Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind when deciding what to cover in the post when I write it.
Briefly for now, just to continue the discussion a bit:
Can you have some members of a society who don’t share some of the consistent moral patterns which evolved, or do you claim that every member reliably holds these morals?
The former (sociopaths, for example, are genetically predisposed to be less moral, and it has often been suggested this behavior is an adapted form of social opportunism, in game theory terms a different strategy, perhaps one with a stable equilibrium frequency, rather than being simply a genetic disease) — though they may get punished or shunned as a result, if their morality is different in a way that other members of the society disapprove of.
Can someone decide what they ought to value using this system? How?
How a person wants to make decisions is up to them. Most people make these decisions in a way that is influenced by their own moral instincts, social pressures, their circumstances and upbringing, their personality, expedience, and so forth. Generally, acting contrary to your instincts and impulses is challenging to do and stressful — it’s probably easier to go against them only when there’s a clear rational need. For example, if you’re rationally aware that they are maladaptive or antisocial in modern society.
Is it wrong if someone simply doesn’t care about what society values? Why?
In the context of their society of humans, yes, it is considered wrong (in almost all societies). Note that this is a morally relative statement, not a morally realist one. However, simply not caring at all is pretty atypical behavior under human moral intuitions, and is generally also pretty maladaptive (unless, say, you have absolute power). So from an evolutionary ethics point of view, it seems likely to be maladaptive behavior that will often get you imprisoned, exiled or killed. So as relative statements go, this is a pretty strong one.
How can we tell that your story tells us what we ought to value rather than simply explaining why we value the things we do?
The point of evolutionary ethics is that there is no meaningful, uniquely defined, separate sense of “ought” much stronger than “according to most common moral systems for this particular social species, or most similar species”. So the best you can do is explain why we, or most societies of a certain type, or most societies of a certain species, believe that that’s something you “ought” to do. This approach isn’t a form of moral realism.
Do you make a clear distinction between normative ethics and descriptive ethics? What is it?
Normative ethics describes my opinion about what I think people should do. Descriptive ethics describes what many people think people should do. In a society that has a social compact, the latter carries a lot more weight. However, I’m perfectly happy to discuss ethical system design: if we altered the ethics of our (or some other) society in a certain way, then the effects on the society would be this or that, which would or wouldn’t tend to increase or decrease things like human flourishing (which is itself explained by evolutionary psychology). That sounds a lot like normative ethics, but there’s a key difference: the discussion is based on a (hopefully mutually agreed) assessment of the relative merits of the predicted consequences, not “because I said so” or “because I heard God say so”.
Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind when deciding what to cover in the post when I write it.
Briefly for now, just to continue the discussion a bit:
Can you have some members of a society who don’t share some of the consistent moral patterns which evolved, or do you claim that every member reliably holds these morals?
The former (sociopaths, for example, are genetically predisposed to be less moral, and it has often been suggested this behavior is an adapted form of social opportunism, in game theory terms a different strategy, perhaps one with a stable equilibrium frequency, rather than being simply a genetic disease) — though they may get punished or shunned as a result, if their morality is different in a way that other members of the society disapprove of.
Can someone decide what they ought to value using this system? How?
How a person wants to make decisions is up to them. Most people make these decisions in a way that is influenced by their own moral instincts, social pressures, their circumstances and upbringing, their personality, expedience, and so forth. Generally, acting contrary to your instincts and impulses is challenging to do and stressful — it’s probably easier to go against them only when there’s a clear rational need. For example, if you’re rationally aware that they are maladaptive or antisocial in modern society.
Is it wrong if someone simply doesn’t care about what society values? Why?
In the context of their society of humans, yes, it is considered wrong (in almost all societies). Note that this is a morally relative statement, not a morally realist one. However, simply not caring at all is pretty atypical behavior under human moral intuitions, and is generally also pretty maladaptive (unless, say, you have absolute power). So from an evolutionary ethics point of view, it seems likely to be maladaptive behavior that will often get you imprisoned, exiled or killed. So as relative statements go, this is a pretty strong one.
How can we tell that your story tells us what we ought to value rather than simply explaining why we value the things we do?
The point of evolutionary ethics is that there is no meaningful, uniquely defined, separate sense of “ought” much stronger than “according to most common moral systems for this particular social species, or most similar species”. So the best you can do is explain why we, or most societies of a certain type, or most societies of a certain species, believe that that’s something you “ought” to do. This approach isn’t a form of moral realism.
Do you make a clear distinction between normative ethics and descriptive ethics? What is it?
Normative ethics describes my opinion about what I think people should do. Descriptive ethics describes what many people think people should do. In a society that has a social compact, the latter carries a lot more weight. However, I’m perfectly happy to discuss ethical system design: if we altered the ethics of our (or some other) society in a certain way, then the effects on the society would be this or that, which would or wouldn’t tend to increase or decrease things like human flourishing (which is itself explained by evolutionary psychology). That sounds a lot like normative ethics, but there’s a key difference: the discussion is based on a (hopefully mutually agreed) assessment of the relative merits of the predicted consequences, not “because I said so” or “because I heard God say so”.