it’s mostly a package of heuristics that is fairly well adapted to particular conditions
This could either mean that morality exists, and it’s the heuristics, or it could mean that morality doesn’t exist, only the heuristics does.
If it means the former, why think that the heuristics we have happens to have gotten morality exactly right? If it means the latter, there are no moral obligations, and so there is nothing morally wrong with interfering with societies that don’t allow equality of marriage rights for same-sex (or transgender) couples.
I’m observing that “satisfy preferences” is closer to a good summary of human utility functions than are particular rules about marriage or about Al Qaeda.
Here we’re not talking about morality (about what is right) anymore. If morality doesn’t exist, I don’t see why I should help people whose actions I strongly disprefer just because there are, let’s say, 5 of them and only 4 people like me. If preferences don’t have normative power, why should I care that people whose actions I strongly disapprove of would be, in worlds without marriage equality, so satisfied that it would offset the satisfaction of the people I approve of by, let’s say, 0.1% (or by any other number)?
Without morality, there is, by definition, no normative argument to make.
This could either mean that morality exists, and it’s the heuristics, or it could mean that morality doesn’t exist, only the heuristics does.
If it means the former, why think that the heuristics we have happens to have gotten morality exactly right? If it means the latter, there are no moral obligations, and so there is nothing morally wrong with interfering with societies that don’t allow equality of marriage rights for same-sex (or transgender) couples.
Here we’re not talking about morality (about what is right) anymore. If morality doesn’t exist, I don’t see why I should help people whose actions I strongly disprefer just because there are, let’s say, 5 of them and only 4 people like me. If preferences don’t have normative power, why should I care that people whose actions I strongly disapprove of would be, in worlds without marriage equality, so satisfied that it would offset the satisfaction of the people I approve of by, let’s say, 0.1% (or by any other number)?
Without morality, there is, by definition, no normative argument to make.