Ethical Track RecordEXPLORER

Tracing the moral arc and mapping the expanding moral circle

Explore who correctly anticipated ethical advances and who got things wrong.

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1500160017001800190020002100ethical progress →YearAbolition of slavery in selected countries and colonies · 1833–1888 · British colonies (1833–1838), French colonies (1848), US (1865), Brazil (1888)Abolition of slavery1833–1888US civil and voting rights protections · 1964–1965 · United StatesRecognition of colonial self-determination · 1945–1960 · United Nations; international normative benchmarkLegal prohibition of sex discrimination · 1964–1975 · United States (employment, 1964); Great Britain (1975 Act)Women’s suffrage in selected major countries · 1918–1950 · UK, Germany, US, Brazil, France, Japan, China, and IndiaWomen’s suffrage1918–1950Religious liberty in selected Western countries · 1689–1919 · England (1689), Virginia / US (1786–1791), France (1905), Germany (1919)Religious liberty1689–1919Decriminalization of same-sex relations in selected jurisdictions · 1967–2003 · England and Wales (1967) to United States (2003)Homosexualitydecriminalization1967–2003Civil marriage equality in selected jurisdictions · 2001–2015 · Netherlands (2001) to United States (2015)International prohibition of torture · 1948–1984 · UN human-rights frameworkLegal reforms toward ending child labor · 1833–1938 · Selected reforms in the UK, France, and United StatesEnding child labor1833–1938Statutory animal protection · 1911–1966 · England, Wales and Ireland (1911; Scotland excluded); United States federal law (1966)Animal legalprotection1911–1966Farmed-animal welfare legislation · 1968 · United KingdomDeath penalty abolition in selected Western countries · 1867–1998 · Portugal, West Germany, Great Britain / UK, Canada, and France; offense-specific reformsEnding capital punishment1867–1998Martin Luther: Opposes reform. Persecution of Jewish religious life. 1543. 0 to 0 years .Justus Lipsius: Opposes reform. One public religion. 1589. 0 to 0 years .John Locke: Opposes reform. Withholding toleration from atheists. 1689. 0 to 0 years .John Woolman: Supports reform. The natural right of freedom. 1754. 79 to 134 years .Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Opposes reform. Exclusion for rejecting the civil creed. 1762. -73 to 0 years .Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Supports reform. Slavery cannot create a legitimate right. 1762. 71 to 126 years .Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Opposes reform. Women’s subordination and different education. 1762. 0 to 0 years .Voltaire: Supports reform. Rejecting a right of religious intolerance. 1763. 0 to 156 years .Cesare Beccaria: Supports reform. Against ordinary use of the death penalty. 1764. 103 to 234 years .Cesare Beccaria: Supports reform. Torture cannot establish guilt. 1764. 184 to 220 years .John Wesley: Supports reform. Liberty belongs to every human being. 1774. 59 to 114 years .Jeremy Bentham: Supports reform. Against punishing consensual relations. 1785. 182 to 218 years .Jeremy Bentham: Supports reform. The capacity to suffer. 1789. 122 to 177 years .Mary Wollstonecraft: Supports reform. Women ought to have representatives. 1792. 126 to 158 years .Thomas Paine: Supports reform. An equal right to religious belief. 1794. 0 to 125 years .J. G. Fichte: Opposes reform. Married women’s indirect voting. 1797. 0 to 0 years .J. G. Fichte: Opposes reform. A husband administers his wife’s rights. 1797. 0 to 0 years .Immanuel Kant: Opposes reform. Execution as a requirement of justice. 1797. 0 to 0 years .Immanuel Kant: Opposes reform. Women excluded from active citizenship. 1797. 0 to 0 years .Jeremy Bentham: Supports reform. Women’s equal claim to the vote—in principle. 1818–1830. 88 to 132 years .Søren Kierkegaard: Opposes reform. Spiritual equality with worldly subordination. 1847. 0 to 0 years .Friedrich Engels: Supports reform. Ending exploitative factory labour by children. 1848. 0 to 90 years .Karl Marx: Supports reform. Ending exploitative factory labour by children. 1848. 0 to 90 years .John Stuart Mill: Supports reform. Defending emancipation against Carlyle. 1849–1850. 0 to 39 years .Karl Marx: Supports reform. Death to slavery. 1864. 0 to 24 years .John Stuart Mill: Supports reform. A principle of perfect equality. 1869. 95 to 106 years .John Stuart Mill: Opposes reform. Retaining capital punishment. 1873. -6 to 0 years .Friedrich Nietzsche: Opposes reform. Slavery and aristocratic culture. 1886. -53 to 0 years .Friedrich Nietzsche: Opposes reform. Against women’s equal rights and education. 1886. 0 to 0 years .Henry S. Salt: Supports reform. Extending rights to animals. 1892. 19 to 74 years .Leo Tolstoy: Supports reform. The moral objection to eating animals. 1892. 108 to 208 years (provisional).Swami Vivekananda: Supports reform. Education for daughters. 1893. 71 to 82 years .Liang Qichao: Supports reform. Comparable education for women. 1897. 67 to 78 years .Virchand Raghavji Gandhi: Supports reform. Duties toward animals. 1893–1901. 10 to 73 years .Virchand Raghavji Gandhi: Supports reform. Against eating animal flesh. 1893–1901. 99 to 207 years (provisional).Hermann Cohen: Supports reform. No legal justification for capital punishment. 1904. 0 to 94 years .Kang Youwei: Opposes reform. Coercive racial homogenization. 1902–1927. 0 to 0 years .Kang Youwei: Supports reform. Women as independent persons. 1902–1927. 37 to 73 years .Rosa Luxemburg: Supports reform. Remove capital punishment from the penal code. 1918. 0 to 80 years .Rosa Luxemburg: Supports reform. End barbarous prison punishments. 1918. 30 to 66 years .Alexandra Kollontai: Supports reform. Equality within the family. 1920. 44 to 55 years .M. K. Gandhi: Supports reform. Protection beyond the human species. 1921. 0 to 45 years .Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan: Supports reform. Against religious persecution. 1926. 0 to 0 years .Champat Rai Jain: Supports reform. Against mistreating animals. 1929. 0 to 37 years .Rashid Rida: Supports reform. Against white racial oppression. 1933–1934. 30 to 32 years .Rashid Rida: Opposes reform. Allowing limited continuation of slavery. 1933–1934. -101 to -45 years .Simone de Beauvoir: Supports reform. Women as free and autonomous beings. 1949. 15 to 26 years .B. R. Ambedkar: Supports reform. Equal access to knowledge. 1951–1956. 8 to 24 years .Bertrand Russell: Supports reform. The survival of the human race. 1955. 45 to 75 years (provisional).Albert Camus: Supports reform. Immediate abolition of capital punishment. 1957. 0 to 41 years .Jean-Paul Sartre: Supports reform. Torture as a plague. 1958. 0 to 26 years .Jean-Paul Sartre: Supports reform. Condemnation of colonial domination. 1961. 0 to 0 years .Martin Luther King Jr.: Supports reform. Segregation laws degrade personality. 1963–1964. 0 to 2 years .A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada: Opposes reform. Capital punishment as beneficial to the offender. 1972. -105 to 0 years .Hans Jonas: Supports reform. Responsibility for humanity’s continued existence. 1973. 27 to 57 years (provisional).Abul A‘la Maududi: Supports reform. Rejecting distinctions of race and nationality. 1976. 0 to 0 years .Bhikkhu Bodhi: Supports reform. Animals within the precept against killing. 1981. 0 to 0 years .Derek Parfit: Supports reform. The distinctive badness of extinction. 1984. 16 to 46 years (provisional).Peter Singer: Supports reform. Ending animal farming for food. 1989. 11 to 111 years (provisional).Philippa Foot: Supports reform. Justice forbids enslavement. 1991. 0 to 0 years .Philippa Foot: Supports reform. Justice forbids torture. 1991. 0 to 0 years .Alasdair MacIntyre: Supports reform. Rejecting Aristotle’s defense of slavery. 1981–2007. 0 to 0 years .Acharya Mahapragya: Supports reform. Nonviolence beyond social convenience. 1994. 0 to 0 years .Yew-Kwang Ng: Supports reform. A science of welfare in nature. 1995. 65 to 105 years (provisional).John Leslie: Supports reform. No right to disregard extinction risks. 1996. 4 to 34 years (provisional).John Rawls: Supports reform. Duties against animal cruelty. 1999. 0 to 0 years .John Rawls: Supports reform. Equal liberty of conscience. 1999. 0 to 0 years .Nick Bostrom: Supports reform. Reducing existential risk as a priority. 2003. 0 to 27 years (provisional).Christine Korsgaard: Supports reform. Direct obligations to other animals. 2004. 0 to 0 years .Thich Nhat Hanh: Supports reform. Compassionate vegetarianism. 2007. 0 to 93 years (provisional).Martha Nussbaum: Supports reform. An equal right to marry. 2009. 0 to 6 years .Nick Bostrom: Supports reform. Equal moral status across substrates. 2011. 29 to 89 years (provisional).Brian Tomasik: Supports reform. Reducing suffering in the wild. 2015. 45 to 85 years (provisional).Brian Tomasik: Supports reform. Taking insect suffering seriously. 2015–2016. 44 to 85 years (provisional).Lawrence C. Becker: Supports reform. Against creating slave populations. 2017. 0 to 0 years .Lawrence C. Becker: Supports reform. Against subjugating women. 2017. 0 to 0 years .Massimo Pigliucci: Supports reform. A modern Stoic case for vegetarianism. 2018. 0 to 82 years (provisional).Toby Ord: Supports reform. Safeguarding humanity’s future. 2020. 0 to 10 years (provisional).Hilary Greaves: Supports reform. The expected value of preventing extinction. 2021. 0 to 9 years (provisional).William MacAskill: Supports reform. The expected value of preventing extinction. 2021. 0 to 9 years (provisional).Martha Nussbaum: Supports reform. Factory farming as an injustice. 2021. 0 to 0 years .Bentham · Homosexuality decriminalizationBentham · Animal welfareBentham · Women’s suffrage1833 — British colonies: Slavery Abolition Act passed; territorial exceptions and compulsory apprenticeship remained.1838 — British colonies: Compulsory apprenticeship ended in the covered colonies.1848 — French colonies: Decree abolished slavery in French colonies and possessions.1865 — US: Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, retaining an exception for punishment after criminal conviction.1888 — Brazil: Lei Áurea abolished slavery nationwide.1918 — UK: Women aged 30 or over meeting specified qualifications gained the parliamentary vote.1918 — Germany: Women gained equal voting rights under the November 1918 reforms; they first voted nationally in January 1919.1920 — US: The Nineteenth Amendment prohibited denying voting rights on the basis of sex; racial and other barriers remained.1928 — UK: The Equal Franchise Act gave women the same voting qualifications as men.1932 — Brazil: The 1932 Electoral Code recognized women’s voting rights; literacy and other exclusions limited the electorate.1944 — France: The ordinance of 21 April 1944 recognized women as voters and candidates on the same terms as men; first voting followed in 1945.1945 — Japan: The December 1945 election-law reform granted voting rights to women aged 20 or over; the first election followed in 1946.1949 — China: The IPU dates women’s suffrage in China to 1949. This marks formal rights, not a finding of competitive democratic elections.1950 — India: The Constitution established universal adult suffrage, including women regardless of caste, race, or income; the first general election followed in 1951–1952.1689 — England: The Toleration Act permitted public worship for most Protestant dissenters under conditions. Catholics and some other groups remained excluded, and civil restrictions persisted.1786 — Virginia, US: The Virginia Statute protected religious belief and rejected compulsory support for religious worship.1791 — US federal government: The First Amendment prohibited federal establishment of religion and protected free exercise. Its original scope did not immediately remove state-level establishments or restrictions.1905 — France: Article 1 guaranteed freedom of conscience and religious worship subject to public-order restrictions. Territorial exceptions mean this was not uniform across all French jurisdictions.1919 — Germany: Article 135 of the Weimar Constitution guaranteed freedom of faith and conscience to residents. The constitutional guarantee was not an assurance against later persecution.1967 — UK / England & Wales: Partial decriminalization of private consensual sex between men aged 21 or over; exclusions remained.1969 — Canada: Partial decriminalization of private consensual sexual acts between two adults aged 21 or over.1994 — Germany: Paragraph 175 repealed, removing the remaining special criminal restrictions on male same-sex activity.1997 — Australia / Tasmania: Tasmania became the last Australian state to decriminalize consensual same-sex activity.2003 — US: Lawrence v. Texas invalidated laws criminalizing private consensual adult same-sex intimacy.1867 — Portugal: Capital punishment abolished for civil crimes; complete abolition followed in the 1976 Constitution.1949 — West Germany: Article 102 of the Basic Law abolished the death penalty in the Federal Republic; this date does not apply to East Germany.1965 — Great Britain: The death penalty for murder was abolished in Great Britain; other offenses remained capital crimes.1976 — Canada: The death penalty was removed from the Criminal Code; military offenses remained until 1998.1981 — France: The law of 9 October 1981 abolished the death penalty.1998 — UK: Remaining capital offenses were abolished in the United Kingdom.1998 — Canada: The death penalty was removed from the National Defence Act, completing abolition.1833 — United Kingdom: The Factory Act barred children under nine from most covered textile factories, limited older children's hours, and introduced factory inspectors; it was not a universal employment ban.1841 — France: The 1841 law set a minimum age of eight and limited working hours in covered industrial establishments; its scope and enforcement were limited.1938 — United States: The Fair Labor Standards Act established federal child-labor protections for covered work. Agricultural and other exemptions meant it did not prohibit every form of children's employment.1911 — England, Wales and Ireland: The Protection of Animals Act consolidated anti-cruelty protections; enacted in 1911 and effective January 1912. Scotland was excluded. Earlier protections already existed.1966 — United States: The Laboratory Animal Welfare Act established federal licensing and humane-care requirements for specified animals in the research supply chain and at research facilities. Its initial coverage was limited to dogs, cats, nonhuman primates, guinea pigs, hamsters, and rabbits; it was not universal animal protection.2005 — Oxford, UK: Future of Humanity Institute founded at Oxford in 2005; the institute operated until 2024.2011 — US / international: Global Catastrophic Risk Institute founded by Seth Baum and Tony Barrett in 2011.2012 — Cambridge, UK: Centre for the Study of Existential Risk established in 2012 by Huw Price, Martin Rees, and Jaan Tallinn.2014 — US: Future of Life Institute founded in 2014, with its launch event at MIT.Abolishing factory farming / veganism: 2000–2100 — illustrative scenarioEnding factory farming / veganism2000–2100Humanity starts to take extinction risks seriously: 2000–2030 — illustrative scenarioHumanity starts totake extinctionrisks seriously2000–2030Wild-animal welfare statutes: 2060–2100 — illustrative scenarioWild-animal welfarestatutes2060–2100AI welfare statutes: 2040–2100 — illustrative scenarioAI welfare statutes2040–2100
Historical progress intervals 13 reforms

Each range spans selected legal or institutional milestones. Single years mark individual reforms. Dates apply to the places named below, not worldwide acceptance. Select a reform for its endpoints and sources.

Comparisons (read with a heavy dose of salt!)

Ranking requires 3 core figures with scored historical evidence and 3 domains. Filtered results describe this corpus, not a representative census. Rankings depend on the chosen dates and legal scope. The alternative set includes narrower animal protections from 1822 instead of the 1911–1966 interval; Bentham’s lead changes from 122–177 to 33 years. Compare both sets before drawing conclusions about traditions. Future scenario changes cannot alter this ranking.

TraditionMean lead / lagCore figuresDomainsCoverage
1Utilitarian+128 yrs+105 to +150378 historical episodes
11 provisional / unscored
2Rights-based+37 yrs+24 to +499815 historical episodes
1 provisional / unscored
3Socialist+33 yrs+12 to +54679 historical episodes
0 provisional / unscored
4Christian+24 yrs+17 to +32646 historical episodes
6 provisional / unscored
5Hindu+12 yrs-8 to +32444 historical episodes
0 provisional / unscored
6Existentialist+9 yrs+3 to +14334 historical episodes
0 provisional / unscored
7Kantian+5 yrs0 to +9558 historical episodes
0 provisional / unscored
8Virtue ethics+1 yrs0 to +2345 historical episodes
1 provisional / unscored
—ConfucianInsufficient coverage223 historical episodes
1 provisional / unscored
—JainInsufficient coverage313 historical episodes
1 provisional / unscored
—BuddhistInsufficient coverage222 historical episodes
3 provisional / unscored
—StoicInsufficient coverage233 historical episodes
2 provisional / unscored
—IslamicInsufficient coverage223 historical episodes
1 provisional / unscored