Social progress is part of our lives. The world around us is constantly changing: new industrial solutions, home appliances and machines are not the same as they were 20-30 years ago. Those past things seem primitive and worthless. Sometimes you think about how you could live without mobile phones, automation, built-in wardrobes, supermarkets, credit cards, etc. In addition, we cannot imagine what innovations will be in demand over the next two decades. But we know: over the years, we will also sometimes wonder how primitive and uncomfortable life was back then, in 2013 ...
And at the same time, trying to calculate the optimal scenarios of the future, you must first decide on what parameters we will measure this future. The question then becomes what are the criteria for social progress in philosophy. If we can understand their essence, then it will be possible to outline at least the general contours of future changes and mentally prepare for them.
Criteria for the progress of society:
- Change in moral principles and ethical standards. Each era, if not every generation, creates for itself an invisible code of conduct by which it tries to live. With the change in the economic and political situation, norms are also being transformed, and the understanding of the bad and the good is changing, however, general rules and principles are laid down for a long time. And in the end, they serve as a kind of foundation for legal regulators that determine the criteria for progress in politics, economics, and social life.
- The priority of human rights and freedoms over the rights of the lord and the state. The principles of political development, defined by T. Hobbes in the 17th century, remain relevant in our century. Nobody has canceled the criteria for the progress of society. And first of all, we mean the development of freedom.
- Enhanced understanding of freedom. Antique man was completely subservient to his master, freedom was seen in democracy - in the principles of political participation, which helped him to determine the boundaries of his own world. With the fall of the Greek polis, freedom moved into the world of Roman law. Thus, it became apparent that numerous internal ethical standards governing the requirements of the state are more significant than moral standards. Christian ethics set a precedent for a monocratic and theocratic society, inseparable from the state. Renaissance and Enlightenment in this regard is just a return to the priority of law over religion. And only the modern era has demonstrated that the criteria for progress lie in the plane of personal freedom. Man is absolute autonomy, not subject to any external influence.
- Scientific and technological progress, which frees people from the obligation to be part of a common machine - social, state, corporate, etc. Hence the changes in the principles of relations around property. From a slavish position when a person is the master’s thing, bypassing the status of the physical continuation of the machine (according to Marx), to the master of his life. Today, when the service sector is becoming the mainstay of any economy, the criteria for progress are concentrated around their own knowledge, skills and ability to promote their product. Personal success depends on the individual. A person is freed from external regulatory actions at the social and economic levels. The state with its laws is needed only to streamline Brownian economic movement. And this, probably, is the main criteria for the progress of modern society.