this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2023
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The illusion of moral decline - Nature (www.nature.com)
submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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"We show that the perception of moral decline is pervasive, perdurable, unfounded and easily produced, and suggest that this illusion has implications for research on the misallocation of scarce resources, the underuse of social support and social influence."

I think EVERYONE should read this... it is so easy for media to manipulate people into thinking that the world is somehow darker, weirder, or more dangerous than it was before... I think this article will help people think critically about what inflammatory news tells them

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

I guess that study is quite flawed when thinking about morality as a highly subjective value. Things that were highly moral 100 years ago are now seen as barbaric and a person alive 100 years ago would certainly not agree to many moral standards today. Religion comes into play as a conserving agent for morality of generations past, it still changes its interpretation of moral directives over time (at least true for christianity) but this change is far slower than the actual change in society.

So yes, from an individual standpoint, morals are possibly declining if you believe that the morals you grew up with are correct and you do not accept new concepts of morality produced by generational differences and societal change, even more so if you're religious. Therefore the feeling of moral decline is not something you can counter by saying "you're imagining it" because all moral is a, to some extent, abstract (read imagined) concept.