I’d just like to point out a little flaw in your construction of other people’s morality, and offer what I think is a better model for understanding this issue.
First, I wouldn’t say that people have a morality that agrees with God. They have a God that agrees with their morality. Reading bible passages to people is unlikely to wobble their moral compass; they’ll just say those no longer apply or you’re taking them too literally or some such. God isn’t so much of a source of morality as a post hoc rationalization of a deeper impulse.
Second, this whole system makes a lot of sense if you think of it in terms of “how likely is it for me to do that?” Kind of like a Rawlsian Veil of Ignorance. If the defendant is a sociopath who killed people for fun, I have a pretty easy time saying, “I can easily restrain myself from killing people for fun. He should have done that. Let him burn!” Conversely, when the defendant is a soldier who has PTSD, I think, “You know, if I’d been through what he’d been through, I may very well have done the same thing, even though it was wrong. We should go easy on him.”
This also explains various problems the law had back when people were exceedingly racist or sexist, as people would not have though, “I could just as easily have been of a different race.”
I admit I haven’t fleshed this out fully, but it seems to agree with the end results more consistently than most other theories.
I’d just like to point out a little flaw in your construction of other people’s morality, and offer what I think is a better model for understanding this issue.
First, I wouldn’t say that people have a morality that agrees with God. They have a God that agrees with their morality. Reading bible passages to people is unlikely to wobble their moral compass; they’ll just say those no longer apply or you’re taking them too literally or some such. God isn’t so much of a source of morality as a post hoc rationalization of a deeper impulse.
Second, this whole system makes a lot of sense if you think of it in terms of “how likely is it for me to do that?” Kind of like a Rawlsian Veil of Ignorance. If the defendant is a sociopath who killed people for fun, I have a pretty easy time saying, “I can easily restrain myself from killing people for fun. He should have done that. Let him burn!” Conversely, when the defendant is a soldier who has PTSD, I think, “You know, if I’d been through what he’d been through, I may very well have done the same thing, even though it was wrong. We should go easy on him.”
This also explains various problems the law had back when people were exceedingly racist or sexist, as people would not have though, “I could just as easily have been of a different race.”
I admit I haven’t fleshed this out fully, but it seems to agree with the end results more consistently than most other theories.
I would be interested in seeing a more fleshed out version if at all possible.