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ddrcrono t1_iqyww81 wrote

Reply to comment by wjbc in Bronze Age China - Shang dynasty [1600 ~ 1045 BC] by gimhae_pyeongya

This is just an off-the-cusp thing but my understanding is that some research has found a correlation between the complexity of moral/religious systems and the size/complexity/density of society. It makes more sense since keeping track of people individually gets harder / there's more anonymity / you have problems you wouldn't have had in a sparser setting. I'm not sure I'd say more moral in this case, though.

There are also some writers like Steven Pinker who actually uses violent crime, etc. statistics to argue that the world has gotten more moral / good over time. (I find this somewhat tenuous in that it might just be that we're better at making people not want to do bad things, rather than them actually being morally superior).

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wjbc t1_iqz02jd wrote

Yes but Pinker’s argument has nothing to do with individual rulers.

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ddrcrono t1_iqz19s6 wrote

>moral

In Pinker's case, he's talking about society and statistics in general, but I think it's generally the case that individuals grow up within and are affected by a society - the most immoral anyone can "get away" with being in one place and time is different than another.

That particular point aside, I actually got the impression that OP was talking about moral standards in general and using the sorts of things rulers did as examples to highlight the state of affairs.

My general train of thought here is that if society and/or rulers were held to higher standards over time that it would be analogous to the arguments that Pinker makes, or more generally, to the overall idea that morality develops over time. (You don't need to think specifically about Pinker for this, as it's a point that's been made elsewhere in different ways).

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