why is basically all ethics in the last 300 years or so universalistic?
Because so much of it comes out of a Christian tradition with a deep presumption of Universalism built into it. But you are not the first person to ask this tradition “What is the value of your values?”.
Your “reciprocal ethics” might be framed as long-term self-interest, or as a form of virtue ethics. It immediately makes me think of Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments.
There’s a nice discussion on related themes here, or try googling the site for “virtue ethics”.
Hm, I would call it “graded ingroup loyalty”, to quote an Arab saying “me and by brother against my cousin, me and my cousin against the world”. Instead of a binary ingroup and outgroup, other people are gradually more or less your ingroup, spouse more than cousin, cousin more than buddy, buddy more than compatriot, compatriot more than someone really far away.
But note that reciprocity is almost the opposite of loyalty. That kind of tribalism is dysfunctional in the modern world, because:
You can’t necessarily rely on reciprocity in those tribal relationships any more
You can achieve reciprocity in non-tribal relationships
Rather than a static loyalty, it is more interesting to ask how people move into and out of your ingroup? What elicits our feelings of sympathy for some more than others? What kind of institutions encourage us to sympathise with other people and stand in their shoes? What triggers our moral imagination?
I’d tell a story of co-operative trade forcing us to stand in the shoes of other people, to figure out what they want as customers, thus not only allowing co-operation between people with divergent moral viewpoints, but itself giving rise to an ethic of conscientiousness, trustworthiness, and self-discipline. The “bourgeois virtues” out-competing the “warrior ethic.”
Because so much of it comes out of a Christian tradition with a deep presumption of Universalism built into it. But you are not the first person to ask this tradition “What is the value of your values?”.
Your “reciprocal ethics” might be framed as long-term self-interest, or as a form of virtue ethics. It immediately makes me think of Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments.
There’s a nice discussion on related themes here, or try googling the site for “virtue ethics”.
Hm, I would call it “graded ingroup loyalty”, to quote an Arab saying “me and by brother against my cousin, me and my cousin against the world”. Instead of a binary ingroup and outgroup, other people are gradually more or less your ingroup, spouse more than cousin, cousin more than buddy, buddy more than compatriot, compatriot more than someone really far away.
But note that reciprocity is almost the opposite of loyalty. That kind of tribalism is dysfunctional in the modern world, because:
You can’t necessarily rely on reciprocity in those tribal relationships any more
You can achieve reciprocity in non-tribal relationships
Rather than a static loyalty, it is more interesting to ask how people move into and out of your ingroup? What elicits our feelings of sympathy for some more than others? What kind of institutions encourage us to sympathise with other people and stand in their shoes? What triggers our moral imagination?
I’d tell a story of co-operative trade forcing us to stand in the shoes of other people, to figure out what they want as customers, thus not only allowing co-operation between people with divergent moral viewpoints, but itself giving rise to an ethic of conscientiousness, trustworthiness, and self-discipline. The “bourgeois virtues” out-competing the “warrior ethic.”