Why is it a mystery (on the morality-as-preferences position) that our terminal values can change, and specifically can be influenced by arguments? Since our genes didn’t design us with terminal values that coincide with its own (i.e., “maximize inclusive fitness”), there is no reason why they would have made those terminal values unchangeable.
We (in our environment of evolutionary adaptation) satisfied our genes’ terminal value as a side-effect of trying to satisfy our own terminal values. The fact that our terminal values respond to moral arguments simply means that this side-effect was stronger if our terminal values could change in this way.
I think the important question is not whether persuasive moral arguments exist, but whether such arguments form a coherent, consistent philosophical system, one that should be amenable to logical and mathematical analysis without falling apart. The morality-as-given position implies that such a system exists. I think the fact that we still haven’t found this system is a strong argument against this position.
Why is it a mystery (on the morality-as-preferences position) that our terminal values can change, and specifically can be influenced by arguments? Since our genes didn’t design us with terminal values that coincide with its own (i.e., “maximize inclusive fitness”), there is no reason why they would have made those terminal values unchangeable.
We (in our environment of evolutionary adaptation) satisfied our genes’ terminal value as a side-effect of trying to satisfy our own terminal values. The fact that our terminal values respond to moral arguments simply means that this side-effect was stronger if our terminal values could change in this way.
I think the important question is not whether persuasive moral arguments exist, but whether such arguments form a coherent, consistent philosophical system, one that should be amenable to logical and mathematical analysis without falling apart. The morality-as-given position implies that such a system exists. I think the fact that we still haven’t found this system is a strong argument against this position.