The normative significance of future moral revolutions

John Danaher, Jeroen Hopster*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Since moral revolutions have occurred in the past, it seems plausible to suppose that they will occur again in the future. What significance, if any, does this prospect have for our present normative outlook? This paper identifies eight ways in which this question may be answered, drawing on recent arguments in the philosophical literature. Our aim is not to vindicate any of these purported normative responses as correct. Instead, our aim is taxonomic and synoptic: we provide an overview of the different responses that the prospect of future moral revolutions gives rise to and analyze how these responses are modulated by judgements of certainty and uncertainty, whether they are practically or epistemically oriented, and to what extent they depend on ethical and metaethical assumptions.

Original languageEnglish
Article number103046
Pages (from-to)1-15
Number of pages15
JournalFutures. The Journal of Forecasting, Planning and Policy
Volume144
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Jeroen Hopster acknolwedges support from the research programme " Ethics of Socially Disruptive Technologies ", which is funded through the Gravitation programme of the Dutch Ministry of Education , Culture, and Science and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research under grant number 024.004.031 .

Funding Information:
Jeroen Hopster acknolwedges support from the research programme "Ethics of Socially Disruptive Technologies", which is funded through the Gravitation programme of the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research under grant number 024.004.031.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Authors

Funding

Jeroen Hopster acknolwedges support from the research programme " Ethics of Socially Disruptive Technologies ", which is funded through the Gravitation programme of the Dutch Ministry of Education , Culture, and Science and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research under grant number 024.004.031 . Jeroen Hopster acknolwedges support from the research programme "Ethics of Socially Disruptive Technologies", which is funded through the Gravitation programme of the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research under grant number 024.004.031.

Keywords

  • Ethics
  • Futurism
  • Moral Change
  • Moral Revolutions
  • Normativity
  • Technology

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