The ‘Who’, ‘What’, and ‘When’ of Moral Progress

The literature on moral progress is full of (supposed) real-life examples of moral progress. These examples have two distinct components: one normative and one descriptive. The former picks out the moral criteria by which an episode of change counts as morally progressive; the latter picks out the unit that has undergone progress and the period of time over which that progress has occurred. While there is general agreement that nailing down the normative component of moral progress poses a substantial challenge, potential problems with the descriptive component have received far less attention and have not thus far been systematically addressed. In this paper, we aim to change this. We describe in detail a series of problems that can arise when selecting the unit(s) and time period of one’s progress claims and show how they can undermine the soundness of moral progress examples. We also sketch and evaluate potential solutions to these problems to improve the methodology of research on moral progress.