You can’t point at anything for claims about pure maths either. That something is not empirical does not automatically invalidate it.
Morality is not just social signalling, because it makes sense to say some social signals (“I am higher status than you because I have more slaves”) are morally wrong.
Morality is not just social signalling, because it makes sense to say some social signals (“I am higher status than you because I have more slaves”) are morally wrong.
That conclusion does not follow. Saying you have slaves is a signal about morality and, depending on the audience, often a bad signal.
Note that there is a difference between “morality is about signalling” and “signalling is about morality”. If I say “I am high status because I live a moral life” I am blatantly using morality to signal, but it doesn’t remotely follow from that there is nothing to morality except signalling. It could be argued that, morally speaking, I should pursue morality
for its own sake and not to gain status.
You can’t point at anything for claims about pure maths either. That something is not empirical does not automatically invalidate it.
Morality is not just social signalling, because it makes sense to say some social signals (“I am higher status than you because I have more slaves”) are morally wrong.
That conclusion does not follow. Saying you have slaves is a signal about morality and, depending on the audience, often a bad signal.
Note that there is a difference between “morality is about signalling” and “signalling is about morality”. If I say “I am high status because I live a moral life” I am blatantly using morality to signal, but it doesn’t remotely follow from that there is nothing to morality except signalling. It could be argued that, morally speaking, I should pursue morality for its own sake and not to gain status.
That sounds like an effective signal to send—and a common one.
Noted yet not especially relevant to my comment.