Moral Progress

I'm reading a book right now called "Democratic Individuality." It's the type of title that makes me want to skim over it quickly under the assumption that I don't know - no, no, that I couldn't know - what the elitist, academic lingo means. I make myself think about it and take a stab at what the title means. Maybe I'm wrong, but my guess is that it's about this: how can we be individuals if our entire democratic system is bent on making us all equal (i.e., the same)?

The question of individuality in democracy is tied to morality. Why? First, remember that morality has to do with proper behavior. Is my behavior proper, good, right? But, it's not simply a person's behavior in the abstract. Instead, proper behavior is only known by looking at it in the context of other people. The connection comes, then, because proper behavior, doing good, and being right, being moral is all in reference to other people. Determining morality means looking at the impact of an individual's actions on other people. So, we see that one person of many in a democratic system must be careful in trying to be an individual, because their actions may be immoral (improper, evil, bad, wrong) with respect to the other people in the system.

Still with me? Okay, good. Here's the real question: is there morality relativity or moral realism?

Moral relativity = morals are subjective, changing, and relative to particular cultures, eras, situations, etc.

Moral realism = morals are absolute, fixed and universal. There is one standard that holds for all people, across all time, and all situations.

I'm not saying whether I think there is relativism or realism (because I don't know!), but here's something to think about. Some say that because we can see changing morals, our morals must be relative. We used to think slavery was fine and dandy. Now we (the American people at-large) generally think slavery is a moral wrong. Our morality has changed = evidence that we have no fixed, absolute morality.

BUT, what if morality is like science. Scientific work establishes universal truths. Gravity. F=MA. The quadratic formula. But, science also continuously overturns "universal truths" when new discoveries are made. We don't say there are no scientific universal truths, or that other scientific universal truths are now wrong, just because we realize that one past "truth" was actually a mistake. What if morality is the same way? What if we make discoveries about what is moral. If that's true, our changing morals wouldn't show unfixed, subjective morality. Our changing morals would show that we are making progress in the field of morality. And, just as in science, a new universal truth does not undermine all truths of science, a new moral (e.g. that men and women are equal, that we shouldn't have slavery, that homosexuality is a-okay) does not undermine all truths of morality.

Think about it. Tell me what you think.