Geoffrey MillerVerified account

Perhaps but we should also consider that a we may think we have progressed when we are merely more censorious and that its easy to demonise historical figures who by definition cannot defend themselves.

My guess is that "moral progress" is difficult to measure beyond some basic, broad aspects. What some liberties mean in one era can be completely different in another that would see it as decadence.

Morality doesn't progress. It's either adaptive or maladaptive.

I have too much hypocrisy within my head (while saying very important things on Twitter) to seriously critique dead people. But maybe I should try that.

The weird thing is we haven't made any net moral progress in the last 50 years. If anything, we've lost ground. Although there are some ways we've advanced, it's often been too far, and we've lost ground outright in many other ways.

We are moral relativists across space and moral absolutists across time. As usual we have it backwards.

It's not only progress that will give this impression. People who believed in the Marxist "march of history" had the same impression.