Well, we are getting faster. I don't know what your standard for better is, besides material well-being which is true enough.
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Enabling us to do more good, which has definitely happened, does not mean we're better people for it. A better person would be good more often whether or not it's easy to be good.
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It's bigger than that. What has changed culture is security. When you're not fighting for the existence of yourself, family & tribe, you can look around more and widen your circle of empathy.
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I, uh, don't see how that contradicts the things we've been saying. Being alive and not having to worry about our tribes' survivals does enable us to do more good. Can't do much good when your tribe is dead or enslaved, obv.
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I'm not sure what we're disagreeing on, Do you think we disagree? I was saying we have made moral progress. You have pointed out what helped that and I agreed that it did.
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Originally, I thought we did. I guess I confused "getting better" as we've become better people rather than becoming better behaved.
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We've made moral progress in our societies. We used to think slavery was OK, now we don't. We used to think killing heretics was OK, now we don't. We used to think husband's beating wives was OK, now we don't. We used to think torture was OK, now we don't. Moral progress.
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I don't disagree that such is not progress, but having a better understanding of morality doesn't mean that you are a better person for it. If people *really* thought torture was okay, you could hardly say they were bad people for keeping slaves.
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It's definitely better now in these respects, but it can also be worse in some respects. I hate to bring it up, but it's a good example to say that abortion in the USA would be one big way in which a society has worsened morally.
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