There has been a declination in slavery or discrimination against gender, races, ethnicities over the past century, but does this mean there is moral progress? In the times where slavery and racism was deemed acceptable, people were consistent with their moral principles. However, in viewing our society today, we have developed or adjusted our moral principles by regarding slavery or discrimination as something morally wrong without everyone strictly following it, and hence an inconsistency in morality, which seems to result in a retreatment of morality. On the other hand, in terms of impartiality, there has been an increase in equality in our society shown by the enforcement of law and development as well as improvement of human rights, leading to a greater extent of moral progress because the majority experiences an increase in human rights and equality among races, genders etc.
A more specific example from the news can further establish the ideas in the above discussion. Last year in a city in China, all the people jumped off of a bus at the red lights immediately to help save the people in a car crash a distance ahead. In this case, the people who rushed off the bus to save others had followed the underlying moral principles in the society and hence been consistent with the moral standards. However, this may also bring about the case also in China last year, when eighteen passersby refused to save or even attempt to save a two year old girl in the crucial fifteen minutes after she was ran over by two vans. It seems that the eighteen passersby had extremely low morals and were deemed inhumane. Nonetheless, this is not purely a moral issue. If we examine the possible intentions behind not saving the child, it could be due to lack of education, or lack of consistency with moral standards because they were only concerned with their personal interests instead. Despite the fact that China has been frequently condemned internationally for discrimination of human rights and low morals, there has been establishments and enforcements of law in protecting the basic human rights. In addition, there has been improvement in moral education to help people develop better understandings of morality and equality.
In conclusion, over the past few centuries we have developed and established new or modified moral rules to enhance the equality among human kind, although whether people are consistent with them is something to be examined further on, there has been moral progress on the whole.
