I have also been following the discussion between Prismatic and Sauwelios with interest.
I hope the cogency of some of the arguments increases though.
I think looking at some facts and statistics about certain countries, for example China and Egypt, would show that this isn’t the case. Capital Punishment are still practiced in both cases, and China executes the most people in the world annually.
Here is an article about state owned industries producing instruments of torture in China:
https://www.amnesty.org/en/articles/news/2014/09/china-s-booming-torture-trade-revealed/
and here’s an article about the ‘mysognistic’ practice of female infanticide and abortions in china: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/the-ugliest-form-of-misogyny-sex-selective-abortions-and-the-war-on-baby-gi/
and yet humans have survived and continued to reproduce in China for the past 2000 years, and possesses the highest population in the world.
I don’t think you can make an argument that their future survival is in danger unless you can tell the future, because there is no way of knowing if they will take measures to avert disaster which include reducing these “moral abominations” from your list.
Sauwelios asked:
As far as I can see, the closest you’ve come to answering his question is this:
You say the “increased trend” (of the reductions in the list above) “as backed by the inherent moral impulse is a sign of ‘good’”, but that doesn’t explain how the trend and the “moral impulse” in humanity which you speak of is a sign of ‘good’.
How are you defining good? Are you defining good as moral?
If you are then in the context of the quote above you would only be saying “This increasing trend as backed by the inherent moral impulse is a sign of [morality]” which would be saying nothing.
Are you saying that survival is good and so it is on the basis of survival alone you can affirm those trends as good?
If so, is survival unconditionally good? In a country like China where there is still some of the trends you indicated as declining elsewhere, is survival still good? Also, if survival continues under these conditions without the trends you indicated, does that mean that there are other factors of survival which are of equal validity and might even supercede the trends you indicated as aiding survival?
Also, would survival be good under all conditions?
Another question, if someone could survive in a state where the trends you indicated were regularly practiced, but the same individual, nor those he/she cared about, was not subject to them (did not experience them against his person) but even perhaps enacted them on others, but also while enjoying other benefits, such as physical goods, admiration, music, etc. would the situation for this individual be good or bad, and why?
Finally, I think it would be helpful to know, what is the quality which makes a thing good? What measure can we use to identify what is good?