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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 2023

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Just don't fall for the illusion that highly conserved aspects of our conserved morality are anything but the outcomes of evolution and game theory working on mammalian brains.

It doesn't really matter. I'm trying to make a morality that works for humans. A significantly constrained problem.

That's like your, opinion, man. Do demonstrate how dearly you hold your stated convictions if people paraglide onto your doorstep and shoot your kids. Or don't, because honor is a poor balm for the dead.

I would regard my emotions as irrelevant when deciding how criminals are to be treated, I wouldn't insist on a double standard for me and those who aren't me.

You mistake me for a Benthamian who holds all people equal, including themselves, and I very much am not.

The difference is that your morality doesn't do anything to prevent those more powerful than you from killing you if it would benefit them. Mine would.

It doesn't really matter. I'm trying to make a morality that works for humans. A significantly constrained problem.

You stand little chance of succeeding in that endeavor, given that no end of philosophers have tried to find a moral code that is acceptable and preferable over all the others for a ~full subset of humans.

I don't think one of those even exists, even if you consider it a significantly constrained problem, for much the same reason that finding a cut of clothing that works optimally for starfish and sheep is a difficult task.

If something capable of convincing all humans of its validity (without reference to objectivity, it's just supremely satisfying and feels intuitively right) ever comes to exist, I expect it to be a problem solved by entities much smarter than us.

The difference is that your morality doesn't do anything to prevent those more powerful than you from killing you if it would benefit them. Mine would.

There are plenty of people with even less power than the minimal amount I wield, and you don't see me going around tormenting them, not even for financial gain.

I am perfectly content in letting others flourish, and even happy on their behalf, as long as I have my most pressing needs met.

The only reason human society works is that despite our moralities diverging in the edge cases, there's a strongly conserved core, with random acts of murder, theft and the like nearly universally reprehensible. True even in monkeys, or anything smart enough to understand that. Once again, for evopsych and game theory reasons, but I'm sure you understand what I'm getting at.

At the end of the day, incentive structures and fear of punishment can constrain people who aren't omnibenevolent in acting in more or less pro-social ways, which helps lubricate the rest of the problem, even if a naive approach would have you wonder otherwise.

You stand little chance of succeeding in that endeavor, given that no end of philosophers have tried to find a moral code that is acceptable and preferable over all the others for a ~full subset of humans.

It's not a question of success, it's a question of whether I need to believe in moral objectivism to make my argument. I don't. I only need to convince people that my morality works better for them without appeal to moral fact.

There are plenty of people with even less power than the minimal amount I wield, and you don't see me going around tormenting them, not even for financial gain...The only reason human society works is that despite our moralities diverging in the edge cases, there's a strongly conserved core, with random acts of murder, theft and the like nearly universally reprehensible.

No, they are only reprehensible in human nature when we believe others have moral worth. Our instincts turn this into "anyone who is a part of my tribe" and brother, you probably aren't in the tribe of every rich Indian out there. So this isn't a strong response. That you wouldn't do it tells me nothing about what your morality does to prevent a more powerful person from just killing your for their benefit.