![]() The ambiguity in the meaning of moral progress is at the heart of a 1923 debate between biochemist J. B. S. Haldane and logician Bertrand Russell, two of the greatest and most argumentative public intellectuals of twentieth-century Britain. Genuinely novel ethics are not always genuine improvements, while many anciently articulated ethical goals remain elusive. Either meaning poses very serious challenges. But progress in ethics might also mean what Abraham Lincoln had in mind when describing the principles of the Declaration of Independence as “a standard maxim for free society … constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated.” Dyson’s idea suggests new ideals replacing old ones as history moves technologically forward Lincoln’s idea suggests more permanent human aspirations that serve as the measure of different ages. The physicist Freeman Dyson offers one common - and very modern - way of describing our predicament: “Progress of science is destined to bring enormous confusion and misery to mankind unless it is accompanied by progress in ethics.” In other words, we need some novel ethic to match our technological ingenuity. ![]() Doubts about the goodness of scientific and technological progress are hardly new, and fears about the dangers of human knowledge existed long before it became plausible to worry that the fate of the entire world might be in peril.
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