Re-conceptualizing ‘Social Progress’: presenting the ‘Dual Necessity’ principle

How should we understand social progress, and how should it be measured? These questions have engaged social thinkers and scientists for many decades. In the context of the growing dominancy of national and international indices of social progress, the paper puts forward a new dual-necessity principle in the conceptualization and measurement of social progress. At the heart of this dual necessity principle is the profound but neglected conviction that, from a political point of view, each of the two components of social progress – subjective (representing people’s actual attitudes) and objective (representing external standards) – are not only relevant but indispensable. The paper aims to provide political-theoretical justification for the principle, and to exemplify its operationalization. The paper demonstrates ‘concept structuring’ and exhibits how the distinctive dual necessity structure may result with different assessments and rankings of countries’ social progress.