2026-05-30

Eb's take:
- morality changes with economic conditions
- e.g: once slavery becomes economically unnecessary, more people become abolitionists.
- morality is innate (loaded into conscience), but contextual. what does that mean? everyone has a conscience that is objective. but the dictates of this objective conscience varies in time and place and culture.

My take:

• i like the idea of a conscience that is innate but varies by individual.
• i don't think it's solely determined by economic forces. rather, economic prosperity makes it easier to follow certain moral principles (but harder to follow others (sins of abundance: lust, sloth, gluttony))
• but i think we are slowly progressing towards moral ideals that have always existed (the word was there at the beginning).
• we see this progression from the old testament to the new. and from early christianity to the present.
• i believe our conscience is somehow evolving. deeper parts of it are being uncovered.
• it is not a question of having "unique" morals, but of different cultures making different kinds of moral progress at different times
• fukuyama's thesis is this ideal is liberal democracy. i would say it's catholic values.

because sins of abundance (lust, sloth, gluttony) are less obviously bad than sins of scarcity (wrath)

(because they seem to hurt only us, and not others)

contrition is at an all time low in the first-world

"The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith after Freud (1966) by Philip Rieff argues that Freudian psychoanalysis has replaced traditional religion as the primary cultural authority, shifting focus from communal salvation to individual psychological fulfillment, creating a "therapeutic culture" where self-expression and personal desire are paramount, and traditional moral frameworks are seen as suspect. Rieff predicted that this would lead to a consumerist approach to spirituality, where individuals "pick and choose" beliefs for personal satisfaction rather than adhering to established doctrines"
"Rieff was the one-time husband of his former student Susan Sontag"