‘For them. But not for us. We have gotten better. Ethically. Morally.’ ‘We haven’t. Human behavior doesn’t change.’ He is so certain of this. I insist it does and give the obvious examples of the spread of democracy, the abolition of slavery, increasing religious tolerance, women’s rights. He counters with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Gulag, Vietnam. More people have been killed in this century in wars and by their own government than in all previous centuries combined. If killing another person is any measurement of ethical behavior, he says, we are worsening.
