Morality is simply rational self-interest, as it would play out in an idealized social environment. The idealization is [...]
Now, further suppose that you disagree with my claim. On what grounds would you disagree?
It doesn’t seem to capture the social-signalling side of morality. Morality, in part, is a way for humans to show what goodie-two-shoes they are to other humans—who might be prospective mates, collaborators, or allies. That involves less self-interest—and more signalling unselfishness.
It doesn’t seem to capture the “manipulation” side of morality very well either. Moral systems are frequenttly applied to get others to stop doing what you don’t want them to do—by punishing, shaming, embarassing, etc.
So, my assessment would be: incomplete hypothesis.
I don’t see how this is responsive. You realize, don’t you, that this discussion is proceeding under Nesov’s stipulation that moral truth is a priori (like ‘3 X 3 = 9’). We are operating here under a stance of moral realism and ethical non-naturalism.
If your concept of morality doesn’t fit into this framework, this is not the place for you to step in.
Your idealisation makes signalling seem pointless—since everybody knows everything about the other players. Indeed, I don’t really see the point of your model. You are not attempting to model very much of the biology involved. You asked for criticism—and that is an obvious one. Another criticism is that you present a model—but it isn’t clear what it is for.
Checking back, that does appear to have been the context of the discussion.
Check again. Carefully.
You asked for criticism
I did not. I asked a question about Nesov’s metaethical position, using that toy theory of ethics as an example. I asked what kinds of grounds might be used to reject the toy theory. (The grounds you suggest don’t fit (IMHO) the metaethical stance Nesov had already committed to.)
Was I really so unclear? Please read the wikipedia entry on metaethics and reread the thread before responding, if you wish to respond.
Oh, and when I think back on the number of times you have inserted a comment about signaling into a discussion that seemed to be about something else entirely, I conclude that you really, really want to have a discussion with somebody, anybody on that topic. May I suggest that you produce a top-level posting explaining your ideas.
It doesn’t seem to capture the social-signalling side of morality. Morality, in part, is a way for humans to show what goodie-two-shoes they are to other humans—who might be prospective mates, collaborators, or allies. That involves less self-interest—and more signalling unselfishness.
It doesn’t seem to capture the “manipulation” side of morality very well either. Moral systems are frequenttly applied to get others to stop doing what you don’t want them to do—by punishing, shaming, embarassing, etc.
So, my assessment would be: incomplete hypothesis.
I don’t see how this is responsive. You realize, don’t you, that this discussion is proceeding under Nesov’s stipulation that moral truth is a priori (like ‘3 X 3 = 9’). We are operating here under a stance of moral realism and ethical non-naturalism.
If your concept of morality doesn’t fit into this framework, this is not the place for you to step in.
I thought you were talking about human morality. Checking back, that does appear to have been the context of the discussion.
Science has studied that topic, we have more to go on than intuition. An example of morality-as-signalling: Signaling Goodness: Social Rules and Public Choice.
Your idealisation makes signalling seem pointless—since everybody knows everything about the other players. Indeed, I don’t really see the point of your model. You are not attempting to model very much of the biology involved. You asked for criticism—and that is an obvious one. Another criticism is that you present a model—but it isn’t clear what it is for.
I was not.
Check again. Carefully.
I did not. I asked a question about Nesov’s metaethical position, using that toy theory of ethics as an example. I asked what kinds of grounds might be used to reject the toy theory. (The grounds you suggest don’t fit (IMHO) the metaethical stance Nesov had already committed to.)
Was I really so unclear? Please read the wikipedia entry on metaethics and reread the thread before responding, if you wish to respond.
Oh, and when I think back on the number of times you have inserted a comment about signaling into a discussion that seemed to be about something else entirely, I conclude that you really, really want to have a discussion with somebody, anybody on that topic. May I suggest that you produce a top-level posting explaining your ideas.