Sen as a more contemporary, non-Western reference—maybe there is even more out there to broaden your analysis spatially and temporally.
Hi Ulrik! I’m definitely aware of this issue, and it’s a very ugly side of this debate, which is why some people might have moved away from the topic in the past.
The dangers of using moral progress to justify colonialism and imperialism will be one key point in my next post, and it’s also a brief section in the first chapter of my thesis. It’s definitely worth cautioning against imposing progress to other cultures. And political intervention is much more complicated than “my culture is more progressed, so we should enforce it upon the rest”. It deals with difficult issues of epistemic biases, lack of political legitimacy, and political paternalism. Aside from being a convenient excuse for the powerful to come to other countries and exploit others. It’s probably not enough, but at least the explicit warning and section is there.
I try not to adhere or rely on particularly “western” values in my view of progress. But there’s controversy as whether values such as moral impartiality and individual human rights are western. Amartya Sen for example wants to claim that they aren’t, and he finds examples of such values in nonwestern contexts (in Development as Freedom Chapter 10). But I am not fully convinced either way. It’s probably a tricky issue that deserves its own book-length treatment by itself.
If you know any other authors, academics or philosophers that bring in the non-western perspective with regards to values and progress, I’d love to take a look!
Excellent, I am happy you are on top of this. I will have a think and see if I can come up with some. Anthropology might have things to offer. One that comes to mind is a book I think called “The Gift” or something similar—perhaps not directly relevant. And as I said I am more versed in Tibetan Buddhism with a lot of focus on cultivating compassion and of ~empowering oneself to release all beings (not just humans) from suffering for ever—that is a pretty wide moral circle!
Interesting work and this type of work is what originally brought me into EA. Just a word of caution and you probably know this already: I think perhaps moral progress in the past (like >50-100 years ago) was associated with colonization etc. So it might be wise to acknowledge other cultures of morality outside of the West. I am quite familiar with cultivating compassion within Tibetan Buddhism and other “moral work” by non-Westerners that comes to mind is the concept of Ubuntu. I think taking into account the historical and geographical diversity of moral projects might make your analysis more powerful as well, as it might show that many cultures in the past have undertaken projects of moral progress but perhaps not succeeded and learning from their mistakes might make for more robust outcomes. I like that you included Amartya Sen as a more contemporary, non-Western reference—maybe there is even more out there to broaden your analysis spatially and temporally.
Hi Ulrik! I’m definitely aware of this issue, and it’s a very ugly side of this debate, which is why some people might have moved away from the topic in the past.
The dangers of using moral progress to justify colonialism and imperialism will be one key point in my next post, and it’s also a brief section in the first chapter of my thesis. It’s definitely worth cautioning against imposing progress to other cultures. And political intervention is much more complicated than “my culture is more progressed, so we should enforce it upon the rest”. It deals with difficult issues of epistemic biases, lack of political legitimacy, and political paternalism. Aside from being a convenient excuse for the powerful to come to other countries and exploit others. It’s probably not enough, but at least the explicit warning and section is there.
I try not to adhere or rely on particularly “western” values in my view of progress. But there’s controversy as whether values such as moral impartiality and individual human rights are western. Amartya Sen for example wants to claim that they aren’t, and he finds examples of such values in nonwestern contexts (in Development as Freedom Chapter 10). But I am not fully convinced either way. It’s probably a tricky issue that deserves its own book-length treatment by itself.
If you know any other authors, academics or philosophers that bring in the non-western perspective with regards to values and progress, I’d love to take a look!
Excellent, I am happy you are on top of this. I will have a think and see if I can come up with some. Anthropology might have things to offer. One that comes to mind is a book I think called “The Gift” or something similar—perhaps not directly relevant. And as I said I am more versed in Tibetan Buddhism with a lot of focus on cultivating compassion and of ~empowering oneself to release all beings (not just humans) from suffering for ever—that is a pretty wide moral circle!