“Robin Hanson, in his essay on “Minimal Morality”, suggests that the unreliability of our moral reasoning should lead us to seek simple moral principles”
I very much agree with this. Most specific moral rules people make, are in fact nothing more than frequently accurate pre-made decisions as to what would be good in a given situation. But asking why a given rule is good rather than bad, will often help someone figure out their actual moral code, the one they would have to use in novel situations. Specific moral rules also have the functions of providing guidance to those who can’t properly use their generalized moral rule, either due to not understanding consequences or a tendency to game rules that aren’t specific enough, and also give pause to people who are faced with a difficult moral decision, such as whether it is good to murder a very evil person.
Morality does not, and should not, match legality. This is because legality has as a pre-requisite the ability to be enforced, whereas morality must be able to guide someone even when there is no outside enforcement. Ambiguities in laws cause a reduction in their usefulness, as the threat of force is reduced by ambiguity, ambiguity can increase inaction due to fear of mis-guided interpretation, and ambiguity will allow biases of judge and jury to taint judgement. Thus we have and need many specific legal rules, whereas “Do to others as you would have them do to you” is enough to build a complete moral system.
“Robin Hanson, in his essay on “Minimal Morality”, suggests that the unreliability of our moral reasoning should lead us to seek simple moral principles”
I very much agree with this. Most specific moral rules people make, are in fact nothing more than frequently accurate pre-made decisions as to what would be good in a given situation. But asking why a given rule is good rather than bad, will often help someone figure out their actual moral code, the one they would have to use in novel situations. Specific moral rules also have the functions of providing guidance to those who can’t properly use their generalized moral rule, either due to not understanding consequences or a tendency to game rules that aren’t specific enough, and also give pause to people who are faced with a difficult moral decision, such as whether it is good to murder a very evil person.
Morality does not, and should not, match legality. This is because legality has as a pre-requisite the ability to be enforced, whereas morality must be able to guide someone even when there is no outside enforcement. Ambiguities in laws cause a reduction in their usefulness, as the threat of force is reduced by ambiguity, ambiguity can increase inaction due to fear of mis-guided interpretation, and ambiguity will allow biases of judge and jury to taint judgement. Thus we have and need many specific legal rules, whereas “Do to others as you would have them do to you” is enough to build a complete moral system.