All values, wherever they come from, need to be re-examined on their own merit. At one point slavery was thought to be acceptable by a lot of people. If you grew up in that society, you would probably inherit that belief as well. There are very likely similar beliefs that you have right now, that were given to you by some source you find credible (society, the Bible, or LW) that you might be better off not having. That’s why you need to examine every single belief that you have aside from its source. You can’t assume they are automatically correct because they fit a moral framework, unless you are also absolutely certain that moral framework is right. And proving that a moral framework is right requires a LOT of evidence.
More specifically:
3) What about all the other people in this world. Many of their morality is based on principles have little to do with Christianity or the Bible per se. Are they automatically wrong? Automatically right? What makes Christianity special? If you were in their shoes, you could do this step by step argument for Buddhism or Islam or in fact any other moral framework.
4) Just because it will further their own agenda, doesn’t mean it won’t benefit you.
5) Consistency for the sake of consistency is bad.
6) The book can be interpreted in multitude of ways. In fact, every time you read the Bible, or any other book, your interpretation will be slightly different.
There are some advantages if everybody in a society has similar social norms; obviously driving on a certain side of the road, but also things like whether tipping in restaurants is “morally required” or not (it is in the US, it isn’t in France, in both cases the pay of servers is adjusted accordingly).
Or if you’re talking about consistency at the individual level, having consistent values makes one slightly more predictable, and the expected correctness of a set of consistent values is probably sligtly higher than the expected correctness of a set of inconsistent values.
In general, most people are more comfortable living in a society who shares their values, so I’d say “Consistency for the sake of consistency” is generally slighltly good, to be of course balanced with other things.
Warning to foreigners: tipping in restaurants is morally required in France. It’s a tiny tip, about two euros, but not tipping still makes you a very rude and bad person who defects.
Is it? I get the impression that it’s expected in cafés, but “more optional” in restaurants (it probably also depends of the restaurant). Some quick googling seems to agree (except for the restaurant/café difference, maybe my pattern matching on the behavior of others is overactive)
The website says it’s a Paris thing, which sounds plausible. I wouldn’t know about nice restaurants. I’m pretty sure it’s expected in regular (for some value thereof) restaurants, at least in Paris: French television movies always show waiters getting mad at customers who don’t tip, and my parents (who are stingy with tips) always tip in restaurants. My intuition says that tipping in restaurants is even more important than in cafés, but I don’t know why—maybe just because the tip is bigger?
(Remember the second Paris meetup, where I made an ass of myself by complaining I didn’t have enough money? I added a few coins to the pile when we left anyway. Not tipping is a mortal sin.)
The post assumed that protecting the morality you happen to have is a worthwhile goal, which is orthogonal to the problem of finding the “right” morality that your comment is trying to address.
All values, wherever they come from, need to be re-examined on their own merit. At one point slavery was thought to be acceptable by a lot of people. If you grew up in that society, you would probably inherit that belief as well. There are very likely similar beliefs that you have right now, that were given to you by some source you find credible (society, the Bible, or LW) that you might be better off not having. That’s why you need to examine every single belief that you have aside from its source. You can’t assume they are automatically correct because they fit a moral framework, unless you are also absolutely certain that moral framework is right. And proving that a moral framework is right requires a LOT of evidence.
More specifically:
3) What about all the other people in this world. Many of their morality is based on principles have little to do with Christianity or the Bible per se. Are they automatically wrong? Automatically right? What makes Christianity special? If you were in their shoes, you could do this step by step argument for Buddhism or Islam or in fact any other moral framework.
4) Just because it will further their own agenda, doesn’t mean it won’t benefit you.
5) Consistency for the sake of consistency is bad.
6) The book can be interpreted in multitude of ways. In fact, every time you read the Bible, or any other book, your interpretation will be slightly different.
I disagree—it’s neutral at worse.
There are some advantages if everybody in a society has similar social norms; obviously driving on a certain side of the road, but also things like whether tipping in restaurants is “morally required” or not (it is in the US, it isn’t in France, in both cases the pay of servers is adjusted accordingly).
Or if you’re talking about consistency at the individual level, having consistent values makes one slightly more predictable, and the expected correctness of a set of consistent values is probably sligtly higher than the expected correctness of a set of inconsistent values.
In general, most people are more comfortable living in a society who shares their values, so I’d say “Consistency for the sake of consistency” is generally slighltly good, to be of course balanced with other things.
Good point. I was talking about consistency on the individual level, and overall it’s probably at least mildly beneficial.
Warning to foreigners: tipping in restaurants is morally required in France. It’s a tiny tip, about two euros, but not tipping still makes you a very rude and bad person who defects.
Is it? I get the impression that it’s expected in cafés, but “more optional” in restaurants (it probably also depends of the restaurant). Some quick googling seems to agree (except for the restaurant/café difference, maybe my pattern matching on the behavior of others is overactive)
The website says it’s a Paris thing, which sounds plausible. I wouldn’t know about nice restaurants. I’m pretty sure it’s expected in regular (for some value thereof) restaurants, at least in Paris: French television movies always show waiters getting mad at customers who don’t tip, and my parents (who are stingy with tips) always tip in restaurants. My intuition says that tipping in restaurants is even more important than in cafés, but I don’t know why—maybe just because the tip is bigger?
(Remember the second Paris meetup, where I made an ass of myself by complaining I didn’t have enough money? I added a few coins to the pile when we left anyway. Not tipping is a mortal sin.)
The post assumed that protecting the morality you happen to have is a worthwhile goal, which is orthogonal to the problem of finding the “right” morality that your comment is trying to address.