Abstract
This article presents evidence for a rising emancipatory spirit, across generations and around the world, in a life domain in which religion hitherto blocked emancipatory gains: sexual freedoms. We propose an explanation of rising emancipative values that integrates several approaches into a single idea—the utility ladder of freedoms. Specifically, we suggest that objectively improving living conditions—from rising life expectancies to broader education—transform the nature of life from a source of threats into a source of opportunities. As life begins to hold more promise for increasing population segments, societies climb the utility ladder of freedoms: practicing and respecting universal freedoms becomes increasingly vital to take advantage of rising life opportunities. This trend has begun to spill over into a life domain in which religious norms have until recently been able to resist emancipatory gains: sexual freedoms. We present (1) crossnational, (2) longitudinal, (3) generational and (4) multilevel evidence on an unprecedentedly broad basis in support of this theory.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11205-015-1137-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
With the liberal revolutions of the Enlightenment era, human history has taken a sharp turn (Grayling 2007; Goldstone 2009)
We propose an explanation of rising emancipative values that integrates several approaches into a single idea—the utility ladder of freedoms
The frontline has reached a domain in which religion and other conservative forces have been most successful in blocking emancipatory gains: sexual freedoms (Kafka 2005; Knudsen 2006; Frank et al 2010)
Summary
With the liberal revolutions of the Enlightenment era, human history has taken a sharp turn (Grayling 2007; Goldstone 2009). The frontline has reached a domain in which religion and other conservative forces have been most successful in blocking emancipatory gains: sexual freedoms (Kafka 2005; Knudsen 2006; Frank et al 2010).. An objective ascension of opportunities does not escape people’s awareness and, induces an adaptive shift in subjective values—giving rise to emancipatory orientations that support universal freedoms. This utility-value link is key to human functioning because it keeps our lives in touch with reality. Against the perennial inertia of these traditional family, fertility and sex norms, rising emancipative values in the domain of sexual freedoms signal an evolutionary breakthrough in the development of moral systems. The final section discusses the implications and limitations of the evidence
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