A Theory of Moral Change

At the NYT book review, Jonathan Haidt reviews Kwame Anthony Appiah‘s new book on honor and “moral revolutions.” I haven’t read the Appiah book, but I say it’s about time a moral philosopher investigated the question of society-wide moral change. Appiah examines three practices of old–dueling, foot-binding, and slavery–and investigates why they were given up. It appears to be some sort of trickle down status based theory, where the elite come to denigrate a practice and then, by a pattern of imitation, the lower orders change. What I find most striking is that rational argument appears to be useless. What matters most is international comparison to other, higher status cultures.

Take Haidt’s summary of the abolition of foot-binding:

Allied with members of the Chinese literati, they made arguments that appealed to China’s national interest, like the need for strong and healthy women to bear strong and healthy children. Yet these arguments had no effect on the practice until members of the elite class discovered that they and their nation had become objects of ridicule. Foreigners were taking pictures of women’s tiny feet and sending them around the world. Combined with the shame of recent military and commercial defeats at the hands of Japan, Britain and other foreign powers, the thirst to restore national honor created an opening. The anti-foot-binding societies recruited high-ranking families to make a dual pledge: to refrain from binding their daughters’ feet, and from marrying their sons to women with bound feet. With upper-class boys growing up ready to marry a new pool of upper-class, unbound girls, there was now an honorable alternative, and the practice essentially disappeared within a generation.

Totalitarian regimes, particularly the USSR and China, faced similar problems. Whenever the elite of these brutal governments visited Western Europe, Hong Kong, or even the U.S., they were struck by how worse off their societies were. They saw for themselves that non-totalitarian states were patently wealthier and happier. Such international comparisons would drive dissent at the highest levels and ultimately incite change from the top down.

All of this speaks to the need for maintaining (or increasing!) inter-governmental competition. Belabored moral arguments about the good tend to fall on deaf ears. As Richard Posner has argued, moral philosophers are really poets and novelists manque. Instead, the best hope for moral progress is to instantiate first, flourish second, and then hope others imitate later. Telling someone what they’re doing is morally wrong–stop that, you savage!!–lowers their status. It’s unsurprising that they retrench on the defensive. But raise your own status by any objective measure and status-seeking behavior might lead to socially desirable results. Criticize by creating Michelangelo said. So for those who think they have the moral high ground, it sounds like a good reason for starting a new country.

Read more at Let A Thousand Nations Bloom