Abstract
What drives moral revolutions like the legal abolition of slavery and women’s right to vote? The importance of having an answer to this question lies in the hope of it being able to help us create moral progress in the future. This can be changing harmful practices and traditions like honour killing, child marriage, genital mutilation and political corruption. Furthermore, a wrong or insufficient picture of the dynamics of change, held by e.g. politicians or NGOs and incorporated into laws and institutions, can lead to misfired inventions, wasted resources and possibly human harm. If we lack conceptual clarity and empirical insights, we will have trouble making good decisions. However, before answering the above question we need to consider what answering it entails. This article therefore discusses which form an understanding of the dynamics of moral revolutions should take in order to best help us create progress. I do so by critically investigating one currently dominant way of approaching this issue, namely the idea that we should produce a general explanatory theory of the fundamental dynamics of change. In order to expose the problems in this approach, I engage with a contemporary example of it, namely Appiah’s work on moral revolutions, and demonstrate that honour codes cannot have the explanatory role, which Appiah claims for them. The article concludes by pointing to alternative models of understanding the dynamics of moral revolutions and changes.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
‘Theory’ is a difficult term because there is no unison use of it in academia, and it covers what are several different concepts (see e.g. Schiller 2016 for an example of how diverse the use of the word is in anthropology - if one adds the uses of it in the natural sciences, the rest of the social sciences and all of the humanities, the picture would become even more complex). My critique of ‘a general explanatory theory of the fundamental dynamics of moral revolutions’ is therefore not directed at everything called ‘a theory’. I further believe that e.g. in the natural sciences this model of understanding has been greatly successful. In this paper, I only use the term ‘theory’ for a general theory, which explains the phenomena we seek to understand with reference to recurring fundamental dynamics. I use terms like ‘a general account’, ‘metaphors of’, ‘a conceptual overview’, ‘knowledge of’, and ‘a conception of’ to designate some of the forms of understanding I believe we can develop of moral revolutions and changes (which are things also referred to as ‘a theory’ in academia, but which I for heuristic reasons choose not to in this article).
This is, as often when an author claim something is ‘a fact’, a debated view. The debate commonly hinges on how the words ‘morality’ and ‘ethics’ are defined. Some thinkers make a distinction between ‘morality’ as referring what a society considers morally good, bad, just, etc., and ‘ethics’ as referring to what truly is morally good, bad, just, etc. Some of these scholars further claim that, while the former changes, the latter does not. Other thinkers discard such a distinction as meaningful and claim that all aspects of morality/ethics change. I do not enter this meta-ethical debate in this article. Further, I use the words ethical and moral interchangeably.
The attentive reader will notice that Green asks for an account of the springs of moral change, and Appiah’s work is on moral revolution. Though all revolutions are changes, not all changes are revolutions. One might want to make claims about revolutions, one would not want to make about less radical changes. I will address this discrepancy later by suggesting that Appiah’s theory can be interpreted as a theory of moral change, though I wish to leave it an open question whether it should be.
The book “is intended for the general public” (Fischer 2011). This explains some of the – from an academic point of view – missing pieces: for instance, that Appiah does not relate his work to the influential anthropological discussions on the concept of honour (as Herzfeld 1980). A critique along these lines is hinted at, but not unfolded in Laidlaw (2011), Stainova (2011) and Gibb (2014: 175).
Appiah’s thinking is inspired by Kuhn. For a critique of the use of Kuhn to understand moral revolutions, see Palmer and Schagrin (1978). For a positive use, consult e.g. Pleasants (2018) and Kitcher (2011). Moody-Adams (1999, 2002) criticizes the meaningfulness of a concept of radical moral change. Much of the debate about radical changes concern the issue of ‘incommensurability’.
Davis further questions that dueling disappeared as a result of a change in honor codes (Davis 2011).
I assume he would not. Hunt, for one, seems to make such a strong reductionist claim: “I am insisting that any account of historical change must in the end account for the alternation of individual minds” (Hunt 2008: 34, my italics). Argument against individualistic accounts of moral revolutions can be found in Pleasants (2018).
Appiah can have investigated many more cases, but judging by the information in the book it was only three (Appiah 2010: xii).
In both sections the arguments hinge on how one interprets Appiah’s work, what one would count as an example of a moral change or revolution, which historical accounts and research one deems trustworthy, etc. I have allowed the following cases to count as counter-examples, because I deem they are sufficiently similar to Appiah’s own examples.
To speak of Christianity as something ‘unison’ is an oversimplification, as there are various forms of Christianity, and several of them have somewhat different conceptions of work (we could think of the difference between Franciscan beggar monks and protestants and their ‘work ethics’).
There are examples throughout history were a type of manual labor has been considered dishonorable in a society because it was mainly done by slaves (or women, or humans of color, or of a certain religion, or a certain caste, etc.). But this is not a universal rule.
Another critique of Appiah’s explanation of why the British worker’s attitude toward slavery changed is raised by Kumar and Campbell (2016: 156–158): “Consistency in moral feelings, not in moral belief, is what drove the change in moral feeling.”
Classical candidates for the fundamental explanatory dynamic of changes are for instance ‘economic interest’, ‘self-interest’, ‘the wish to attain and hold power’, ‘class interest and class struggle’, ‘a genetical drive to survive and reproduce’.
Clearly, the failure of one theory is not proof that we ought to give up the search for the fundamental main dynamic(s) of moral revolutions and the attempt to turn our finding into a general explanatory theory. The following are suggestions, which hopefully make sense to consider on the background of the discussion of Appiah’s work.
Haidt (2010), though, is not convinced of the resurrection of honour.
References
Andersen J G (2011) Borgerne og lovene 2010. Syddansk Universitetsforlag, Odense
Appiah KA (2010) The honor code: how moral revolutions happen. W. In: W. Norton & Company, New York
Applebaum H (1992) The concept of work – ancient, medieval, and modern. State University of New York Press, Albany
Bicchieri C (2017) Norms in the wild – how to diagnose, measure, and change social norms. Oxford University Press, New York
Blackburn S (2010) The honor code: how moral revolutions happen by Kwame Anthony Appiah – review. The Guardian 30.10, p 2010
Davis DB (2011) Honor thy honor. The New York Review of Books
Demetriou D (2013) Book reviews. The honor code: how moral revolutions happen. Mind 122(486):509–514
Diamond C (2017) Slavery and Justice: Williams and Wiggins. In: Neges K et al (eds) Realism - relativism - constructivism. De Gruyter, pp 313–326
Donkin R (2010) The history of work. Palgrave Macmillian, Basingstoke
Dübeck I (2013) De elendige. Retshistoriske studier over samfundets marginaliserede. Jurist- og Økonomiforbundets Forlag, Copenhagen
Fischer J (2011) Book review: honor code: how moral revolutions happen. J Appl Philos 28(1):96–99
Gibb M (2014) The honor code: how moral revolutions happen, Contractualism and the foundations of morality, partiality. Philos Q 64(254):174–179
Green L (2013) Should law improve morality? Crim Law Philos 7:473–494
Haidt J (2010) In the eyes of others. New York Times
Hämälainen N (2017) Three metaphors towards a conception of moral change. NWR 6(2):47–69
Herzfeld M (1980) Honour and shame: problems in the comparative analysis of moral systems. Man, New Series 15(2):339–351
Hopf T (2017) Change in international practices. Eur J International Rel:1–25
Hunt L (2008) Inventing human rights: a history. W. W. Norton & Company, New York
King R (2008) Brunelleschi’s dome: the story of the great Cathedral in Florence. Penguin Random House, London
Kitcher P (2011) The ethical project. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Komlosy A (2018) Work – the last 1,000 years. Verso, London
Krause SR (2011) The honor code: how moral revolutions happen. Ethics Int Aff 25(4):475–488
Kuhn T (1970) The structure of scientific revolutions, 2nd edn. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Kumar V, Campbell R (2016) Honor and moral revolution. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 19:147–159
Laidlaw J (2011) Morality and Honour. Anthropology of this Century Issue 1.
Lear J (2008) Radical Hope: ethics in the face of cultural devastation. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Lose S (2018) Røgfri fremtid kræver handling nu. In Jyllands-Posten, Sektion 1:19
Malacinski L (2011) Danskerne retter ind. In Jyllands-Posten, Sektion 1:6–7
Moody-Adams MM (1999) The idea of moral Progress. Metaphilosophy 30(3):168–183
Moody-Adams MM (2002) Fieldwork in familiar places: morality, culture and philosophy. Havard University Press, Cambridge
Moody-Adams MM (2017) Moral Progress and human agency. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 20:154–168
Mandag Morgen, Tryg Fonden (2008). Fremtidens forebyggelse – ifølge danskerne. Huset Mandag Morgen, Copenhagen. (MM/TF 2008)
Mandag Morgen, Tryg Fonden (2017) Mellem broccoli og bajere – forebyggelse ifølge danskerne. Huset Mandag Morgen, Copenhagen. (MM/TF 2017)
Morrison H (ed) (2012) The global history of childhood reader. Routledge, Oxon
Palmer D, Schagrin M (1978) Moral Revolutions. Philos Phenomenol Res 39(2):262–273
Pianalto M (2011) You say you want a revolution? The Philosopher’s magazine. Issue 32:103–104
Pleasants NJ (2018) The structure of moral revolutions. Soc Theory Pract 44(4):567–592
Robbins J (2004) Becoming sinners. University of California Press, Berkeley
Schiller NG (2016) Positioning theory: an introduction. Anthropological Theory 16(2–3):133–145
Stainova Y (2011) The honor code: how moral revolutions happen (review). Anthropological Q 84(4):1063–1067
Viskum B (2015) In the name of the law: how consistency can enhance legal legitimacy. In Andersen P et al. (eds) Law & Legitimacy. Djøf Forlag, Copenhagen, pp 57–72
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Nigel Pleasants, Anne-Marie Søndergaard Christensen, the participants at the conference Wittgensteinian Approaches to Moral Philosophy, Leuwen University, Belgium and at Det högre seminariet i rättsvetenskaplig hermeneutic, University of Uppsala, Sweden as well as the anonymous reviewers for constructive criticism of earlier versions of this article.
Funding
Aarhus University, School of Business and Social Sciences, Case nr. 10765.
Independent Research Fund Denmark | Culture and Communication, Case nr. 7013-00068B.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interest
The author declare that I have no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Eriksen, C. The Dynamics of Moral Revolutions – Prelude to Future Investigations and Interventions. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 22, 779–792 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-019-10005-x
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-019-10005-x