Letting go of Moral Thought Entirely
I was recently made a moderator of anti-theism, anti-moralism, anti-statism and it's gotten me rethinking the use of moral terms and interactions. While I disagree with the premise that moral right and wrong do not exist at all (per the previous entry I showed how they could exist as mind-dependent relationships), I think that there's a lot of potential upside in scrapping the whole mysticism surrounding the terms. This poses some interesting problems for me.
The first is that I'm working on The Actualization Ethic which is a moral system and, frankly, I don't want to give it up. I'm honest about it not being the one true way™ and, rather, adopt a "if you value X judge action A positively and action B negatively" approach. I don't think moral eliminitivism really throws a wrench in here too much but it does scare me a bit. Maybe I need to grow up more.
The second is that I don't think it's possible to escape morality as a process. If morality is forming judgements about the actions of others and making statements of condemnation or approval to get others on your side and applying punishment and reward to convert others so that they value what you value, then that's not going away even if it's entirely rationally discussed. Evolution is a competition of material replicators for matter. Morality is a competition of mental replicators for mindshare. Just because humans invented lasik surgery doesn't mean evolution stopped and just because humans rationally discuss things about instead of saying "good! bad!" doesn't mean morality stops. This stance alone prevents me from going full eliminativist.
The third is that humans make decisions largely through habit and I frankly don't find it practical to rationally figure things out in the moment especially under time pressures. I think that acting unmindfully is unavoidable and the best that can be done barring wetware augmentation is to have well-thought-out judgements which are then cached. I'm still looking into what moral eliminitivism has to say about this.
Now, the big upsides - people can finally own their values when they stop pretending that they're doing anything other than projecting their values onto the world when making moral statements. This presumably opens the door for more dialog and idea trade rather than conversation-enders and brow-beating. Idea trade is a critical component of workable societies and, being a social creature, I have a vested interest in that.
The first is that I'm working on The Actualization Ethic which is a moral system and, frankly, I don't want to give it up. I'm honest about it not being the one true way™ and, rather, adopt a "if you value X judge action A positively and action B negatively" approach. I don't think moral eliminitivism really throws a wrench in here too much but it does scare me a bit. Maybe I need to grow up more.
The second is that I don't think it's possible to escape morality as a process. If morality is forming judgements about the actions of others and making statements of condemnation or approval to get others on your side and applying punishment and reward to convert others so that they value what you value, then that's not going away even if it's entirely rationally discussed. Evolution is a competition of material replicators for matter. Morality is a competition of mental replicators for mindshare. Just because humans invented lasik surgery doesn't mean evolution stopped and just because humans rationally discuss things about instead of saying "good! bad!" doesn't mean morality stops. This stance alone prevents me from going full eliminativist.
The third is that humans make decisions largely through habit and I frankly don't find it practical to rationally figure things out in the moment especially under time pressures. I think that acting unmindfully is unavoidable and the best that can be done barring wetware augmentation is to have well-thought-out judgements which are then cached. I'm still looking into what moral eliminitivism has to say about this.
Now, the big upsides - people can finally own their values when they stop pretending that they're doing anything other than projecting their values onto the world when making moral statements. This presumably opens the door for more dialog and idea trade rather than conversation-enders and brow-beating. Idea trade is a critical component of workable societies and, being a social creature, I have a vested interest in that.
