[ExI] Morality function, self-correcting moral systems?

[Stefano Vaj]

On 15 December 2011 00:08, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:

> I was using the term immoral in the sense "against the correct morality
> (if any)". Any moral realist will typically think that society and
> individuals tend to fall short of correct moral behavior, no matter what
> their theory is. Meta-ethical relativists might think that the truth or
> falsity of moral judgements is not objective, but that doesn't imply that
> they automatically become nihilists, and again whatever their theory is it
> is unlikely they think society follows it well.
>

Let me see.

I think we are in agreement that all societies try to impose conformity and
compliance with their own values on their members (the question whether
they may be or not the "correct" ones has sense only for moral realists,
and the answer can change depending on the moral realist concerned, but the
statement remains true anyway).

Thus, morals are an unavoidable cultural product of all human societies in
existence or having existed sofar, and no society is "amoral" in that sense.

On the other hand, it can be discussed whether varying degrees of success
exists amongst different societies in the repression of deviancy. This can
in fact be considered as a distinct subject from the effectiveness of law
enforcement, which does not necessarily tells us much on the degree of
interiorisation of corresponding dominant social norms and of the
effectiveness of social enforcement mechanisms (guilt, shame, peer
rejection, self-censorship, education, imitation, etc.)

But I contend that all that has little to do with the possible
dissatisfaction of the average ethicist with the fact that his society does
not espouse the "true" (or "her own preferred", if she is a relativist)
values to a sufficient degree.

For example, in medieval Europe catholic values had a pretty absolute
dominance, and catholics still mourn the loss of that kind of egemony even
if the medieval society was pretty poor at enforcing them in everyday life,
and probably contemporary behaviours are more compliant with their more or
less secularised versions than they have ever been. The "ethical" issue for
a catholic is instead whether they are challenged as such, something that
very few sinners ever meant to do at that time.

Those who may happen to do the right thing for perhaps the bad reasons, or
involuntarily, or even thinking that in fact they are breaking some ethical
rule by doing that and feeling guilty about it, are hardly considered as
examples of "morality", AFAIK.

--
Stefano Vaj
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