The philosophical discourse on progress, both moral and political, hasa long history. It first rose to prominence in the Age ofEnlightenment as a particular view of history as progressive (seeentries onEnlightenment andphilosophy of history). Contrary to the view that history is a sequence of random events withno particular trajectory or meaning, the Enlightenment view holds thathistory has atendency toward freedom. There are two majorways to account for this tendency: oneteleological and theothernon-teleological. Crudely, the teleological accountargues that world history has its own end, and progress toward humanfreedom is its manifestation. This account leaves little room forhuman agency in advancing or obstructing progress, for progress isinevitable by dint of the “law of history.” Bycontrast, the non-teleological account argues that even though historyis open-ended, there is still a tendency toward freedom because of theinterplay of causal forces including human nature, rationality, andinstitutions. On this account, progress ispossible. Section1 of this entry gives an overview of these two Enlightenment accountsof progress.

The Enlightenment view of progress became less prominent in the20^th century. As evolutionary sciences have matured, theteleological account of human development has lost much of its appeal.But even the non-teleological account has not stood the test of time.The climate of optimism that shaped much of the Enlightenment thoughtwas replaced by a climate of despair. The belief that progress ispossible, let alone inevitable, came to seem naïve and false inthe face of world wars, colonial conquests, and environmentaldegradation. New intellectual traditions such as critical theory,moral relativism, postcolonialism, and postmodernism arose, critiquingthe metaphysical, epistemological, and empirical assumptions of theEnlightenment view of progress as well as its normative risks (seeentries oncritical theory andpostmodernism). Common to this critical literature is an alternative picture ofhistory that is contingent, if not tragic. This informs the beliefabout the future that is at bestindeterminate. Section 3 ofthe entry summarizes these critiques of progress.

Interestingly, the last decade has seen something of a revival of thediscourse of progress, especially in moral and political philosophy.Much like its rise and fall, the ongoing resurgence of the discourseof progress is prompted largely by the political currents of its time.The 21^st century is widely felt to be another epoch ofsocial change. On the brighter side, social movements are winningbattles in human rights for previously marginalized groups andindividuals (e.g., people racialized as black, members of the LGBTQ2+communities); on the darker side, illiberal populism is destabilizingdemocracy and peace across the globe. If these patterns are not justrandom shifts in states of affairs but instead are seen asconstituting either genuine moral improvements that need to be securedand expanded or examples of moral decline that should be scrutinizedand halted, then in order to describe and evaluate these trends, itwould seem that we need a concept of progress after all. Thephilosophical challenge is to avoid the pitfalls of the naïveoptimism of the Enlightenment and the undue skepticism ofpostmodernism. Much of the new literature on progress is dedicated torescuing an idea of progress from the contingent view of humandevelopment and carve out a meaningful, albeit limited, role forreason, human agency, and institutional design to enable progress.Section 2 of this entry summarizes recent philosophical efforts toreconcile evolutionary sciences and empirical history with humanprogress (moral and political), vindicating, refining, and challengingthe Enlightenment view of progress. An emerging consensus from thecontemporary discourse is a much more modest idea of progress that ismerely possible, open-ended, local, and non-linear.

• 1. The Enlightenment Discourse on Progress
  • 1.1 Historical Context: The Rise of Modern Science
  • 1.2 Metaphysics of History and Teleological Conceptions of Progress
  • 1.3 Anthropology and Non-teleological Conceptions of Progress
• 2. Contemporary Views on Progress
  • 2.1 Evolution and Non-teleological Conceptions of Progress
  • 2.2 Moral Realism and Teleological Conceptions of Progress
  • 2.3 Value Pluralism and Measures of Progress
  • 2.4 The Role of Human Nature
  • 2.5 The Role of Reason
  • 2.6 The Role of Institutions
• 3. Critiques of Progress
  • 3.1 Metaphysical Critiques from Critical Theory and Moral Relativism
  • 3.2 Normative Critiques from Postmodernism and Postcolonialism
• Bibliography
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. The Enlightenment Discourse on Progress

Today, the label “the Enlightenment conception ofprogress” is often used to refer to the view of historicalprogress that is teleological, linear, global, and rationalistic. Thisview is commonly attributed to Immanuel Kant, G.W.F. Hegel, and KarlMarx. But as we will see, these philosophers do not share one and thesame conception of progress; indeed, they differ fundamentally on thenature and conditions of historical progress. What they really shareis the optimism of European Enlightenment about the upward developmentof humanity as a whole. To understand “Enlightenment conceptionsof progress,” it is helpful to first take a brief look at thehistorical context that shaped them.

1.1 Historical Context: The Rise of Modern Science

European Enlightenment was an intellectual and political developmentthat took place in the 17^th and 18^th centuries.This was an era of progress, marked by major scientific revolutions(see entry onscientific progress), technological innovations, economic growth, and the fall of absolutemonarchy and feudalism. Intellectuals at the time shared a sense ofoptimism for the upward development of humanity as well as theconviction that scientific inquiry was the driving force behind thisdevelopment.

Enlightenment thinkers almost uniformly rejected supernaturalexplanations of historical phenomena, which were rather common priorto the Enlightenment. For example, Plato (Statesman) andAristotle (Meteorology, 352a29–32;Metaphysics, 1074b9–13) appealed to myths to explainthe occurrences of natural disasters and the destruction ofcivilizations by gods’ wills. Similarly, St. Augustine of Hippo,inThe City of God against the Pagans, advanced a Christianversion of history, according to which progress is predestined forGod’s elect whereas the rest of humanity’s fate isdamnation. But as we will see shortly, notwithstanding the rejectionof supernaturalism, some Enlightenment thinkers brought in their ownteleology.

Two thinkers of the French Enlightenment, Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot,Baron de l’Aulne (1727–1781) andMarie-Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet(1743–1794), integrated reflections on scientific discoveriesinto their writings on progress. Turgot, a minister to Louis XVI,produced two influential works,A Philosophical Review of theSuccessive Advances of the Human Mind andOn UniversalHistory. Condorcet was inspired by Turgot to writeOutlinesof an Historical View of the Progress of the Human Mind, a piecethat echoes many of Turgot’s convictions. Although Condorcetwrote his essay in prison during the Terror, his work, like Turgot,evinces optimism about the future of France and of humanity as awhole.

Both authors suggest that philosophical progress is the deepestcondition of scientific progress. Influenced by British empiricism,Turgot and Condorcet assert that all human knowledge is grounded inexperience. According to Turgot, the renaissance of science firstrequired an empiricist turn, that is, an abandoning of explanationsappealing to faculties and essences. The scientific experiment thenfound its place as the centerpiece of the scientific method and as thevehicle of further progress (Turgot 1750, 45; 1751, 100–01).Condorcet reiterates these points and provides a wealth of examples ofrecent scientific discoveries (1795, 168–70). Turgot andCondorcet agree that scientific progress is dependent on mathematicaland technological progress, and vice versa (Turgot 1750, 45; Condorcet1795, 231).

Although neither author rigorously defines human well-being, bothbelieve that, over the long term, scientific discoveries and politicalfreedom reinforce each other and together support the betterment ofhumanity. Turgot considers the role that political institutions playin advancing science. He thinks that individual genius moves scienceforward. Political institutions are important to scientific progressinsofar as they allow geniuses to flourish. Variation in scientificachievement is to be explained not by the concentration of genius butby the institutions that either suppress or encourage it (Turgot 1751,88). Despotic government is bad for genius, while republics nurtureit. Condorcet also remarks that free institutions are the nativeenvironment of scientific discovery (1795, 129). In turn, the growthof scientific knowledge will advance political freedom (Turgot 1750,43).

Turgot and Condorcet also hold that short-term decline can be part ofa pattern of long-term improvement. In the intellectual realm, thepath to truth is rocky, and errors are frequently the first result ofreflection (Turgot 1750, 44; Condorcet 1795, 37–38). Forinstance, the false scientific philosophy of faculties and essences isborn of reflection on phenomena. In the realm of action, devastatingevents like war and conquest can ultimately unite scattered groups ofpeople and facilitate political organization (Turgot 1751,71–72; Condorcet 1795, 51). Moreover, Turgot argues thatindividuals and groups that contribute to progress are often motivatedby emotion or personal interest (1751, 69–70). The secondobservation is related to the first, since Turgot thinks that theagents of creative destruction are usually narrowly self-interested ordriven by emotion.

1.2 Metaphysics of History and Teleological Conceptions of Progress

Though the Enlightenment rejected supernaturalism, some Enlightenmentthinkers introduced their own teleology. Hegel offers the mostdeveloped—and the most criticized—teleological account ofhistorical progress (1824a, 1824b, 1857). In his view, there is alogic underlying world history which determines its course anddisplays its meaning. That logic is “Geist,” also known as“Spirit.” The essence of Spirit is Freedom (Hegel 1821),and this Idea is manifested in political structures. The myriad eventsin history, including wars, conflicts, and the development of the(modern) State, are the gradual manifestation of Spirit in human life.In Hegel’s own words, “History is the process whereby theSpirit discovers itself and its own concept” (1857, 62). Twocontroversial implications follow from this philosophy of history. Thefirst one is forward-looking. If we can discover this logic ofhistory, we can basically predict the future of humanity. The other isbackward-looking. If all historical phenomena are the working of the“cunning of reason,” we should view human tragedies andconflicts as inevitable for the realization of Freedom. Every eventjust provides further grist to the mill of progress.

But even more controversial is Hegel’s own interpretation ofempirical history (1857). According to his speculation, Spirit unfoldsitself in world history over four stages of freedom. It beganthousands of years ago with the “Oriental despotism” ofthe East (consisting of China, India, and Persia). Spirit thenadvanced through two qualitatively higher stages in the Greek and theRoman worlds, in which Freedom was partially instituted throughcity-states and republican systems. The fourth stage took place in theGerman world marked by the Protestant Reformation. Hegel ends hisnarrative of progress at his own time and place, Prussia, where Spirithad at last fully objectified its Freedom in the form ofconstitutional monarchy. Few philosophers of progress today endorseHegel’s metaphysics of history (see section 2), while manycontinue to criticize Hegel’s Eurocentric interpretation ofhistory (see section 3), independently of his metaphysics.

Hegel’s teleological conception of historical progress wasadopted and adapted by Karl Marx (1845, 1873). Similar to Hegel, Marxbelieves that history has its own goal and operates outside the casualchain. But unlike Hegel, he does not believe that the goal is themanifestation of Spirit through liberating the individualconsciousness of human beings. Quite the opposite, Marx believes thatthe goal is the liberation of human capacities through the developmentof material forces. This view is widely known as historicalmaterialism. The fundamental fact about a society at any given momentis not its ideological orientation but rather its “productiveforces” (Marx 1845, 150), by which Marx means its material andtechnological resources. In the long run, the productive forcesdetermine other aspects of a society, starting with the relations ofproduction, the informal and formal rules that define and regulateproperty (1845, 151). Marx builds on these assumptions to definecapitalism and communism and to predict the former’s eventualtransformation into the latter. Marx’s insights on the role ofmaterial forces in determining history continue to influencecontemporary discussions on social change (see section 2.3).

Even though different teleological accounts of progress diverge on howprogress comes about and where it ends, being ateleologicalaccount, they converge on thenature of progress, with threedefinitive features. The first is that progress ispredetermined andinevitable. Laws of history,whatever they are, operate independently of causal chains of events inthe natural world. Human agency or institutional design cannot changethe arc of history. The second is that progress isglobal.Laws of history govern the world and humanity as a whole. Localregressions are temporary or mere aberrations. Finally, progress islinear. The world is advancing toward freedom constantly,marching from one epoch to the next. In other words, the idea ofprogress as inevitable, global, and linear is informed by teleologicalunderstandings of history. As noted earlier, nowadays many refer tothis as “the” Enlightenment idea of progress only todismiss it out of hand. But this is misleading. As the followingsection shows, there is another Enlightenment idea of progress, whichis open-ended and non-linear, informed by a naturalistic understandingof history.

1.3 Anthropology and Non-teleological Conceptions of Progress

Kant is among the few exceptions during the Enlightenment toarticulate a non-teleological conception of progress, although thisreading is contentious (see Allen 2016; Gray 2004; Koselleck 2002).The contention arises from Kant’s ambiguous remarks inIdeafor a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim. For example, hewrites, “One can regard the history of the human species in thelarge as the completion of a hidden plan of nature to bring about aninwardly and, to this end, also an externally perfect stateconstitution, as the only condition in which it can fully develop allits predispositions in humanity” (the eighth proposition, Wood1991, 19). While the idea that nature has a progressive plan soundsteleological, it is best read as a “heuristic assumption”or a “regulative principle” (Kleingeld 1999; Wood 1991;Møller 2021; Ypi 2010). That is, we should believeasif progress were nature’s plan so that hope and responsiblehuman action are possible. Put differently, a more accurateunderstanding of Kant’s philosophy of progress is notmetaphysical but anthropological. Contrary to Hegel, Kant is nottrying to discover meaning or a specific trajectory from the actualcourse of history; rather, he wants to consider how human nature andagency have made possible the progressive trends in his own time. Thisnaturalistic and practical project of progress, as we will see insection 2, is still being actively developed today. To understand thecontemporary responses, we need to take a closer look at Kant’sown naturalistic account.

In Kant’s view, progress is not predetermined but conditioned bynature—two features of human nature to be exact, viz. ourcapacity to reason and our “unsocial sociability” (thethird and fourth propositions, Wood 1991, 13). Kant argues that thehuman species is unique in its capacity for setting its own ends. Thissets us apart from non-human animals who are only governed byinstincts and lack a sense of self and “self-esteem.” Thissense of self-esteem, as it was first developed, did not give rise toa sense of equal human worth but a craving in each of us to dominateone another. But such “unsocial” tendencies came intotension with our “social” tendencies, including love,sympathy, humanity, and the need for friendship (Kant 1798). Theseconflicting tendencies provided the condition for the furtherdevelopment of reason to discipline our unruly passions and live inunion as free and equal citizens.

Kant also argues for the role of institutions in enabling progress.The capacity for reasoning can only reach its fullest expression infree and peaceful circumstances. InPerpetual Peace, Kant(1795) argues that a federation of republics is most conducive topeace. Each republic is governed by the rule of law whose members arefree and equal citizens. A federation of republics is a group ofnations who have agreed to observe rules of peaceful conduct in theirmutual relations. The domestic and international features of thisinstitutional constellation will reinforce each other. Republics willnot go to war with each other because a declaration of war requiresthe consent of the public who are reluctant to suffer the costs ofwar. In turn, domestic conditions will be improved in the absence of astate’s constant involvement in wars. Viewed this way, contraHegel, political institutions and peace are not the inevitablemanifestation of the end of history; rather, they merely provide themost favorable conditions conducive to freedom.

Informed by this non-teleological understanding of history, contraHegel and Marx, Kant has a markedly different, and arguably moreplausible, idea of progress. Progress is neither linear norinevitable; it is merelypossible. Kant does not think thathumanity will necessarily achieve emancipation. He merely thinks thatif we reason responsibly and well, under favorableinstitutional design, then over time we will become free. The futureof human history remains open. As we will see in the next section,each of the three core conditions of progress identified byKant—human nature, reason, and institutions—continue to besubjected to empirical scrutiny and philosophical elaboration.

2. Contemporary Views on Progress

The Enlightenment discourse on progress has sparked two contemporarydiscourses, one that salvages and revives it, and another that endsit. Section 2 offers an overview on the former and section 3 discussesthe latter. As the analysis in section 1 has shown, the Enlightenmentdiscourse tends to take for granted both the fact and the end ofprogress. The central question is how to account for it. Today, whilephilosophers continue to share the age-old ambition to account for andadvance progress, few defend the sweeping claim that there is, or willbe, progress, at least not in a global and linear fashion. Nor do theyunderstand the end of progress so narrowly in terms of freedom. Asnoted in the introduction, this shift is due in large part to thechange in political climate from the 18^th to the20^th century. Having witnessed regressions as well asabuses of the idea of progress, contemporary defenders of progress arecautious of the naïve optimism as well as the Eurocentrism of theEnlightenment (see Buchanan and Powell 2018; Moody-Adams 1999, 2017;Forst 2017). The challenges facing “Enlightenment 2.0,” touse Joseph Heath’s (2014) term, are therefore to reconceptualizean idea of progress that is compatible with natural sciences andempirical history (section 2.1), to redefine measures of progress thatacknowledge value pluralism and risks of human error (section 2.2),and to vindicate, refine, or rebut some of the Enlightenmentassumptions about conditions of progress (section 2.3).

2.1 Evolution and Non-teleological Conceptions of Progress

If the Enlightenment discourse of progress was the first stage ofnaturalizing progress, the contemporary discourse marks itscompletion. As evolutionary sciences have matured, bothsupernaturalism and teleology have lost their explanatory power(however,moral teleology still enjoys some respectabledefenders; see 2.2 for details). Many contemporary philosophers ofprogress believe that laws of evolution can adequately explain theexistence of historical phenomena, without violating the laws ofphysics and without appealing to purposes (Jamieson 2002a; Hayek 2011;Kitcher 2011; Kitcher et al. 2021; Kumar and Campbell 2022). From anevolutionary perspective, widely considered features of progress,including norms of fairness, institutions of peace, and human rightsinstruments, are products of the causal interplay between nature andhuman agency over deep evolutionary time. More specifically, they arediverse, highly complex forms of social technology developed by ourancestors to resolve practical problems arising from associated livingover a cumulative process of adaptation and learning. Progress as suchisnatural because it is reconciled with a Darwinian story oflife, i.e., an adaptation evolving through natural selection in orderto enhance reproductive fitness. There is no appeal to a telos ofhistory or to facts of rationality (cf. Buchanan and Powell 2018) orobjective values to which human mind and conduct are supposed toconform.

Different philosophers understand “problems” differently.In an influential evolutionary account of progress, pragmatist PhilipKitcher (2011, 2021) characterizes problems as “altruismfailures”—situations in which members of a group do notact in ways that acknowledge the interests or desires of co-members.Altruism failures put our ancestors at risk in the environment ofevolutionary adaptation (EEA). EEA, which occurred between 1.8 millionand 10,000 years ago, presented extremely harsh conditions for groupsto survive, sustain, and pass on their social arrangements. Humanslived in small, scattered groups. They were thrown into severecompetition for scarce resources. Altruism failures impeded thecooperation needed and, in some cases, led to destructive conflictsbetween group members. Groups that developed the “capacity fornormative guidance” allowed them to better adapt to EEA. In itsoriginal and simplest form, the capacity consists in “an abilityto transform a situation that would otherwise have been an altruismfailure, by means of a commitment to following a rule: you obey thecommand to give weight to the wishes of the other” (Kitcher2011, 74). Rule-recognition is the surrogate for “psychologicalaltruism,” issuing in “behavioural altruism.” As theecological conditions changed and the scale of the groups grew, thisnormative capacity allowed groups to devise more complex rules offairness, conceptions of the good, norms of punishment, and systems ofrule-interpretation and transmission to regulate cooperation.Naturalistic progress consists in the functional refinement of thesenorms, conceptions of the good, and institutions of enforcement andinterpretation to solve problems of altruism failures.

Others define problems more generally in terms of a deficiency inwell-being. For example, according to F.A. von Hayek’s“common sense” account of progress, progress consists inthe functional refinement of any social technology that bettersatisfies human desires or achieves goals more effectively (2011). Animportant instance of progress, in Hayek’s view, is theinstitution of trade. Contra feudalism and a planned economy, freemarket exchange improves human welfare, chiefly our materialconditions, through the division of labor, specialization, and theexchange of goods and services, which in turn increases productivity,creativity, and economic growth.

As explained in section 1.2, the teleological account of progressinforms an idea of progress that is predetermined, global, and linear.By contrast, this naturalistic understanding of how progress comesabout importantly reshapeswhat progress is. First of all,progress is no longer predetermined; it isopen-ended. InKitcher’s words, naturalistic progress is a kind of“progress from” as opposed to “progress to”(2011, 228; 2021, 25). There is no end of history to which humanitycan aspire. In the absence of any fixed goal, the sequence oftransitions consists in identifying new problems and finding bettersolutions that overcome existing problems. In a similar vein, Hayekargues that while human intellect enables us to make progress bysolving problems and satisfying desires, our desires and aims alsoconstantly change, presenting new room for growth. He writes,“As progress consists in the discovery of the not yet known, itsconsequences must be unpredictable…Human reason can neitherpredict nor deliberately shape its own future. Its advances consist infinding out where it has been wrong” (2011, 94). While Kitcheraccounts for the open-endedness in terms of the evolving nature ofproblematic situations and Hayek the evolving nature of desires,Buchanan and Powell explain the open-ended nature of progress in termsof our “capacity to reflect on and revise our moral norms andmodify our behaviour accordingly” (2018, 180; see also Kumar andCampbell 2022). The reason why we can see problems as problems ordevelop new desires beyond the confines of our biological nature andimmediate culture is because we can engage in critical reasoning. Itis debatable whether the appeal to this innate capacity for criticalreasoning smuggles teleology back into the naturalistic picture ofprogress.

Another feature of naturalistic progress is that it islocal(Moody-Adams 1999; Kitcher et al. 2021; Buchanan and Powell 2018) asopposed toglobal. Enlightenment thinkers tend to takehumanity as a whole as the subject of history. However, from anevolutionary perspective, this does not make sense. Even if, asmembers of the human species, we share certain universal biologicaland psychological traits, as individuals and groups, we all adapt toour own local ecological conditions, with specific tools inheritedfrom our ancestors and cultural traditions. In other words, there islittle causal connection between the states of affairs of one groupand another whose ecological conditions are drastically different. Assuch, the language of progress is inapplicable on a cross-culturalscale. But evenintra-cultural assessments of progress areincreasingly thought to be challenging since within a single culturalsystem, there are various domains, from political to economic tomoral. As Hayek argues, trade advances material progress but arguablyat the cost of moral progress, because it exacerbates inequalities inwealth and status. These gains and losses in various domains are oftenincommensurable, making all-things-considered assessments of progress,even within a single culture, difficult. The tendency to localizeprogress does not even stop at particulardomains. Buchananand Powell (2018, 53–58) argue that even within a single domainsuch as morality, there are also differenttypes. Theirnon-exhaustive list includes: (1) better compliance with valid moralnorms, (2) better moral concepts, (3) better understandings of thevirtues, (4) better moral motivation, (5) better moral reasoning, (6)proper demoralization, (7) proper moralization, (8) betterunderstandings of moral standing and moral statuses, (9) improvementsin understandings of the nature of morality. To illustrate how moralprogress can occur at the level oftype, consider ourrelations with non-human animals. Compared to decades ago, Westernsocieties tend to understand that animals have intrinsic moral statusand that their interests and preferences should be given weight in ourdeliberation. Many find factory farming hard to justify on moralgrounds. Yet, the majority population continues to consumefactory-farmed products, indicating the lack of improvement in moralmotivation in this regard.

Finally, naturalistic progress isnon-linear. While criticsof progress see the world wars, the Holocaust, and the new wave ofilliberal populism as the strongest evidence that progress is adelusion, defenders argue that progress, properly conceived, is fullycompatible with major regressions. From a naturalistic perspective,progress is not the stages of development through which societies orcivilizations predictably and inevitably pass, as Hegel and Marxargue. Rather, progress is the process of adaptation and learning viathe modification of the human intellect. It may succeed, but it mayfail too. Many contemporary philosophers of progress readily admitthat the path to progress has been haphazard, empirically speaking.The normative goal of the project of progress is to render it“more systematic, more frequent, and more secure” (Kitcheret al. 2021, 30). Conceived in this way, the research program ofprogress is far from obsolete.

2.2 Moral Realism and Teleological Conceptions of Progress

Not every contemporary defender of progress endorses the Darwinianstory of human development, at least not in the moral domain. Theseanti-Darwinians are often called “moral realists.” Moralrealism (see entry onmoral realism), as the label suggests, is committed to the metaphysical claim thatmorality is real. That is to say, there are objective moral truths,which are irreducible to subjective sentiments or contingent socialnorms developed in evolutionary history. For the realist, moralprogress consists in thediscovery of such objective moraltruths. The realist’s discovery model of moral progresscontrasts sharply with the pragmatist’s problem-solving model ofmoral progress (section 2.1). As seen, pragmatists tend to deflatemorality into a system of social technology that is used to resolvecoordination and cooperative problems arising from lived experience.For the pragmatist, there is no fixed, practice-independent standardsof rightness and wrongness todiscover; there are onlyever-changing, practice-dependent problems to be identified andsolved. And pragmatist progress consist in the increased efficiency inidentifying and solving such problems. Care should be taken not toconflate the realist’s teleological conception of progress withthe Enlightenment teleological conception of progress. As seen insection 1.2, the latter explains progress by way of the “law ofhistory,” which in turn informs a conception of progress aspredetermined beyond the control of human agency. By contrast, therealist’s metaphysical commitment is narrower in scope, namelythat laws of morality are outside of the causal chain and set fixedgoals for right action. How individuals and societies discover andobey these moral laws is within the control of human agency, leavingroom for reasoning and institutional design (Sauer 2023).

An important issue in the realist account of moral progress is whethersubjective experience is always an obstacle to moral discovery. PeterSinger (2011) argues that it is. In contrast to the naturalisticaccount, Singer claims that moral progress does not happenbecauseof blind forces of evolutionary history, butin spite ofthem. As a utilitarian, Singer believes that the objective moral truthconsists in maximizing overall well-being as guided by the principleof equal consideration. This objective moral truth of impartialbenevolence is discoverable via reasoning. Once human agents exercisetheir innate rational capacity, abstract themselves from biasingelements in experience (e.g., social norms, unruly sentiments,subjective desires, ingroup bias), they would be able to arrive at anobjective viewpoint, articulate universally valid moral principles inconformity with rules of logic and norms of consistency. He attributesmuch of actual moral progress, that is, the move away from tribalmorality (e.g., feudalism, ethnocentrism, racism, sexism) to impartialmorality (e.g., humanitarian aid to the global poor, greater concernfor animals), to this form of pure reasoning. It is pure reasoningthat has helped us humans to overcome our selfish desires andarbitrary conventions inherited from our ancestors and discover thetruth of moral equality.

Thomas Nagel (2023) has recently defended a more nuanced realistaccount, recognizing the positive role of subjective experience inadvancing moral progress. Contrary to Singer, Nagel does not thinkthat moral progress consists in the gradual recognition andapplication of a single, timeless, normative principle such asimpartial benevolence. Indeed, he thinks this would be a moral loss.Nagel identifies two models of moral progress: one involving therecognition of objective and timeless reasons for right action thathave existed unrecognized for a long time (the discovery model); theother involving the gradual development of moral norms and values insubjective historical experience. His examples of the first typeinclude the end of slavery and the suppression of homosexuality. AsNagel argues, the idea that pain is bad, the moral requirement ofequal treatment, the wrongness of absolute domination areaccessible through exercising the human capacities forreasoning. The latter include: to “recognize [that] reasons foraction apply equally to oneself and others”; to “object orfeel indignation when others do not act in accordance with thosereasons”; to “recognize the objections of others when onefails to act in accordance with them oneself”; and to“acknowledge such failure on one’s own part with somethinglike guilt”. His examples of the second type of moral progressinclude the conceptions of freedom of expression and freedom ofreligion. In Nagel’s view, the reasons for endorsing theprinciples that underpin political liberalism areinaccessible to inhabitants of feudalism. Unless and untilone has arrived at a modern understanding of the conditions ofpolitical legitimacy and the autonomy of the individual in relation tothe state, no amount of good reasoning, not even with the aid ofimagination, can grasp these concepts. Arguably, Nagel’s move torecognize the role of normative and institutional developments inlived experience blurs the distinction between the teleological andnon-teleological conceptions of moral progress.

2.3 Value Pluralism and Measures of Progress

So far, we have looked at contemporary efforts to make plausible theidea of progress in light of evolutionary sciences. Supposing that theopen-ended, pluralistic, local, and non-linear idea of progress isplausible, how can we use it to evaluate states of affairs? Or, to putit another way, how do we derive particular normative judgments ofprogress for instances of attitudinal or behavioral pattern shiftsfrom this dynamic but potentially empty idea of progress? How do weknow whether the end of factory farming, the demoralization ofhomosexuality, and the degrowth movement are instances of progress, ifthere are multiple and evolving goalposts?

The pluralistic nature of the idea of progress rules out what DaleJamieson (2002b) calls the “naïve conception.”According to the naïve conception, “moral progress occurswhen a subsequent state of affairs is better than a preceding one, orwhen right acts become increasingly prevalent”. As he explains,this works well if there is a single fixed principle of right action(e.g., impartial benevolence) or a stable set of virtues. Yet, fewtoday believe that deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics ontheir own are necessary or sufficient for measuring the status quo.The reason is that value pluralism is an endemic feature of modernsociety. This may be one of the most painful but important lessons todraw from the Enlightenment project. In the Enlightenment discourse,there is little discussion of the criteria of progress. Freedom istaken for granted as the ultimate and singular standard of good bywhich all human civilizations should be measured. Civilizations thatdid not institute freedom or organized themselves around other values(e.g., honor, loyalty) were judged to be backward. As many haverightly noted, this Enlightenment ideal of progress is Eurocentric andhas been used to rationalize colonialism (for a more detaileddiscussion, see section 3).

While one should resist the temptation to prescribe the fixed anduniversal measures of progress, giving into cultural relativism seemsequally dangerous. Without any normative measure of progress, itbecomes impossible to guide social change away from an unjust statusquo, or to evaluate certain states of affairs as better, not even theabolition of chattel slavery or the demoralization of homosexuality(Buchanan and Powell 2018; Forst 2017).

The challenge becomes how to develop measures of progress thatacknowledge both the risks of human error and the fact of valuepluralism (Buchanan and Powell 2018; Richardson et al. 2018). Threesolutions are on offer. The first is to begin from paradigmatic cases.Dale Jamieson (2002b and 2017) argues that any plausible index ofprogress must at least recognize “the abolition of war andslavery, the reduction of poverty and class privilege, the extensionof liberty, the empowerment of marginalized groups, and respect foranimals and nature” as cases of moral progress. He further notesthat a wide range of normative theories, including utilitarianism,virtue ethics, deontology, and capabilities approaches, can accountfor the values expressed in these cases. But as he concedes, thebelief that the above are paradigmatic cases may still be a product ofethnocentric bias, namely bias toward the liberal culture ofJamieson’s own time. For example, illiberal cultures that arehierarchical, paternalistic, or practice warrior ways of life arebackward by his index.

One way to get around first-order normative theorizing and thepotential parochial bias (Larmore 2008) that afflicts it is to devisereliable methods of inquiry that update norms and practices. Thissolution is proposed by pragmatists such as Philip Kitcher andElizabeth Anderson (Kitcher et al. 2021; Anderson 2014, 2015, 2016).As explained, pragmatists see progress in terms of problem-solving.The first step to advancing progress is to identify problems or“problematic situations” (Kitcher et al. 2021,33–35). Kitcher defines aprima facie morallyproblematic situation as one where an individual or a group“resents” the situation. To reliably identify problems,“ideal conversation” or “democraticcontractualism” is typically necessary (35–37). That iswhere all the affected are included to discuss the challenged practiceor norm under the conditions of full information and mutual sympathy.The justified solution would be one which all the affected in thisideal conservation would endorse. Anderson also sees the epistemicvalue in democratic discussion but offers a non-ideal version of it.In her view, “moral blindness” is a major obstacle toproblem identification. Moral blindness is usually rooted inunaccountable power and operates via cognitive biases. The force of abetter argument is rarely sufficient to correct it. Instead, sheproposes contentious politics in the form of social movements or evenviolent resistance as a method. Drawing on historical cases such asBritish abolitionism and the Civil Rights Movement, Anderson arguesthat contentious politics has the tendency to destabilize norms andinitiate a genuine collective reflection rather than rationalization.

The third solution is to defend moral realism (Sauer 2023; FitzPatrick2019; Huemer 2016, 2019) and acknowledge that there aremind-independent moral facts or truths in the world. For example,Michael Huemer suggests that over the past decades and centuries,there has been a sharp decline in torture, murder, rape, war, slavery,capital punishment, and colonialism. This is a markedly recent andcoherent shift to liberal morality. By inference to the bestexplanation, liberal values such as the moral equality of persons,respect for the dignity of individuals, and an objection to gratuitouscoercion and violence are true. While critics of moral realism mightargue that these liberal values are subject to intense disagreementand fly in the face of value pluralism, realists might reply byarguing that realism is compatible with disagreement or that allcultures share the same moral foundations and differ only in theirinstantiation (Sauer 2023).

2.4 The Role of Human Nature

As seen in Kant’s naturalistic account, human psychology,reason, and institutions are conjectured as three core conditions ofprogress. In the contemporary literature, each of these threeconditions is still being elaborated and contested in light of newempirical findings.

Kant’s discussion of “unsocial sociability”continues today under the label of “tribalism.” Drawing onevolutionary biology, psychology, and cultural evolution, philosophersare debating whether tribal nature constrains inclusive-type moralprogress. According to the view of“evo-conservatism”—a term coined by Buchanan andPowell (2018)—it does. In its strongest version,evo-conservatism consists of two coreempirical claims,namely that (a) the ecological challenges under EEA that our ancestorsfaced generated selection pressures for evaluative tendencies (e.g.,parochial altruism, group-mindedness, partiality) that limitedeffective moral commitments to members of one’s own kin, group,tribe, or nation; furthermore, (b) these tendencies are“hard-wired” into our brain and as such unalterable. Somepolitical conservatives (Posner and Singer 2001; Goldsmith and Posner2005; Fukuyama 2002) draw thenormative conclusion from thisempirical fact that the moral circle cannot, and should not, beindefinitely expanded to include “others” who arephysically, biologically, or culturally distant from “us.”In this view, projects like global justice and animal rights aredoomed to fail.

It must be noted that one can be an evo-conservative without being apolitical conservative. For example, bioethicists IngmarPersson and Julian Savulescu (2019) argue that precisely because ournature is exclusionary, we should enhance our cognition for a moreinclusive future. The most sustained objection to evo-conservatismcomes from Buchanan and Powell (2018). They reject both of itsempirical claims. First, even in EEA, there was inter-groupcooperation, in the forms of trade, exogamy, military alliances, andso forth. In other words, EEA was not always a war between“us” and “them.” Selection pressures in factgenerated “adaptatively plastic” traits rather than rigidgroupishness. Next, drawing on theories of cultural evolution, theyfurther argue that tribal tendencies are not biologically determinedbut culturally conditioned. Cultural innovations in the forms of newmoral norms, more sophisticated moral reasoning, and new techniquesfor perspective-taking, coupled with actual and perceived materialcomfort and physical security to a reasonable degree, mean thatinclusive traitscan develop. The “Two GreatExpansions,” i.e., expanding human rights to all humans invirtue of their inherent humanity and expanding moral consideration toanimals in virtue of their inherent moral status, for Buchanan andPowell, are the best evidence that inclusive traitshavedeveloped, under favorable socio-economic and cultural conditions(Buchanan 2020, 23).

2.5 The Role of Reason

Turning now to the role of reason, the Enlightenment faith inreason’s ability to elevate humanity by improving moral beliefand action has been both challenged and vindicated (Kumar and Mayforthcoming). Sentimentalists argue that emotions, not reasoning orreasons, are the major engines of change. One strand of support comesfrom experimental psychology (Nichols 2004, 2021; Prinz 2007). Forexample, research shows that the emotion of disgust makespeople’s moral evaluations harsher, even though the object ofdisgust (e.g., foul smell) is irrelevant (cf. May 2014; Landy andGoodwin 2015). Another source of support comes from empirical history.Anthony Appiah (2010) argues that long prior to the occurrence of manycases of moral progress, including the British abolition of the slavetrade and the end of footbinding in Imperial China, the belief thatthose relevant practices were immoral was already widely held. Whatultimately garnered momentum in those cases of progress wasemotion—in particular, emotions of collective shame and honor.Not only is reason’s power in motivating right actionchallenged; its epistemic potential in correcting biases andfalsehoods is undermined, too. A relevant area of research is post-hocrationalization (Haidt 2001). Researchers find that peopledoreason, but they often reason in search of evidence and arguments todefend their pre-existing judgments. To put it metaphorically, reasonis not an impartial judge but a passionate lawyer. To the extent thatour pre-existing judgments are flawed, the more we reason, the moreentrenched we become in the problematic status quo.

In response to these sentimentalist challenges, some rationalistsargue that the problems lie not in rationality itself but in theoverly individualistic model of rationality of the Enlightenment.While it is generally true that individuals cannot resist unrulypassions or introspect their own biases,collectives can.Different forms of collective reasoning have been proposed. Forexample, Joseph Heath (2014) suggests institutionalizing the“head” over the “heart.” In his view,parliamentary democracy entrenches “demagoguery, short-termism,simple-minded populism, the excessive influence of money and the roleplayed by special interests” and would be better replaced bytechnocracy and “slow politics.” Similarly, drawing onargumentation theory, Hugo Mercier (2011) claims that post-hocrationalization is not irrational; quite the contrary, it is a usefulcognitive mechanism for individuals to form, exchange, and evaluatearguments when others disagree with us. Evidence suggests that insmall-group, well-controlled settings, when individuals recognize thattheir decisions are unjustifiable, they change their mind. Othersreject the dichotomy between rationalism and sentimentalism as false.Developing upon the dual-process model of cognition, Kumar andCampbell (2022) claim that moral judgments consist of both emotionsand beliefs. More importantly, reasoning can change moral judgmentswhen it recognizes inconsistency between emotions and beliefs. And thechange is typically diachronic rather than synchronic. This form of“moral consistency reasoning,” they argue, played acrucial role in facilitating the gay rights revolution, amongothers.

Another way to vindicate the role of reason in progress is to notfocus on theform of reasoning but rather itsobject. In the philosophy of social science literature,theorists argue that reasoning can be effective in facilitatingprogressive change if it is leveraged againstsocial norms(Bicchieri 2016; Tam 2020). On Cristina Bicchieri’s influentialaccount, social norms are recurrent patterns of behavior motivated byshared empirical and normative expectations of conditional conformityin a relevant network. What is unique about social norms as a kind ofsocial practice is their “expectation and membershipdependent” justificatory structure. In the mind of thefollowers, they think they ought to conform primarily becausetheir members thinkthey should, even if theyprivately do not value it or outsiders object to it. As experimentaland field studies have shown, many problematic social practices suchas female genital cutting, honor killing, corruption, and physicalpunishment turn out to be social norms. In an important case study,Bicchieri finds that informational campaigns about the harm to healthor moral argumentation about bodily autonomy and gender equality wereineffective in ending female genital cutting in Sudan. The individualsinvolved in such practices were not gripped by these prudential andmoral considerations but something fundamentallysocial,namely Sudanese shared expectations about chastity, beauty, andparental love. In this case, even though reasoning about prudentialand moral considerations was ineffective, reasoning about the relevantsocial considerations and redefining them was.

Some philosophers argue that social norms operative with their owndistinct logic. As such, identifying, evaluating, and reinterpretingthese social norms demands a new form of reasoning, in contrast tostandard impartialist and argumentative accounts of moral reasoning.For example, Alison Jaggar and Theresa Tobin (2013) argue thatchanging local cultural norms requires a collaborative form ofreasoning guided by trust and deference to authorities. In a similarspirit, Agnes Tam (2020) advances an account of“we”-reasoning to change social norms, distinguished byits communitarian (as opposed to democratic) structure, and itsrespect for the conformist and parochial tendencies of the“we” that is constitutive of social norms. Even though thepower of social norms is fast gaining attention from social changetheorists, some contend that social norms, reified in socialstructures, are not reason-responsive (Haslanger 2017, 2018). Thistakes us to the last core condition of progress: politicalinstitutions and activism.

2.6 The Role of Institutions

To a large extent, one’s view on the role of institutions inprogress follows from that of the role of human nature and reason. Forthose who think that our evolved nature forecloses the possibility ofprogress, no amount of institutional design can reopen it. Bycontrast, for those who think that progress is a matter of nurture,institutions of the right kind are an important vehicle of progress.To some, the right kind of institutions are liberal. A liberal statecan bring about physical security and peace, conditions under whichinclusive tendencies develop (Buchanan and Powell 2018; Buchanan2020). A free market fosters material progress (Hayek 2011) andmutually beneficial group relations and inter-group trust, which inturn fosters moral progress (Buchanan and Powell 2018). Freedom ofinformation and expression enables critical reflection, such thatauthority and customs can be challenged, resentment and dissent heard,and prejudices and biases corrected (Heath 2014; Huemer 2016). Britishabolitionism is a case in point (Buchanan and Powell 2018). In thelate 18^th and early 19^th centuries, Britishsociety was materially better-off and physically more secure. Theinvention of the free press at the time also enhanced levels ofliteracy and facilitated expression of and responsiveness to thewrongness of slavery.

In contrast to the liberal tradition, the Marxist tradition tends tolocate progress outside of institutions and in political struggles(Jaeggi 2018). This is due to Marxists’ sociologicalunderstanding of the function of the state as well as their standpointepistemology. According to Louis Althusser (2014/1971), there are twokinds of state apparatuses: repressive and ideological. Repressivestate apparatuses include the government, administration, and courts,and they function coercively. Ideological state apparatuses includeeducation, the political system, communication, and culture, and theseapparatuses function non-coercively. Both serve the interests of theruling class and enforce the unjust status quo. For example, in acapitalist society, institutions function to protect and rationalizethe interests of the bourgeoisie. In other words, far fromfacilitating freedom and collective learning, institutions are toolsof oppression and the perpetuation of false consciousness. Progressbegins when these institutions are subverted. Political struggles arethe form that such subversion takes.

Political struggles come in many forms, including revolution,resistance, and social movements. One form that has received a lot ofattention from theorists of progress, Marxists and pragmatists alike,is the social movement (Young 1990; Haslanger 2021; Anderson 2014;Moody-Adams 2022). Anderson (2014) singles out the social movement asa “particularly apt vehicle of progressive moraltransformation.” Likewise, Moody-Adams (2022, 13) views socialmovements as potentially “vital sources of moral enlightenmentand advances in collective rationality.” Social movements areoften defined as a form of contentious politics which marginalizedgroups use to make claims against the authorities, outside of formalinstitutions, by organizing sustained campaigns and using repeatedperformances that advertise the claims (Tilly and Tarrow 2015, 11).There are three ways to account for the aptness of social movements infacilitating progress. The first way is epistemic. As discussed above,reasoning, even in good faith, is prone to post-hoc rationalizationand reinforcement of an unjust status quo. By contrast, practicalcontention is better able to hold “affected ignorance”accountable (Moody-Adams 2022). It also leverages the privilegedstandpoint of the socially oppressed to destabilize and counteract thebias suffered by the socially privileged (Anderson 2014) and todisrupt ideologies and unmask reality (Haslanger 2017), raisingcollective consciousness. The second way is motivational. The displayof “worthiness,” “unity,”“numbers,” and “commitment” in socialmovements has been identified as powerful in mobilizing publicsupport, much more so than the unforced force of a better argument(Anderson 2014). The third way is normative. In contrast to the“assimilationist and universalist” logic of formaldemocratic institutions, social movements have far fewer constraintson claim-making. Not only can social movements avoid erasing groupidentities and silencing identity-based injustices (Young 1991;Moody-Adams 2022), through story-telling and emotional expressions,the subaltern can truly realize their agency and emancipation.

3. Critiques of Progress

The preceding discussion has shown the various ways in which thepractical version of the Enlightenment project of progress has beenactively revived. But as noted in the introduction, many philosophers,predominately in the Frankfurt School, postmodern, and postcolonialtraditions, remain convinced that neither the metaphysical nor thepractical versions should be resuscitated. In what follows, we willexamine the key metaphysical and normative critiques of theEnlightenment discourse of progress.

3.1 Metaphysical Critiques from Critical Theory and Moral Relativism

Some of the deepest criticisms of progress were produced during andafter the catastrophes and upheavals of the 20th century. A unitingtheme of these diverse criticisms is an alternative view of historythat is contingent, if not tragic. In an oft-quoted passage, WalterBenjamin (1940 [1969]) uses the metaphor of a storm to conceive ofprogress:

A Klee painting named “Angelus Novus” shows an angellooking as though he is about to move away from something he isfixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, hiswings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. Hisface is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events,he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage uponwreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like tostay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But astorm is blowing from Paradise; it has caught in his wings with suchviolence that the angel can no longer close them. This stormirresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned,while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is whatwe call progress.

On this alternative picture, history has no upward trajectory; infact, there is no trajectory at all. Humans cannot control the courseof history. We cannot fix past wrongs nor secure a just future. Thelack of human agency is symbolized by the angel who is helplesslyhurled forward by the storm that is history.

This metaphysical view of history informs a very different idea ofprogress, one that is fictive. If there are no facts of progress, whatwe call progress are just narratives, written by those who areincapable of looking horrors in the face. In Charles Larmore’sview, narratives of progress are nothing more than instruments of“self-congratulation” (2008, 20). Put differently,progress is an illusion that we see when we view historical eventsthrough our parochial lens. If we were ever able to survey humanaffairs from afar, taking the stance of a neutral spectator,suspending all our interests and commitments, history would just be aseries of random events.

Theodor Adorno, a leading member of the Frankfurt School, writes oneof the most searching critiques of the Enlightenment narrative ofprogress. The critique is part metaphysical, part empirical, and partmethodological. As a German and a Jew in exile, Adorno is deeplycritical of the tendency in Hegel’s philosophy of history toreconcile with the past and justify the status quo. For Adorno, thephilosophical task is to reveal the contingencies and the fractures inhistory so as to subvert it. As he famously puts it, “progressbegins where it ends” (Adorno 2005, 150). Genuine progress andemancipation are only possible when the hegemonic interpretations ofhistory written by the powerful are contested. InMinimaMoralia (1974), Adorno first proposes an alternative method ofexamining the meaning of history. Instead of moving past human evilsand individual fates in a cursory fashion, as Hegel tends to do,Adorno suggests that we dwell on individual experience andcatastrophe. InDialectic of Enlightenment (2002), Adorno andMax Horkheimer apply this method and provide an alternative narrativeof modern Europe, according to which the rise of modernity, science,technology, and capitalism are not products of progress butregressions. The bourgeois morality and the cultural industries arenot products of moral and artistic progress but mechanisms to blindthe people to capitalistic ideologies as well as placate the oppressedmajority. Since history is by nature contingent and since events havebeen tragic, Adorno concludes that there is no rational basis for thebelief that progress is possible, let alone inevitable. As he puts itbleakly, “We can find nothing in reality that might help toredeem the promise inherent in the word ‘progress’”(2006, 143).

But as we have seen in section 2, few contemporary philosophersexplain moral and political progress by making metaphysical claimsabout history. Indeed, many are aware of the regressions that criticaltheorists have correctly highlighted. As detailed in sections 2.1 and2.2, most of the contemporary teleological and non-teleologicalaccounts of progress accommodate the fact and the possibility ofregressions by attributing various roles to human agency.Consequently, tragedies by themselves do not undermine the possibilityof progress; rather, what they reveal the dark side of human nature,the lapse of judgment, or the fragility of institutions. Does thismean that the contemporary idea of progress—one that isnaturalistic, open-ended, local, and non-linear—is notvulnerable to the metaphysical critique? Not entirely. There isanother form of metaphysical critique to which even the more modestidea of progress may be subjected. This is the critique from moralrelativism.

Moral relativism takes many forms (see entry onMoral Relativism) but at its core is the idea that there are no objective moral truths.What is right or wrong, good or evil, is indexed to response-dependentproperties. It is worth noting that unlike nihilism, moral relativismdoes not commit to the idea that all moral systems are empty and, assuch, morality is an illusion. To the contrary, moral relativism holdsthat there are too many true moral claims. If moral claims are indexedto culturally inculcated systems of values, then the same moral claimcan be true in some cultures but not others. For example, it might betrue that female genital mutilation is evil in liberal culture butgood in another. The implication for moral progress, as Jesse Prinz(2007) argues, is that “‘moral progress’ cannot beinterpreted as a transition from one set of values to a morally betterset of values.” This does not just rule out inter-culturalcomparison (which the contemporary local idea of progress does notallow anyway); it also rules out intra-cultural comparison.“Moral progress,” even within a cultural community, isnothing more than “moral conversion” (Prinz 2007, 295). Wefool ourselves into thinking that moral conversion is moral progressbecause moral values are self-affirming. Does this mean that moralrelativists have no resources to claim that the abolition of slaveryis an instance of moral progress? Not exactly. Prinz’s responseis that such cases are better understood as examples of“extramoral” improvement. He identifies“consistency,” “stability,”“well-being,” “conformity to biological norms”as things people value in an extramoral sense (2007, 292). Extramoralbecause they are pragmatic, prudential, and hedonic in nature. By thislight, the abolition of slavery could be an extramoral improvement ifslavery were not prudentially valuable. But to call it moral progressis all but an illusion.

3.2 Normative Critiques from Postmodernism and Postcolonialism

Critics working within postmodern and postcolonial traditions shiftthe focus away from the metaphysics of history to the undesirabilityof the normative ideal of progress. They argue that the ideal ofprogress celebrated by the Enlightenment thinkers is politicallydangerous. It evaluates non-Western societies as“backward” according to a Eurocentric understanding of thegood, human nature, reason, and sound institutions. This serves as arationale for the so-called civilizing mission of the West, falselylegitimating racism, colonialism, and imperialism (McCarthy 2009). InEurocentrism, Samir Amin (1989) criticizes the Enlightenmentideal of progress as a product of Eurocentric bias, for three reasons.Firstly, the ideals of freedom, rationality, and objectivitycharacterize all major historical innovations as European. Secondly,the Enlightenment discourse also views capitalist democracy as theideal social system and colonialism as instrumental in spreading itthroughout the world. Finally, it views current global economicinequality as being caused by internal features of individualcountries and is in principle eliminable.

Other postcolonial scholars are keen to point out the inconsistenciesin the Eurocentric narratives of progress. Specifically, whileEnlightenment thinkers see the norms and institutions of Europeanmodernity as the outcome of a cumulative process of collectivelearning, postcolonial scholars argue that they are in fact shaped bythe material and ideological relations between Europe and itscolonies. As Anibal Quijano (2000) notes, Europe was built with thefree labor of the American Indians, blacks, and mestizos, with theiradvanced technology in mining and agriculture, and with their productssuch as gold, silver, potatoes, tomatoes, and tobacco (see also Fanon2005). In addition to material dependence, Europe was alsoideologically dependent on its colonies. InOrientalism,Edward Said (1978) argues that Western scholars have created a binarydistinction between the civilized West and the barbaric East. Thisdiscourse of Orientalism constructs and silences the colonialized andracialized subjects.

Recently, there have been attempts to decolonize the discourse ofprogress. The motivation is that the moral imperative of progress(improvement of the human condition) can be severed from bothmetaphysical overtones and Eurocentric ideologies. Drawing inspirationfrom Adorno and Michel Foucault, Amy Allen (2016) sees promise not somuch in the power of reasoning or learning; reason, while notnecessarily a form a madness, is always entangled with power. Progressbegins therefore not from learning how to utilize the capacity toreason but inunlearning, which Allen defines as “acritical problematization of our own, historically sedimented point ofview that frees us up in relation to it” (2016, 202). Itcultivates in us a capacity to understand what we do not alreadyunderstand and to be humble and modest toward our own moralcertainties.

Catherine Lu (2023) offers yet another interesting proposal. Sherejects the undefended assumption that narratives of progress areessential for moral and political agency. To the contrary, shesuggests that in the postcolonial world, tragic narratives are notjust empirically grounded or rationally warranted; they are alsomorally empowering. As a genre, tragedies reveal the“indeterminacy of human agency” rather than its“futility or irrelevance.” Both the powerful and the weakmay be vulnerable to tragic instability in any social structure. Morespecifically, tragic narratives can stir “moments ofrecognition” of vulnerability in the powerful when they showthat no amount of power—material, intellectual ormoral—can shield one from tragedies. On the other hand, tragicnarratives show the powerless that no tyrant or oppressor isindestructible and that they can rage, despair, seek vengeance, resistinjustice, and even strive for reconciliation. These are theoverlooked functions of tragic narratives. They provide the publicwith a space for critical reflection and also for generating andsustaining communal solidarity and accountability practices.Paradoxically, perhaps what progress needs is not more optimisticprogress narratives, which have so preoccupied philosophers andtroubled humanity for centuries, but rather more tragic narratives. Inother words, while the contemporary defenders of progress are stillcarrying the torch of their Enlightenment predecessors in explainingthe possibility of progress in its limited forms and developingsophisticated causal roles for reasoning in advancing it, thecontemporary critics of progress decline to so due to the grave moralrisk. As the critics see it, the most intellectually and politicallyresponsible task is to highlight the indeterminacy of humandevelopment and unlearn all the false narratives of progress,including the Enlightenment ones.

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