Moral evolution as development: an unfinished task

M. V. Nadkarni ()
Additional contact information
M. V. Nadkarni: Institute for Social and Economic Change

Journal of Social and Economic Development, 2024, vol. 26, issue 1, No 5, 50-64

Abstract: Abstract Development has to be essentially in moral terms, not just material and technological. Mahatma Gandhi defined civilisation in moral terms. His disciple economist, Kumarappa, believed in a long-term tendency of humans towards reduced violence. This may be doubted in the present context of nuclear brinkmanship and environmental crisis. It only indicates that our moral evolution is an unfinished task. However, there are indications of long-term moral progress, like significantly reduced world poverty, improvement in gender justice, and reduced child labour, mainly due to moral pressures on the governments. There is evidence of a long-term broad-basing process succeeding, due to measures like abolition of slavery and untouchability and adult suffrage. However, even before the battle against inequality is won, we have a new challenge of artificial intelligence with a potential for massive unemployment and concentration of power. Moral evolution does not occur automatically; we have to strive for it consciously and continuously, overcoming many challenges. In doing this, we face questions like whether ethics is universal or relative, bias-free, and how to deal with ethical dilemmas. The article stresses not only the need to enhance moral sensitivity among all, but also of developing professional ethical expertise.

Keywords: Moral evolution; Ethics; Development; Ethical dilemmas; Adam Smith; Gandhi; Kumarappa; Artificial intelligence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40847-023-00312-6 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:jsecdv:v:26:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1007_s40847-023-00312-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/40847

DOI: 10.1007/s40847-023-00312-6

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Social and Economic Development is currently edited by M.G. Chandrakanth, D. Rajasekhar, Anand Inbanathan and S. Madheswaran

More articles in Journal of Social and Economic Development from Springer, Institute for Social and Economic Change
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().