On the Post-Enlightenment Evolution of Moral Universalism

• 成果类型: Article; Early Access
• 署名作者: Jetter, Michael
• 署名单位: University of Western Australia
• 刊物名称: ECONOMIC JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0013-0133
• DOI: 10.1093/ej/ueaf049
• 发表日期: 2025
• 关键词: parochial altruism; foundations theory; PSYCHOLOGY; BEHAVIOR; religion; culture; corpus; circle; reason; words

摘要

Is humanity's circle of moral concern expanding? I explore frequencies of morally universal language in 15 million book publications in American English, British English, French, Spanish, German and Italian from 1800-2000. In each language, morally universal terminology diminished markedly. This pattern also emerges in Chinese, Russian and Hebrew books. I test two prominent hypotheses predicting moral universalism, pertaining to reason and religiosity. Reason-based terminology indeed correlates positively with purely morally universal terminology-but also (and more strongly so) with morally communal terminology. These empirical patterns cast doubt on claims of (i) moral universalism expanding and (ii) reason being its main driver.