The Changing Moral Landscape

Occams Barber · May 9, 2019

The Changing Moral Landscape

Morality as defined by the Oxford Dictionary :

Principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour.
A particular system of values and principles of conduct.
The extent to which an action is right or wrong.

A couple of days ago I was thinking about the range of significant moral changes which have taken place within Western, nominally Christian, society over time. I started to make a list of changes, but it became obvious that “moral change” was a slippery concept. At first, I went looking for things which were once seen as wrong which are now seen as right (or vice versa) but soon realised that this was an oversimplification.

While a specific behaviour can shift between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ it can also become (or cease to be) morally ‘neutral’. There are degrees of rightness or wrongness allowing for a shift from (say) absolutely wrong to trivially wrong. There can be shifts where a behaviour becomes acceptable (or unacceptable) in certain circumstances. A behaviour can be seen as wrong in secular society but right according to Christian morality. Some moral shifts are works in progress while others are, more or less, settled. Moral issues can shift from being definitely ‘wrong’ or ‘right’ to ‘unresolved’.

Armed with this new appreciation I managed to list around 20 instances of ‘moral change’. I’m sure there are many more.

Bearing in mind the range of possible states covered by ‘moral shift’, can you add any items to the list I’ve started (see below)?

I’m looking for things which have noticeably changed their status within the continuum of ‘morality’.

Can you see any patterns within the list?

For example: Are there common factors between types of behaviour which are gaining/losing moral ground? ‘Common factors’ might include things like new knowledge, ideological shifts or technological advances. Is there a direction to change?

The ’Moral Change’ list - so far:

Unwed motherhood
Sex outside of marriage
Homosexuality
Allowable killing
Same sex marriage
Same sex parenting
Working mothers
Slavery
Masturbation
Treatment of non-combatants (in warfare)
Racial discrimination
Gender discrimination
Religious discrimination
Transgenderism
Colonialism
Freedom of Religion
White superiority
Anti-Semitism
Abortion
Capital punishment in general
Specific forms of capital punishment (burning, beheading, drawing)
Euthanasia/assisted suicide
Child marriage
Age of consent
?

EDIT- the following red entries added as a result of Poster suggestions

Divorce
Pornography
Drug and alcohol usage
Contraception
Crime and punishment
Modesty in dress
Animal Rights
Environmental Protection
Divine Right of Kings
Children's Rights
Spousal (wife) status/rights
Equal Pay for Women
Age Discrimination
Disability Discrimination
Principle of Informed Consent
Rape in Marriage
Usury

Groupings?

Sexual Issues
Gender
Discrimination

A Plea
I know that many of you have strong opinions about morality. This thread is intended as a reasoned discussion of moral change. Please don’t use it as a Forum for arguing the (im)morality of certain behaviours, groups or individuals.

OB

Tone · May 9, 2019

Criminal Justice (may fall under slavery)

Occams Barber · May 9, 2019

Tone said:
Criminal Justice (may fall under slavery)

Criminal Justice is a very broad concept.

Can you narrow it down bearing in mind that I'm looking for a moral shift?
OB

Tone · May 9, 2019

Occams Barber said:
Criminal Justice is a very broad concept.

Can you narrow it down bearing in mind that I'm looking for a moral shift?
OB

The idea of mass incarceration.

Tone · May 9, 2019

"America is number one — in incarceration. Over the past several decades, the country has built the largest prison population in the entire world, with the second-highest prison population per capita behind the tiny African country of Seychelles. But how did it get this way? Although it may be easy to blame one specific event, the US's path to mass incarceration was decades in the making."
https://www.vox.com/2015/7/13/8913297/mass-incarceration-maps-charts

Tone · May 9, 2019

"Mass incarceration is, predominantly, black incarceration. Black people are nearly six times as likely to be incarcerated as white people, and nearly three times as likely to be incarcerated as their Latino counterparts.

Why? A review of the research by the Sentencing Project concluded that higher crime rates in black communities explained about 61 to 80 percent of black overrepresentation in prisons. This means that other factors, such as racial bias or past criminal records influencing prison sentences, were behind as much as 39 percent of the disparate rates of imprisonment for black people."
https://www.vox.com/2015/7/13/8913297/mass-incarceration-maps-charts

chevyontheriver · May 9, 2019

Occams Barber said:
Armed with this new appreciation I managed to list around 20 instances of ‘moral change’. I’m sure there are many more.

Bearing in mind the range of possible states covered by ‘moral shift’, can you add any items to the list I’ve started (see below)?

Things you might consider adding:

Contraception, universally considered immoral less than 100 years ago.
I noticed divorce was not on the list.
Acceptance or prohibition of drug and alcohol use
Pornography

Occams Barber · May 9, 2019

Tone said:
The idea of mass incarceration.

While mass incarceration represents a change in how society deals with criminal offenders I'm not sure that its a moral shift. More of a practical change. (How did we deal with offenders prior to the concept of public imprisonment? Is there a moral difference?)

I'm assuming by 'mass' you're referring to the use of public incarceration (prisons) as general method of restraining/punishing offenders.
OB

Occams Barber · May 9, 2019

chevyontheriver said:
Things you might consider adding:
Contraception, universally considered immoral less than 100 years ago.
I noticed divorce was not on the list.
Acceptance or prohibition of drug and alcohol use
Pornography

I considered contraception but wasn't sure whether it was once immoral or just not available. After thinking it through, given it has some religious/moral restrictions even today, I'm inclined to agree with you and add it to the list.
Pornography and divorce - once wrong, now (generally) OK. Added, Thanks.
Attitudes to drug and alcohol have always been morally ambivalent. On balance I'd tend to agree with you although I'm not really sure where a moral shift has ocurred.
OB

Tone · May 9, 2019

Occams Barber said:
While mass incarceration represents a change in how society deals with criminal offenders I'm not sure that its a moral shift. More of a practical change. (How did we deal with offenders prior to the concept of public imprisonment? Is there a moral difference?)

I'm assuming by 'mass' you're referring to the use of public incarceration (prisons) as general method of restraining/punishing offenders.
OB

I had in mind the whole idea of thinking it is acceptable to take people away from their families (and society in general) for many many years in the name of "corrections". It has since been shown that this "practical change" was/is more of an economical/political shift. In this way, I consider it a moral decay. Fortunately, it is now acknowledged and there is some change occurring in a positive direction.

Prior to the prison industrial complex, people may have been jailed for a time, but it wasn't an institutional thing, where they were ripped from family and society. Also, the time penalties weren't so absurd...they fit the crime, at least. Only the most dangerous criminals were maybe locked in a dungeon, because they were just to violent that society was not safe. Thieves paid back what they took, and then some, but they were able to work it off within society. Drug users weren't considered as criminals. Most crimes could be paid off at a reasonable rate and they could even decide to join the military.

So, I believe that there was a moral difference in what people thought was acceptable in punishing a crime.

What is the Prison Industrial Complex? | Empty Cages Collective

Occams Barber · May 9, 2019

Tone said:
"Mass incarceration is, predominantly, black incarceration. Black people are nearly six times as likely to be incarcerated as white people, and nearly three times as likely to be incarcerated as their Latino counterparts.

Why? A review of the research by the Sentencing Project concluded that higher crime rates in black communities explained about 61 to 80 percent of black overrepresentation in prisons. This means that other factors, such as racial bias or past criminal records influencing prison sentences, were behind as much as 39 percent of the disparate rates of imprisonment for black people."
https://www.vox.com/2015/7/13/8913297/mass-incarceration-maps-charts

Remember that the basis of this thread is moral change. While arguments will rage about the rights and wrongs of African American incarceration I don't see a moral shift in this.
OB

Occams Barber · May 9, 2019

Tone said:
I had in mind the whole idea of thinking it is acceptable to take people away from their families (and society in general) for many many years in the name of "corrections". It has since been shown that this "practical change" was/is more of an economical/political shift. In this way, I consider it a moral decay. Fortunately, it is now acknowledged and there is some change occurring in a positive direction.

Prior to the prison industrial complex, people may have been jailed for a time, but it wasn't an institutional thing, where they were ripped from family and society. Also, the time penalties weren't so absurd...they fit the crime, at least. Only the most dangerous criminals were maybe locked in a dungeon, because they were just to violent that society was not safe. Thieves paid back what they took, and then some, but they were able to work it off within society. Drug users weren't considered as criminals. Most crimes could be paid off at a reasonable rate and they could even decide to join the military.

So, I believe that there was a moral difference in what people thought was acceptable in punishing a crime.

What is the Prison Industrial Complex? | Empty Cages Collective

After thinking it through I've added it under the general header of (attitudes to) 'Crime and Punishment' basically because moral views of the relationship between punishment and crime have varied enormously (and still do).

Incidentally - there was a time when prisons were considered a very humane form of punishment.
OB

chevyontheriver · May 9, 2019

Occams Barber said:
I considered contraception but wasn't sure whether it was once immoral or just not available. After thinking it through, given it has some religious/moral restrictions even today, I'm inclined to agree with you and add it to the list.

Early Christians opposed it, Luther was apoplectic against contraception, and every denomination was positively against it until the Anglicans decided it was OK in 1930. And contraception is not new at all. The Egyptians developed all sorts of (scary) contraceptives most of which probably caused rip-roaring infections followed by sterility.

Pornography and divorce - once wrong, now (generally) OK. Added, Thanks.

Attitudes to drug and alcohol have always been morally ambivalent. On balance I'd tend to agree with you although I'm not really sure where a moral shift has ocurred.
OB

We had Prohibition against alcohol and then abandoned it. We had a sort of prohibition against weed but that is collapsing all over the place. I think these things ebb and flow.

There are probably a dozen other things we could add. Maybe more later.

Occams Barber · May 9, 2019

@Tone @chevyontheriver

I've added your suggestions into the OP list in red to differentiate them from my original list. Thanks.
OB

chevyontheriver · May 9, 2019

Occams Barber said:
@Tone @chevyontheriver

I've added your suggestions into the OP list in red to differentiate them from my original list. Thanks.
OB

Hey. Red letter. Imagine that.

Occams Barber · May 9, 2019

chevyontheriver said:
Hey. Red letter. Imagine that.

I thought you might appreciate the compliment.
OB

Tone · May 9, 2019

chevyontheriver said:
Hey. Red letter. Imagine that.

Ex Cathedra...

chevyontheriver · May 9, 2019

Tone said:
Ex Cathedra...

No, more even than that. In many Bibles only the words of Jesus get that treatment. Not that any words of mine would be worthy in comparison.

ChicanaRose · May 9, 2019

Occams Barber said:
Bearing in mind the range of possible states covered by ‘moral shift’, can you add any items to the list I’ve started (see below)?

Indecent exposure/ lack of modesty...it seems people are becoming increasingly shameless these days.

Tone · May 10, 2019

ChicanaRose said:
Indecent exposure/ lack of modesty...it seems people are becoming increasingly shameless these days.

ha ha...does yoga wear qualify?

The Changing Moral Landscape

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