It seems to me that your position can be interpreted in at least two ways.
Firstly, you might mean that it is useful to have common standards for behavior to make society run more smoothly and peacefully. I think almost everyone would agree with this, but these common standards might be non-moral. People might consider them simple social convections that they adopt for reasons of self-interest (to make their interactions with society flow more smoothly), but that have no special metaphysical status and do not supersede their personal values if a conflict arises.
Secondly, you might mean that it is useful that people in general are moral realists. The question then remains how you yourself, being “a complete and total moral skeptic”, relate to questions of morality in your own life and in communication with people holding similar views. Do you make statements about what is morally right or wrong? Do you blame yourself or others for breaking moral rules? Perhaps you don’t, but I get the impression that many LW:ers do. (In the recent survey, only 10.9% reported that they do not believe in morality, while over 80% reported themselves to support some moral theory.)
In regards to the second interpretation, one might also ask: If it works for you to be a moral skeptic in a world of moral realists, why shouldn’t it work for other people too? Why wouldn’t it work for all people? More to the point, I don’t think that morality is very useful. Despite what some feared, people didn’t become monsters when they stopped believing in God, and their societies didn’t collapse. I don’t think any of these things will happen when they stop believing in morality either.
I don’t think they do have any “special metaphysical status,” and indeed I agree that they are “simple social conventions.” Do I make statements about moral rights and wrongs? Only by reference to a framework that I believe the audience accepts. In LWs case, this seems broadly to be utilitarian or some variant.
That’s precisely my point—morality doesn’t have to have any metaphysical status. Perhaps the problem is simply that we haven’t defined the term well enough. Regardless, I suspect that more than a few LWers are moral skeptics, in that they don’t hold any particular philosophy to be universally, metaphysically right, but they personally value social well-being in some form, and so we can usually assume that helping humanity would be considered positively by a LW audience.
As long as everyone’s “personal values” are roughly compatible with the maintenance of society, then yes, losing the sense of morality that excludes such values may not be a problem. I was simply including the belief that personal values should not produce antisocial utility functions (that is, utility functions that have a positive term for another person’s suffering) as morality.
Do I think that these things are metaphysically supported? No. But do I think that with fewer prosocial utility functions, we would likely see much lower utilities for most people? Yes.
Of course, whether you care about that depends on how much of a utilitarian you are.
It seems to me that your position can be interpreted in at least two ways.
Firstly, you might mean that it is useful to have common standards for behavior to make society run more smoothly and peacefully. I think almost everyone would agree with this, but these common standards might be non-moral. People might consider them simple social convections that they adopt for reasons of self-interest (to make their interactions with society flow more smoothly), but that have no special metaphysical status and do not supersede their personal values if a conflict arises.
Secondly, you might mean that it is useful that people in general are moral realists. The question then remains how you yourself, being “a complete and total moral skeptic”, relate to questions of morality in your own life and in communication with people holding similar views. Do you make statements about what is morally right or wrong? Do you blame yourself or others for breaking moral rules? Perhaps you don’t, but I get the impression that many LW:ers do. (In the recent survey, only 10.9% reported that they do not believe in morality, while over 80% reported themselves to support some moral theory.)
In regards to the second interpretation, one might also ask: If it works for you to be a moral skeptic in a world of moral realists, why shouldn’t it work for other people too? Why wouldn’t it work for all people? More to the point, I don’t think that morality is very useful. Despite what some feared, people didn’t become monsters when they stopped believing in God, and their societies didn’t collapse. I don’t think any of these things will happen when they stop believing in morality either.
I don’t think they do have any “special metaphysical status,” and indeed I agree that they are “simple social conventions.” Do I make statements about moral rights and wrongs? Only by reference to a framework that I believe the audience accepts. In LWs case, this seems broadly to be utilitarian or some variant.
That’s precisely my point—morality doesn’t have to have any metaphysical status. Perhaps the problem is simply that we haven’t defined the term well enough. Regardless, I suspect that more than a few LWers are moral skeptics, in that they don’t hold any particular philosophy to be universally, metaphysically right, but they personally value social well-being in some form, and so we can usually assume that helping humanity would be considered positively by a LW audience.
As long as everyone’s “personal values” are roughly compatible with the maintenance of society, then yes, losing the sense of morality that excludes such values may not be a problem. I was simply including the belief that personal values should not produce antisocial utility functions (that is, utility functions that have a positive term for another person’s suffering) as morality.
Do I think that these things are metaphysically supported? No. But do I think that with fewer prosocial utility functions, we would likely see much lower utilities for most people? Yes.
Of course, whether you care about that depends on how much of a utilitarian you are.