Précis of The Evolution of Moral Progress: A Biocultural Theory

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-194
Author(s):  
Allen Buchanan ◽  
Russell Powell
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Cultural Construction ◽  
Moral Progress ◽  
Moral Norms ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Psychological Theories ◽  
History Of ◽  
Moral Nature ◽  
First Time

Abstract The idea of moral progress played a central role in liberal political thought from the Enlightenment through the nineteenth century but is rarely encountered in moral and political philosophical discourse today. One reason for this is that traditional liberal theorists of moral progress, like their conservative detractors, tended to rely on under-evidenced assumptions about human psychology and society. For the first time, we are developing robust scientific knowledge about human nature, especially through empirical psychological theories of morality and culture that are informed by evolutionary theory. On the surface, evolutionary accounts of morality paint a rather pessimistic picture of human moral nature, suggesting that certain types of moral progress are unrealistic or inappropriate for beings like us. Humans are said to be ‘hard-wired’ for tribalism. However, such a view overlooks the great plasticity of human morality as evidenced by our history of social and political moral achievements. To account for these changes while giving evolved moral psychology its due, we develop a dynamic, biocultural theory of moral progress that highlights the interaction between adaptive components of moral psychology and the cultural construction of moral norms and beliefs, and we explore how this interaction can advance, impede, and reverse moral progress.

The Evolution of Moral Progress

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allen Buchanan ◽  
Russell Powell
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Cultural Construction ◽  
Moral Progress ◽  
Moral Norms ◽  
Moral Thought ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
First Time

The idea of moral progress played a central role in liberal political thought from the Enlightenment through the nineteenth century but is rarely encountered in moral and political philosophical discourse today. One reason for this is that traditional liberal theorists of moral progress, like their conservative detractors, tended to rely on underevidenced assumptions about human psychology and society. For the first time in history, we are developing robust scientific knowledge about human nature, especially through empirical psychological theories of morality and culture that are informed by evolutionary theory. In addition, the social sciences now provide better information about which social arrangements are feasible and sustainable and about how social norms arise, change, and come to shape moral thought and behavior. Accordingly, it is time to revisit the question of moral progress. On the surface, evolutionary accounts of morality paint a pessimistic picture, suggesting that certain types of moral progress are unrealistic or inappropriate for beings like us. In brief, humans are said to be “hard-wired” for rather limited moral capacities. However, such a view overlooks the great plasticity of human morality as evidenced by our history of social and political moral achievements. To account for these changes while giving evolved moral psychology its due, we develop a dynamic, biocultural theory of moral progress that highlights the interaction between adaptive components of moral psychology and the cultural construction of moral norms and beliefs; and we explore how this interaction can advance, impede, and reverse moral progress.

Il ruolo della retorica tra democrazia e oligarchia. Un’ipotesi di attribuzione di un supposto frammento socratico

Elenchos ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-232
Author(s):  
Christian Vassallo
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Critical Edition ◽  
Ancient Philosophy ◽  
Socratic Dialogue ◽  
Accurate Knowledge ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Scholarship ◽  
Editio Princeps ◽  
First Time

AbstractSince the editio princeps, PSI XI 1215 has been recognized as a fragment of a Socratic dialogue. After the first studies on its philological aspects and probable authorship, however, the text has not drawn the attention of historians of ancient philosophy, and this important Socratic evidence has long been totally neglected. This paper reviews the history of scholarship on the Florentine fragment and presents a new critical edition, on the basis of which it tries to give for the first time a historico-philosophical reading of the text. This interpretation aims to demonstrate: a) that the Socratic philosopher who is writing had not a low cultural level, and the fragment presupposes an accurate knowledge of Plato’s political thought, as Medea Norsa and Girolamo Vitelli already supposed with regard to Book 8 of Plato’s Republic; b) that the fragment in question can be attributed to a Socratic dialogue which was most likely composed in the first half of the 4th century BC; c) that both philosophical and textual arguments support the attribution of the fragment to a dialogue of Antisthenes.

DE-MORALIZATION AS EMANCIPATION: LIBERTY, PROGRESS, AND THE EVOLUTION OF INVALID MORAL NORMS *

2017 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 108-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allen Buchanan ◽  
Russell Powell
Keyword(s):  
Moral Progress ◽  
Moral Norms ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Cultural Evolutionary

Abstract:Liberal thinkers of the Enlightenment understood that surplus moral constraints, imposed by invalid moral norms, are a serious limitation on liberty. They also recognized that overcoming surplus moral constraints — what we call proper de-moralization — is an important dimension of moral progress. Contemporary philosophical theorists of liberty have largely neglected the threat that surplus moral constraints pose to liberty and the importance of proper de-moralization for human emancipation. This essay examines the phenomena of surplus moral constraints and proper de-moralization, utilizing insights from biological and cultural evolutionary thinking

The Disciples of Mutis and the Enlightenment in New Granada: Education, History and Literature

1980 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-192
Author(s):  
John F. Wilhite
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Scientific Study ◽  
Education History ◽  
Progressive Reform ◽  
New Granada ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
New Directions ◽  
History Of ◽  
Personal Physician

José Celestino Mutis, physician, naturalist and educator, and a native of the port of Cádiz in Spain, arrived at the Spanish viceroyalty of New Granada in the year 1760 as personal physician to Viceroy Messía de la Zerda. His arrival coincided with the beginning of a period of change in the cultural history of that reino or “kingdom”. Progressive reform in the colonial universities, stimulus to scientific study, new directions in philosophic and political thought and the formation of an enlightened society were the contributions don José made to the cultural partrimony of New Granada. The results of his activity in this viceroyalty were manifestations of that period in history which is termed the Enlightenment.

The Opinion of Mankind

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Sagar
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
David Hume ◽  
State Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
History Of

What is the modern state? Conspicuously undertheorized in recent political theory, this question persistently animated the best minds of the Enlightenment. Recovering David Hume and Adam Smith's underappreciated contributions to the history of political thought, this book considers how, following Thomas Hobbes's epochal intervention in the mid-seventeenth century, subsequent thinkers grappled with explaining how the state came into being, what it fundamentally might be, and how it could claim rightful authority over those subject to its power. Hobbes has cast a long shadow over Western political thought, particularly regarding the theory of the state. This book shows how Hume and Smith, the two leading lights of the Scottish Enlightenment, forged an alternative way of thinking about the organization of modern politics. They did this in part by going back to the foundations: rejecting Hobbes's vision of human nature and his arguments about our capacity to form stable societies over time. In turn, this was harnessed to a deep reconceptualization of how to think philosophically about politics in a secular world. The result was an emphasis on the “opinion of mankind,” the necessary psychological basis of all political organization. Demonstrating how Hume and Smith broke away from Hobbesian state theory, the book suggests ways in which these thinkers might shape how we think about politics today, and in turn how we might construct better political theory.

The Politics of Slavery

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Brace
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
The Political ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
Historical Process ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Dimensions ◽  
Definition Of

This book asks what it means to describe someone as a slave and explores the political dimensions of that question. It argues against the search for a transhistorical and timeless definition of slavery, and offers a critical interrogation of the dominant liberal discourse on slavery from the Enlightenment to the present. It pays particular attention to the meanings of the slavery / freedom binary and to the connections between the past and the present in understanding ‘old’ and ‘new’ slavery. The book is about what it means to think about slavery as a historical process and as a political relation, both in the history of political thought and in present debates about trafficking and incarceration. It argues that we need to bring the concept of slavery back into our understandings of freedom, labour and belonging, and unravel the assumptions behind the meanings we ascribe to personhood, sub-personhood and humanity. From Aristotle and the idea of natural slavery, through Locke’s conception of civil society, Hegel’s master-slave dialectic and J.S. Mill’s analogy of slavery and marriage to the discourse of modern abolition and the idea of trafficking as slavery, the book interrogates what it means to think about the idea of freedom as the opposite of slavery, and draws attention to the significance of the tensions, ambiguities and silences that surround that conception.

Alexander Galagan: Russian titan of the Enlightenment in the history of accounting

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 293-316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikhail I Kuter ◽  
Marina M Gurskaya ◽  
Alexander V Kuznetsov
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
English Language ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
English Language Literature ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
Characteristic Features ◽  
First Time ◽  
Outstanding Representative ◽  
Language Literature

The purpose of the article is to analyze the characteristic features of the Enlightenment in Russian accounting in relation to the activity of its outstanding representative Alexander Galagan, who followed the motto, proclaimed in the essay “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” by Immanuel Kant, “Sapere aude!” (Dare to know!). For the first time in the English language literature, Galagan is spoken about not only as a theorist but as an accounting historian and a teacher. A detailed description of his works and views is presented. The article’s attention is focused on Galagan’s main aim: improving the status of accounting as a science. Following the results of the research, the following hypothesis has been advanced: which period of time should be regarded in Russian accounting as the Enlightenment? It has also been explained why Alexander Galagan can be considered as a model of Enlightenment.

scholarly journals Political Self-Identification of Russian Military Personnel in Finland in Spring 1917

2021 ◽  
pp. 289-308
Author(s):  
E. Yu. Dubrovskaya
Keyword(s):  
Initial Period ◽  
Moral Norms ◽  
Social Transformations ◽  
Party Organizations ◽  
History Of ◽  
Russian Military ◽  
The Military ◽  
First Time

The socio-psychological characteristics of the behavior of the Russian military in Finland in the initial period of the 1917 revolution were revealed, including the formation of behavioral stereotypes, new “images of the enemy”, a change in their ideas about “friends” and “foes”, and the transformation of social and moral norms. The relevance of the study is due to the need to apply a relatively new historical and anthropological approach to the study of the role of the military factor in the history of Russia and Finland. Based on the materials of the revolutionary Helsingfors and non-capital garrisons, the process of ideological and organizational self-determination of the supporters of the Socialist-Revolutionary and Bolshevik parties is considered, information about the number and the beginning of the activities of these party organizations is systematized and analyzed. The novelty of the research is seen in the fact that addressing the problem of “Revolution and man” and studying the images of “Friends”, “Foes”, “Other” in the perception of participants and eyewitnesses of events in connection with their participation in social transformations of a revolutionary time allows for the first time to get an idea of the mentality of privates and officers — the most active part of the Russian population of Finland. The author comes to the conclusion that the role of the Russian military in the events of the spring of 1917 is much more significant than was previously assumed.

The Making of Modern Liberalism

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Ryan
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Social Identity ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Liberal Tradition ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
History Of

This book is a deep and wide-ranging exploration of the origins and nature of liberalism from the Enlightenment through its triumphs and setbacks in the twentieth century and beyond. The book is the fruit of more than four decades during which the author reflected on the past of the liberal tradition—and worried about its future. This is essential reading for anyone interested in political theory or the history of liberalism. The book consists of five parts. It covers subjects such as liberalism, freedom, the liberal community and the death penalty, Thomas Hobbes's political philosophy, individualism, human nature, John Locke on freedom, John Stuart Mill's political thought, utilitarianism and bureaucracy, pragmatism, social identity, patriotism, self-criticism, and more.

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