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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 3, 2024

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When dealing with wolves (or when wolves deal with you), there is no 'right' in the moral sense; that only applies when you are dealing with moral actors interacting with each other.

I sense some ambiguity here as to what entails a "moral actor". Likely, it's not just "an actor that always chooses morally right acts", for that would be a bit weird. Most theories I've encountered have some lower bar for an actor to qualify as a "moral actor", one that allows them to choose morally wrong acts, yet be considered blameworthy for such a choice and possibly subject to morally acceptable punishment. Perhaps this punishment would involve large amounts of armed men and possibly helicopters, but the actors, themselves, are usually still considered to be "moral actors".

Of course, this is all very much complicated if you take what is either a strong minority opinion or possibly a majority opinion in this place, exemplified by @self_made_human and @SSCReader, that this whole morality thing is totally relative, anyway. Who's to say whether the wolves are moral actors? Maybe they're just actors with their own morality, which is I guess just as good as anyone else's. I don't know what else to say here, other than I think that this entire subthread kind of fails to get off the ground back a few steps if this type of thing is adopted.

My opinion is that morality is not relative, but neither is it universally shared. Morality is a way for people willing and capable of positive-sum interactions to interact with each other. If you are not willing and able, you are not a moral actor, and likewise, dealing with you is a matter of pragmatism, not morality. You can have a moral war (or at least a war with moral aspects), if both sides are willing to agree on values like "Killing civilians for no significant military gain is wrong." and formalize combat to keep the fighting out of the fields and towns; when one side violates that agreement, then that is no longer a moral issue.

Again, I agree with the wolf; I agree that the wolf and those who carry water for him can and will disregard both honor and morality, and tear down every house and building to loot the rubble for themselves and their fellow-travelers.

A pretty elementary tenant of morality, or reasoning in general, is that you need to be alive to do it (or at least for other people that share your ideals to continue in your stead). If you choose to lay down and be devoured, because you feel that it's as good for the wolf to enjoy your flesh as a meal as for you to keep living in it, then that's on you. And if you hold to a morality that says that the above is the highest virtue, then that morality will end when it runs out of practitioners.

I honestly don't see this as something that can be meaningfully argued. Either you read the above comic and reach for your gun (or give fervent thanks to those around you who pick up the gun on your behalf), or you don't; if you don't, then you're not likely to share enough values with those who do to make discussing it worthwhile.

Morality is way for people who share values to coordinate and make great things. But it is only that. Absent shared values, there is only the pigs shooting every wolf, or the wolves devouring every pig.