“The evil arising from mental improvement can be corrected only by a still further progress in that very improvement. Either morality is a fable, or the more enlightened we are, the more attached to it we become.” StillsEvilProgressMoralityImprovementEnlightenedFables Author:Madame de Stael
“[The church] is in its major part an opponent still of progress and improvement in all the ways that diminish suffering in the world, because it has chosen to label as morality a certain narrow set of rules of conduct which have nothing to do with human happiness; and when you say that this or that ought to be done because it would make for human happiness, they think that has nothing to do with the matter at all. "What has human happiness to do with morals? The object of morals is not to make people happy.” PeopleThinkingWorldWayHumansStillsMatterDoneCertainSufferingChurchMoralProgressObjectsOughtMoralityMajorsImprovementChosenLabelsOpponentsDiminishMaking People HappyHuman Happiness Book:Why I Am Not a Christian Source: Why I Am Not a Christian
“Darwinism undermined traditional morality and the value of human life. Then, evolutionary progress became the new moral imperative. This aided the advance of eugenics, which was overtly founded on Darwinian principles. Some eugenicists began advocating euthanasia and infanticide for the disabled. On a parallel track, some prominent Darwinists argued that human racial competition and war is part of the Darwinian struggle for existence. Hitler imbibed these social Darwinist ideas, blended in virulent anti-Semitism, and--there you have it: Holocaust” HumansIdeasWarValuesSocialExistenceMoralPrinciplesStruggleProgressMoralityCompetitionTrackTraditionalHuman LifeHolocaustParallelsImperativesDisabledEugenicsAdvocatingProminentAnti SemitismDarwinismEuthanasiaInfanticideStruggle For ExistenceValue Of Human Life Author:Richard Weikart
“You're damn right we need a rational code of morality and ethics. But not much progress can be made in that direction while we've still got a majority ranting about gods, devils, souls, and absolute morality, and using an ancient book written by ignorant nomads as a guide.” NeedsMadeStillsBookSoulProgressWrittenMoralityEthicsDevilAbsolutesMajorityAncientGuidesIgnorantRationalCodeDamnNomadMorality And Ethics Author:Doug Graham
“The world has always needed human beings who refuse to believe that history is nothing but a dull, monstrous selfrepetition, a selfperpetuating, meaningless game, only varied in outer garb, who cannot be converted from their conviction that history signifies progress in morality, that our race is ascending on an invisible ladder from an animal nature towards divinity, from brutal violence to the wisely ordering intellect, and that the ultimate stage of complete understanding is already close at hand, indeed has almost been attained.” WorldBelieveHumansHandsGamesUnderstandingGrowthHuman BeingsAnimalRaceProgressViolenceStageNeededMoralityGoodnessUltimateRefuseConvictionIntellectInvisibleDullDivinityMeaninglessBrutalLaddersMonstrousAscending Author:Stefan Zweig
“Tracing the progress of mankind in the ascending path of civilization, and moral and intellectual culture, our fathers found that the divine ordinance of government, in every stage of the ascent, was adjustable on principles of common reason to the actual condition of a people, and always had for its objects, in the benevolent councils of the divine wisdom, the happiness, the expansion, the security, the elevation of society, and the redemption of man. They sought in vain for any title of authority of man over man, except of superior capacity and higher morality.” PeopleMenReasonGovernmentCultureFoundFatherCommonMoralPrinciplesPathProgressConditionsMankindStageSecurityObjectsDivineHigherMoralityCivilizationAuthorityIntellectualCapacityIndependenceSuperiorsRedemptionVainTitlesExpansionCouncilOur FatherBenevolentIndependence DayElevationAscentOrdinancesTracingAscendingDivine Wisdom Author:William M. Evarts
“The destiny of the human race is to widen the gap separating it from the lower races of animals. Any code of morality which retains its permanence and authority after the conditions of existence which gave rise to it have changed, works against this upward progress of man.” MenHumansAnimalRaceExistenceDestinyProgressConditionsChangedMoralityAuthorityCodeHuman RaceGapsPermanenceSeparating Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
“Morality has in the past made progress when we broadened the category of things we weren't permitted to harm (animals, 'infidels'); saw through some delusions and rationalisations about what harms are good for people themselves (prison punishment, hysterectomies for unhappy 1950s wives); and readjusted our for-the-good of others criteria so as to demand only reasonable sacrifices (ceasing to use children as handy chimney sweeps).” PeopleChildrenMadeUsePastAnimalSawsWifeProgressSacrificeMoralityDemandPrisonHarmPunishmentUnhappyReasonableDelusionCategoriesCriteriaHandyInfidelChimneysHysterectomyChimney Sweeps Author:Catherine Wilson
“The gay rights movement of recent years has been an inspiring victory for humanity and it is in the tradition of the civil rights movement when I was a young boy in the South, the women's suffrage movement when my mother was a young woman in Tennessee, the abolition movement much farther back, and the anti-apartheid movement when I was in the House of Representatives. All of these movements have one thing in common: the opposition to progress was rooted in an outdated understanding of morality.” MotherHumanityHouseUnderstandingCommonBoysProgressVictoryMoralityGayTraditionCivil RightsYoung WomenCivil Rights MovementGay RightsAbolitionSuffrage Author:Al Gore
“Conservatism vests in and depends on the widespread, informed understanding of human nature, self-governance and the First Principle of Progress: free people interacting in free markets produce the greatest good for the greatest number always, but only, when tethered to virtue and morality.” PeopleFirstsHumansSelfUnderstandingNumbersPrinciplesVirtueProgressHuman NatureProduceDependsMoralityFree MarketGovernanceConservatismInteractingVests Author:Mary Matalin