Abstract. Research on the motives individuals have to punish criminal offenders suggests that punitive reactions are primarily driven by retributive, not utilitarian, motives. To explain this, several authors have suggested a dual process model (DPM) of punitive reactions. According to this model, punitive reactions are the product of two distinct types of processing (type I and type II), which differentially support retributive vs. utilitarian punishment motives. In response to cases of criminal wrongdoing, type I swiftly outputs a retributive reaction. In contrast, for utilitarian motives to play a role, this reaction has to be overridden by type II processing, which only happens rarely. In this article, we argue that despite its popularity, there is little concrete evidence for the DPM. We then report the results of a preregistered study investigating the effect of increased processing effort on retributive vs. utilitarian punitive reactions. We argue that the results fail to support the DPM.

Many believe that moral education can cause moral progress. At first glance, this makes sense. A major goal of moral education is the improvement of the moral beliefs, values and behaviors of young people. Most would also consider all of these improvements to be important instances of moral progress. Moreover, moral education is a form of social learning, and there are good reasons to think that social learning processes shape episodes of progressive moral change. Despite this, we argue that instead of being a cause of moral change, the main effect of moral education is often to provide stability or continuity. In addition, we will argue that even when the conditions are right for moral education to contribute to moral change, it is far from clear that the resulting changes will always, or even most of the time, end up being progressive.

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Societies change over time. Chattel slavery and foot‐binding have been abolished, democracy has become increasingly widespread, gay rights have become established in some countries, and the animal rights movement continues to gain momentum. Do these changes count as moral progress? Is there such a thing? If so, how should we understand it? These questions have been receiving increasing attention from philosophers, psychologists, biologists, and sociologists in recent decades. This survey provides a systematic account of recent developments in the understanding of moral progress. We outline the concept of moral progress and describe the different types of moral progress identified in the literature. We review the normative criteria that have been used in judging whether various developments count as morally progressive or not. We discuss the prospects of moral progress in the face of challenges that claim that moral progress is not psychologically possible for human beings, and we explore the metaethical implications of moral progress.

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