Have we become more moral?

We’re getting better but we’ve much more work to do.

That depends on who defines your morality. If you think there is absolute right and wrong, then maybe.

But in my opinion there is no absolute right and wrong. Morality is defined by the society its in. Each society will of course think they are the most moral, because they are sticking to the morals of their society.

Dueling wasn’t deemed immoral, so that society didn’t think they were. And so on for each other the other examples you gave.

Maybe in the future we will deem it immoral for our kids to go to school. They will look back on us with wonder on how we could do such a thing.

But where I live, you can expect the wrath of a thousand angry gods to fall upon you if you even express a racist sentiment. Still, even according to your response, this doesn’t stop racism and oppression from occurring. It is true that it is less acceptable to be racist on the individual level but it is still very rampant at the institutional level.

Having said that I think @The_Compassionate_Heretic has a good answer to your general question.

There are still far too many countries and cultures on this planet that practice discrimination and have barbaric treatment of others. What we experience in Western civilization is still more the exception than the norm; but we are kept blissfully ignorant by our media outlets and their advertising sponsors.

Still, this question isn’t asking if everything is perfect, it’s asking if we have improved in the “moral” sense and I definitely think we have as evidenced by the examples provided. Doesn’t mean that there isn’t more to improve upon, but it has improved.

Morals change. I could argue that in ways we have become much less moral.

Moral Relativism + Balkanization != “more moral than thou”
...even if thou is our ancestors.

If morality is taken to mean something like “treating our fellow humans as we would hope to be treated,” then yes, I think our societal morality around the world has been gradually increasing (albeit slowly sometimes) for centuries. Having said that, I think the worst of us are just as bad as ever, and (thanks to modern technologies and the Information Age), the acts of the worst can be on bigger scale than in the past, and more widely publicized than in the past. So it may not always seem like things are getting better…

Even though there are definitely still places that are still quite barbaric by “western” standards, most of them are still better than they once were (even if only a little better)...

I would have said yes, right up to the point where Bush began torturing prisoners.

I don’t think morality has improved. It is a simple fact of industralization. The increase in living standard has increased “politeness” in our society. More people were given the free time to persue an education and to think, hence morality becomes more evolved. Economic growth won’t continue forever, and we will fall back to where we once where eventually.

Unless a person has really studied history, and learned about the sorts of things that were common a few centuries ago, there is no real way to tell if we have changed for the better morally. It depends upon location, perception, and culture.

Case in point, in 1642, a 16 year old boy named Thomas Graunger received the death penalty for the offense of bestiality in Plymouth Colony, Mass. That was a mere 367 years ago. I remember reading the story while researching early colonial history, about how the teen was caught having carnal relations with a cow. He was hung by the neck until dead and they killed the cow, too.

While we might laugh about this now, or think it is gross that a teenaged boy is having carnal relations with an animal, the point is, we have not come all that far, as a moral society. Things aren’t as bad as they used to be, but they could still be better.

people still suck.

I often believe our “morality” will be the death of civilization. We seem to be trying to right so many wrongs that we are creating new ones. Soon it will be immoral to let your child outside without covering them head to toe in protective gear. While I agree that the examples you cite show some of the ills of our society I am not altogether convinced that we are headed in the right direction.

I think this is a great question, and a difficult one to answer, too. My knee-jerk reaction is “yes, of course!”, but in reality, morality is relative. It’s so hard to see that, though. I do think that we are getting better and better at rising above ‘human nature’ on the whole.

Now, try saying “in reality, morality is relative” five times fast. :D

Are you kiddin’, right?

Nietszche proposed morals were the source of all evil. I tend to agree sometimes. Or more specifically evil = the want to impose your own morals on other people. Its intertwined with power of course – the power to impose your morals on others.

I wish we could be more amoral as a society (less judgemental, not immoral) and i think we have a long way to go.

Yes, we are becoming more moral in some instances. Some third world countries are behind in this respect too though, where rape, murder and looting are part of accepted daily life. I think it is wonderful that today we can wage war in a way that is far more economical on lives than ancient times (war is rarely desirable, but it will always occur). Our legal system is also far more effective in maintaining order and preventing barbaric retaliations than in previous eras. I doubt we will ever become strictly moral, but I like to think we are improving.

Morals are subject to society’s beliefs, whether they are influenced by religion or government or fear. Today, we are more moral by our standards, but the standards of someone living 40, 60, 100, 200, or 2000 years ago would be drastically different, depending on a multitude of factors. “Morality,” in my opinion, is a personal decision of what constitutes right and wrong. Everything else is just a function of society.

Morality: Conformity to conventional standards of moral conduct. (CollinsDict.1987).
Conventional: established by accepted usage or general agreement. (CollinsDict.1987).

Morality does not exist to a person or an individual. Morality exists, and is governed, by a people or community.

I wanted to come back to this Q because I just listened to an installment of Radiolab that dealt with how animal and human populations can grow more cooperative and less aggressive. It pointed to a couple of different mechanisms that can have this kind of civilizing effect.

Studies of wild baboon populations suggest that removal of the more aggressive “alpha” males from baboon societies radically alters the social dynamic of the troop and results in far more cooperative behavior, including among the sub-dominant males (highly unusual in typical baboon society). This new culture of cooperation is even transmitted to any new males introduced from outside the troop and persists across multiple generations.

Another study of the genetic process of domesticating wild animals showed that if you selectively breed animals (the example given was the fox) for just the trait of friendliness, you actually end up getting a whole cluster of other physical characteristics that appear to come along with that friendliness. In other words, the domesticated, “friendly” fox resulting from 10 years of selective breeding for just the friendliness trait looks quite different from a wild fox. What appears to be happening is that in breeding for friendliness, you’re breeding out the developmental processes that fully transform the adolescent animal into the adult animal. Effectively, you arrest the physical development of the animal at some friendlier juvenile stage (many wild animals can be kept as pets while still juveniles, but become aggresive when they reach adulthood). Our domesticated dogs are, then, genetically engineered to be permanent wolf puppies.

It could be that both of these mechanisms are at work among humans, gradually transforming us into a kinder, gentler species. For many, many generations now, behaving in an aggressive and non-cooperative way is liable to get you removed from society in one way or another. This removal of the equivalent of our “alpha” individuals would both create immediate societal changes as opportunities are opened up for sub-dominant individuals, and lead to a gradual genetic selection for friendliness. Many of the physical traits that distinguish us from our ancestors, such as finer bone structure and smaller teeth, are consistent with this hypothesis.