I agree there is a continuum of possibilities, that’s how the things were developed. But it does not mean that all parts of the continuum exist in reality with the same frequency, or even that the frequency is a monotonous function.
I guess I have troubles explaining what I mean, so I will use a metaphor—computer. You can have no computer. You can use fingers. You can use pebbles. You can use abacus. You can have a mechanical calculator, vacuum-tube calculator, or some kind of integrated-circuit computer. It’s not literally a continuum, but there are many steps. But now make a histogram of how often people around you use this or that… and you will probably find that most people use some integrated-circuit computing machine, or nothing. There is very little in between. So in theory, there is a continuum, but it can be approximated as just having two choices: an integrated-circuit computer, or no computing machine. There is very little incentive to use abacus, or even to invent one. You don’t upgrade from “no calculator” to “integrated-circuit calculator” by discovering abacus etc., you just go to shop to buy one. And even those people who design and build integrated-circuit calculators, they don’t start from abacus. This part in the middle does not exist anymore, because compared with both extremes, it is not cost-effective.
It’s not the same with morality, but my point is that there is so much morality around (it feels kind of funny when I write it), that very few people are inventing the morality from scratch. You copy it, or you ignore it; or you copy some parts, or you copy it and forget some parts. Inventing it all in one lifetime is almost impossible. So to me it seems safe to say that the higher levels must be carried by memes. It’s like saying that you can find pebbles or invent abacus, but you have to buy an integrated-circuit computer, unless you are an exceptional person.
I agree with you that very few behavioral norms are invented from scratch, and that the more complex ones pretty much never are, and that they must therefore be propagated culturally.
That said, your analogy is actually a good one, in that I have the same objection to the analogy that I had to the original.
Unlike you, I suspect that there’s quite a lot of in between: some people use integrated-circuit computers, some people (often the same people) use pen and paper, some people use a method of successive approximation, some people count on their fingers. It depends on the people and it depends on the kind of calculation they are doing and it depends on the context in which they’re doing it; I might open an excel spreadsheet to calculate 15% of a number if I’m sitting in front of my computer, I might calculate it as “a tenth plus half of a rounded-up tenth” if I’m working out a tip at a restaurant, I might solve it with pencil and paper if it’s the tenth in a series of arithmetic problems I’m solving on a neuropsych examination.
When you say “most people use some integrated-circuit computing machine, or nothing” you end up excluding a wide range of actual human behavior in the real world.
Analogously, I think that when you talk about the vast excluded middle between “morality” and “pecking order” you exclude a similarly wide range of actual human behavior in the real world.
When that range is “approximated as just having two choices” something important is lost. If you have some specific analytical goal in mind, perhaps the approximation is good enough for that goal… I’m afraid I’ve lost track of what your goal might be, here. But in general, I don’t accept it as a good-enough approximation; the excluded middle seems worthy of consideration.
I agree there is a continuum of possibilities, that’s how the things were developed. But it does not mean that all parts of the continuum exist in reality with the same frequency, or even that the frequency is a monotonous function.
I guess I have troubles explaining what I mean, so I will use a metaphor—computer. You can have no computer. You can use fingers. You can use pebbles. You can use abacus. You can have a mechanical calculator, vacuum-tube calculator, or some kind of integrated-circuit computer. It’s not literally a continuum, but there are many steps. But now make a histogram of how often people around you use this or that… and you will probably find that most people use some integrated-circuit computing machine, or nothing. There is very little in between. So in theory, there is a continuum, but it can be approximated as just having two choices: an integrated-circuit computer, or no computing machine. There is very little incentive to use abacus, or even to invent one. You don’t upgrade from “no calculator” to “integrated-circuit calculator” by discovering abacus etc., you just go to shop to buy one. And even those people who design and build integrated-circuit calculators, they don’t start from abacus. This part in the middle does not exist anymore, because compared with both extremes, it is not cost-effective.
It’s not the same with morality, but my point is that there is so much morality around (it feels kind of funny when I write it), that very few people are inventing the morality from scratch. You copy it, or you ignore it; or you copy some parts, or you copy it and forget some parts. Inventing it all in one lifetime is almost impossible. So to me it seems safe to say that the higher levels must be carried by memes. It’s like saying that you can find pebbles or invent abacus, but you have to buy an integrated-circuit computer, unless you are an exceptional person.
I agree with you that very few behavioral norms are invented from scratch, and that the more complex ones pretty much never are, and that they must therefore be propagated culturally.
That said, your analogy is actually a good one, in that I have the same objection to the analogy that I had to the original.
Unlike you, I suspect that there’s quite a lot of in between: some people use integrated-circuit computers, some people (often the same people) use pen and paper, some people use a method of successive approximation, some people count on their fingers. It depends on the people and it depends on the kind of calculation they are doing and it depends on the context in which they’re doing it; I might open an excel spreadsheet to calculate 15% of a number if I’m sitting in front of my computer, I might calculate it as “a tenth plus half of a rounded-up tenth” if I’m working out a tip at a restaurant, I might solve it with pencil and paper if it’s the tenth in a series of arithmetic problems I’m solving on a neuropsych examination.
When you say “most people use some integrated-circuit computing machine, or nothing” you end up excluding a wide range of actual human behavior in the real world.
Analogously, I think that when you talk about the vast excluded middle between “morality” and “pecking order” you exclude a similarly wide range of actual human behavior in the real world.
When that range is “approximated as just having two choices” something important is lost. If you have some specific analytical goal in mind, perhaps the approximation is good enough for that goal… I’m afraid I’ve lost track of what your goal might be, here. But in general, I don’t accept it as a good-enough approximation; the excluded middle seems worthy of consideration.