Ethical Progress as Problem‐Resolving*

ELECTION night 2008 marked a historic moment in US history. Not only did the US elect its first African-American president, but it did so at a time when Jim Crow was still within living memory. At the time of President Obama’s birth the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was still three years away and his parents, a white woman and black man, were forbidden from marrying in much of the country. So juxtaposed, the election of Obama seems all the more remarkable as it was made possible by extraordinary moral and political change in a relatively short time. Many Americans, no doubt, spent election night reflecting on the ways that our society is clearly better today in comparison to fifty years ago. I take the public understanding of Obama’s election to be a story about ethical progress. But in bringing a philosophical outlook to this sort of story we must ask whether it is really compelling—is genuine ethical progress actually possible? What makes us think that the changes to our beliefs, values, and practices regarding race which have occurred since the time of Jim Crow are actually improvements and not mere changes of mind or taste? In what follows I want to vindicate our sense that events like the election of the first black President of the United States can indeed be ethically progressive by positing and defending a particular way of conceiving of progress in the domain of values. Before laying out my argumentative strategy, I want to discuss the motivation of such a project. Why should we focus on a notion of evaluative progress? Answers having to do with confidence in our own values and our ability to understand ourselves as having made and rectified ethical mistakes come quickly to mind. For instance, if we cannot vindicate the idea that some ethical values are better than others, then we seem to lose all ground for thinking that our current racially (more) egalitarian beliefs and practices are preferable to Jim Crow beliefs and practices.