Philosophy Now Forum

Markus7 wrote:

Prior to the invention of money economies, the most efficient way to sustainably get material goods by cooperation was by acting morally – for instance in accordance with the Golden Rule (which initiates indirect reciprocity).

Yes, but what I suggest is that with the technology that caused agricultural surplus and thus money economy there arrived a greatly increased need for moral code that is founded as default upon interpersonal honesty and reliability. I think that the causal relationship between economic development and morality is not sequential but contemporaneous. Thus the moral code is natural in the sense of inevitable. The universal component of The Golden Rule is a later civilised development of the more basic honesty and reliability which suits all societies from the tribal nomad to the huge political collectives of the modern world.

Obviously, especially in view of international tensions, we are still working out the universal component of the Golden Rule.

Just because all humans cooperate it does not follow that cooperation is morally significant. All humans breathe too.

If you want to conceive of universal morality, then look at what all language acquisition takes, and look for things that are morally significant, because it is there that you will find what all morality has in common. Trust and truth. Those two are just as morally significant now as during the adoption of our initial moral code of behaviour(morality) via original/native/initial language acquisition.

creativesoul wrote:If you want to conceive of universal morality, then look at what all language acquisition takes, and look for things that are morally significant, because it is there that you will find what all morality has in common. Trust and truth. Those two are just as morally significant now as during the adoption of our initial moral code of behaviour(morality) via original/native/initial language acquisition.

Right, trust and truth are common to all morality.

But why? You, and everyone else, thinks trust and truth are at the core of morality because our ancestors who did not think so tended to die out due to reduced benefits of cooperation.

You can observe that trust and truth are common to all morality. But until you can explain why, you don't really know what morality 'is'.

How is cooperation morally significant?

creativesoul wrote:How is cooperation morally significant?

That was explained in the original post.

Strategies that solve the universal cooperation/exploitation dilemma all include the necessary element that violators are punished.

Moral norms in all cultures are the norms whose violators deserve punishment.

Thus, cultural moral norms and the elements of cooperation strategies encoded in our cultural norms are both identified by the same necessary feature, violators deserve punishment.

But could some moral norms not be elements of cooperation strategies? This is an empirical question, we must go and look. And the answer appears to be “no”. All moral norms appear to be elements of cooperation strategies.

That is what makes cooperation morally significant.

But the following is a more revealing perspective. What makes our moral sense and cultural moralities significant to us? They are significant to us because they are central to our success as a species because they enable sustained cooperation in groups.