Annual Symposium 2025: Has there been moral progress?

Each year, the Royal Institute of Philosophy holds a philosophical Symposium, bringing philosophers into discussion with those outside the discipline, to debate key contemporary issues and philosophical problems. This year's Symposium will be held during the Royal Institute's centenary year.

Has there been moral progress?

Can there be moral progress? Some optimists would argue that there can, because there already has been, with fewer people living in poverty, and corporal punishment now a rarity. But do optimists confuse material progress with moral progress? Is their story too Eurocentric? If there is less poverty but more inequality or less community, how do we take the overall balance? And if moral standards themselves change along with other changes, how are we to gain the perspective we need in order to arrive at an answer? These and other related questions will be addressed by our panel of experts.

Our panellists are Professor Edward Harcourt, Professor Allan Buchanan, Professor Hanno Sauer and Professor Julia Hermann. The discussion will be chaired by Ritula Shah.

Professor Edward Harcourt

Edward Harcourt is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Keble College. His research lies on the boundaries between ethics and the philosophy of mind, and in recent years, he has turned his attention to the philosophy of psychiatry, with a focus on hierarchies of knowledge and the ethics and epistemology of the patient-clinician relationship.

In addition to his role in Oxford’s Philosophy Faculty, he is Professor of Philosophy in Oxford’s Department of Psychiatry where he leads on Patient and Public Involvement for the Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre, and Academic Director of the Royal Institute of Philosophy.

Professor Hanno Sauer

Hanno Sauer is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Utrecht University, The Netherlands. He is interested in what the sciences can tell us about the mind, society, and human nature. His most recent book The Invention of Good and Evil. A World History of Morality has been translated into 20 languages and was listed as one of the best books of 2024 by The New Yorker, The Economist, and others. Sauer lives with his family in Düsseldorf, Germany.

Professor Julia Hermann

Julia Hermann is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Technology at the University of Twente in the Netherlands and research fellow in the research programme Ethics of Socially Disruptive Technologies (ESDiT), funded by the Dutch Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). Julia is a philosopher, political scientist, and transdisciplinary researcher. She received her PhD in 2011 from the European University Institute in Florence (Department of Political and Social Sciences) with a thesis entitled "Being Moral: Moral Competence and the Limits of Reasonable Doubt". She held research and teaching positions at the European Intra-University Centre of Human Rights and Democratisation in Venice, University of California at Berkeley, Maastricht University, Utrecht University, and Eindhoven University of Technology. Julia has published on moral justification, moral progress, technomoral change, Wittgenstein, artificial womb technology, ethics of citizen science, and the technological disruption of epistemic and moral certainty. Her current research focuses on the role of philosophy and art in transdisciplinary research practices and ways in which transdisciplinary research can contribute to societal and moral progress. Julia is member of the ESDiT Management Board, ethical advisor of Urimon, chair of the Organisation of Ethicists in the Netherlands (VvEN) and member of the editorial board of Filosofie & Praktijk.

Ritula Shah

Ritula Shah is a journalist and broadcaster with more than three decades of experience producing and presenting news programmes at the BBC. As the main presenter of the World Tonight, Radio 4’s evening news programme, she focused on international affairs and domestic politics. Ritula currently presents ‘Calm Classics’ on ClassicFM and chairs public events on everything from migration to AI.