The idea of endless ethical progress is unjustifiable because improvement is individual

Evidence

So that, from an ethical point of view, the idea of an ascent ad infinitum which is implicit in the concept of Becoming remains to a certain degree unjustifiable, given that ethical ‘improvement’ is an individual fact and that on the individual plane it is quite possible to conclude, proceeding from individual case to individual case, that the whole latter epoch is worse … And then the optimistic concept of becoming proves as elusive on the ideal as on the real plane. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1282

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Individual moral change alone perpetuates injustice without institutional reform — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 108; Ethical appeals to individual responsibility let impersonal structures evade accountability — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 139; Personal virtue cannot remedy injustice embedded in the situation itself — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1974
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Individual moral change alone perpetuates injustice without institutional reform — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 108; Ethical appeals to individual responsibility let impersonal structures evade accountability — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 139; Personal virtue cannot remedy injustice embedded in the situation itself — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1974

Broader Connections

• Ethical appeals to individual responsibility let impersonal structures evade accountability #complicates (0.80) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 139
• Individual moral change alone perpetuates injustice without institutional reform #complicates (0.78) — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 108