No, I’m not saying that. Don’t start with the ill-defined concept of “moral” and “immoral”—start from the undisputed reality of the matter that people pass moral judgements on actions they hear about.
So I’m saying that when Alice hears of X: group A choosing to sacrifice one of their own rather than inconvenience group B Alice is likely to pass a different moral judgement of that choice than if Alice hears of Y: group A choosing to sacrifice a member of group B rather than inconvenience themselves.
Even though utilitarianism would argue that actions X and Y are equally moral taken by themselves, actions X and Y provide different evidence about whether group A is really acting on moral principles. So if the evolutionary purpose for our moral intuitions is to e.g. identify people as villains or not, action Y triggers our moral intuitions negatively and action X triggers our moral intuitions positively. Because at a deeper level the real purpose of judging the deed is to judge the doer.
No, I’m not saying that. Don’t start with the ill-defined concept of “moral” and “immoral”—start from the undisputed reality of the matter that people pass moral judgements on actions they hear about.
So I’m saying that when Alice hears of
X: group A choosing to sacrifice one of their own rather than inconvenience group B
Alice is likely to pass a different moral judgement of that choice than if Alice hears of
Y: group A choosing to sacrifice a member of group B rather than inconvenience themselves.
Even though utilitarianism would argue that actions X and Y are equally moral taken by themselves, actions X and Y provide different evidence about whether group A is really acting on moral principles. So if the evolutionary purpose for our moral intuitions is to e.g. identify people as villains or not, action Y triggers our moral intuitions negatively and action X triggers our moral intuitions positively. Because at a deeper level the real purpose of judging the deed is to judge the doer.