The Moral Arc Bends Toward Nothing in Particular

November 21, 2023

There is no guaranteed direction to moral progress. Ethical standards rise and fall with the civilizations that sustain them, and the belief in inevitable moral improvement is itself a product of a specific historical moment, not a universal truth.

"History repeats itself in the large because human nature changes with geological leisureliness, and man is equipped to respond in stereotyped ways to frequently occurring situations. But in a developed and complex civilization individuals are more differentiated and unique, and many situations contain novel circumstances requiring modifications of instinctive response; the results are less predictable. There is no certainty that the future will repeat the past." Will Durant, The Lessons of History

The idea that history bends toward justice is a secularized version of Christian eschatology the belief that time is moving toward redemption. Durant recognized that civilizations follow patterns of growth and decay, but explicitly denied that those patterns constitute progress. Each civilization develops its own moral system, reaches a peak of cultural achievement, and then declines, often to be replaced by something that its predecessors would have regarded as barbaric. The Romans considered the Christians barbarians; the Christians considered the Renaissance pagans; each new moral consensus imagines itself as the culmination of all that came before.

Evans, in his defense of historical practice, warns against the Carr-style teleological view that objectivity in history means conformity to an imagined future. Carr believed history was only meaningful insofar as it pointed toward a Soviet-style planned economy. When that future evaporated in 1990, so did his definition of objectivity. Fukuyama's counter-teleology that liberal democratic capitalism was the "end of history" was equally confounded by the rise of religious fundamentalism, authoritarian capitalism, and populist revolt. The postmodernists responded to this collapse of grand narratives by denying objective truth altogether, which is not a solution but a different kind of surrender.

The honest position is more uncomfortable: moral systems are human constructions, maintained by functional institutions and shared narratives. When those institutions decay and those narratives lose coherence as happens in every civilization eventually the moral achievements they supported can be lost. The abolition of slavery, the extension of suffrage, the development of human rights none of these are permanent acquisitions. They persist only as long as the societies that value them remain capable of defending them.

Takeaway: Moral progress is real but not inevitable, not irreversible, and not self-sustaining it requires the continuous maintenance of the institutions and cultures that produce it.