I'm happy with that, Immanuel. I dislike all the wanking on that goes on about about morality, both in academia and online (not aimed at people here necessarily). We refine and refine and refine ... and then a natural disaster, war strikes or even a property bust and society starts going base and tribal. Under pressure, the "thin veneer of civilisation" falls away like wet tissue paper under the influence of the survival instinct.Immanuel Can wrote:This suggests that you're really just a moral pragmatist (not fussy with moral codes), and that the GR is merely an option you personally prefer for small scale ("detail") thinking. (Of course, that means it's anything but "robust" for you: it's actually very modestly applicable in your system, this would seem to suggest.)
Have I understood you accurately now?
Morality is basically a luxury afforded by social animals who have achieved stability through exploiting and killing other species. For humans, once we created our safe zones with agriculture, tools, weapons and strategies, we started refining our rules of engagement. Over time it's built up to the point of silliness. As with laws, we've ended up with many thousands of pages of ideas about morality when most of us are hard-pressed juggling a couple of simple concepts in real life situations with their distractions and time pressures. So this very refined morality ends up only being deeply understood by a relative handful of gatekeepers, most of whom in real life probably regularly ignore the abstracted moral tenets they espouse in their work. Again, like lawyers.
One philosopher who sincerely tries to "walk the walk" with a detailed morality is Peter Singer and, having heard of the efforts he makes to live up to his ideals, I'd say it's not for the faint-hearted; a difficult path.