Moral Progress with Hanno Sauer

Hosts Dave Pietraszewski and David Pinsof introduce philosopher Hanno Sauer, discussing the complexities of moral progress, human nature, and the importance of holding strong opinions loosely while maintaining openness to changing one's mind.

Hanno Sauer joins the hosts to discuss his work on social class, analyzing how socioeconomic status, signaling theory, and status competition shape political conflicts, identity politics, and modern evolutionary hangovers.

Host Dave Pietraszewski, David Pinsof, and guest Hanno Sauer discuss how human desires for status and reputation stem from cultural learning and evolutionary adaptations. They examine how intense status competition can be zero-sum or negative-sum, drawing parallels to advertising, and frame modern societal challenges around persistent Hobbesian collective action problems.

The speakers explore the evolutionary puzzle of how humans managed to scale up cooperation from small, kin-based ancestral groups to massive modern societies involving complete strangers, division of labor, and complex institutional toolkits.

In this section, Dave Pietraszewski, David Pinsof, and guest Hanno Sauer discuss how complex global cooperation systems operate transparently or opaquely to individuals. Sauer invokes a naturalized version of Hegel's cunning of reason, comparing social structures and cultural evolution to spontaneous economic processes like Hayekian price signals where participants benefit from large-scale cooperation without needing to understand or plan it.

Hanno Sauer examines where moral progress fits within spontaneous social evolution, distinguishing between conscious political movements like women's rights and broader glacial shifts. Sauer traces the Enlightenment view of automatic improvement, its catastrophic 20th-century disconfirmation via industrialized genocide, and its modern rehabilitation by thinkers like Steven Pinker, arguing that large-scale peaceful cooperation still offers genuine potential for human betterment.

Dave Pietraszewski, David Pinsof, and guest Hanno Sauer discuss the historical trajectory of human conflict, examining why large-scale warfare, slavery, and conquest persisted as norms for millennia. They explore the transition from zero-sum competition to positive-sum economic growth, and how group antagonism continues to be easily activated despite modern institutional frameworks.

The speakers examine why bizarre and cruel cultural practices, such as footbinding and genital mutilation, persist for centuries through mechanisms like pluralistic ignorance. Toward the end, the hosts and guest debate whether genuine moral learning has occurred or if peaceful behavior is merely a downstream externality of material changes like technology and economic abundance.

Dave Pietraszewski, David Pinsof, and Hanno Sauer discuss how moral progress functions as an outcome rather than a deliberate internal change in human nature. They explore the idea that moral insights, cooperation, and institutions are offloaded into the environment—much like cooking externalized digestion—allowing technology and material changes to drive societal improvements.

Hanno Sauer, Dave Pietraszewski, and David Pinsof examine emergent or Hayekian moral progress, contrasting zero-sum agricultural economies based on land ownership with positive-sum economic systems driven by ideas and innovation. They argue that technological and ecological shifts make past cruel practices optional and enable cooperative growth.

Dave Pietraszewski, David Pinsof, and guest Hanno Sauer discuss whether modern society has truly achieved moral progress or merely adapted to new economic and ecological conditions. They debate whether ongoing conflicts reflect cultural atavisms rooted in outdated zero-sum resource mentalities, or if moral values are merely post-hoc rationalizations for shifts in material incentives and status games.

The speakers examine what it means to learn as a society, focusing on the historical practice of slavery. Hanno Sauer argues that humanity fortuitously stumbled upon institutional arrangements that made slavery economically disadvantageous, while David Pinsof suggests that elaborate historical rationalizations for slavery indicate people were always intuitively uncomfortable with it.

Dave Pietraszewski, David Pinsof, and Hanno Sauer discuss how historical practices like slavery and feuding represent intermediate stages of moral progress rather than absolute optimality. They explore the idea that morality functions as a status game where individuals strive to be slightly better than average rather than perfectly virtuous, driving cumulative social changes and new equilibria.

The speakers examine the challenge that moral relativism poses, noting that apparent deep cultural disagreements often reflect elite oppression rather than monolithic societal beliefs. Hanno Sauer and David Pinsof argue that marginalized groups subjected to practices like slavery or human sacrifice did not consent, revealing that historical atrocities are usually driven by dominant ruling groups rather than universal cultural values.

Guest Hanno Sauer and hosts Dave Pietraszewski and David Pinsof discuss the concept of rationalization costs in history, suggesting that elaborate justifications for oppressive practices and state authority indicate underlying moral discomfort. They examine how intellectuals and political philosophers historically serve to rationalize actions for powerful elites.

In the closing segment, host Dave Pietraszewski asks Hanno Sauer where listeners can find more of his work. Sauer discusses upcoming publications like 'Conspicuous Compunction' and his talks on the persistence of class structures, followed by lighthearted banter among the hosts regarding podcast updates and merchandise ideas.

Hosts Dave Pietraszewski and David Pinsof discuss the annoyances of using imperial units for lengths and volumes compared to the metric system, comparing the podcast to an airing of grievances.