As you may have noticed, that definition was labeled as a “first attempt”. It captures some of our intuitions about morality, but not all. In particular, its biggest weakness is that it fails to satisfy moral realists for precisely the reason you point out.
I have a second quill in my quiver. But before using it, I’m going to split the concept of morality into two pieces. One piece is called “de facto morality”. I claim that the definition I provided in the grandparent is a proper reductionist definition of de facto morality and captures many of (some) people’s intuitions about morality. The second piece is called “ideal morality”. This piece is essentially what de facto morality ought to be.
So, your conformist may well be automatically in the right with respect to de facto morality. But it is possible for a moral reformer to point out that he and all of his fellows are in the wrong with respect to ideal morality. That is, the reformer claims that the society would be better off if its de facto conventions were amended from their present unsatisfactory status to become more like the ideal. And, I claim, given the right definition of “society would be better off”, this “ideal morality” can be given an objective and naturalistic definition.
For more details, see Binmore—Game Theory and the Social Contract
As you may have noticed, that definition was labeled as a “first attempt”. It captures some of our intuitions about morality, but not all. In particular, its biggest weakness is that it fails to satisfy moral realists for precisely the reason you point out.
I have a second quill in my quiver. But before using it, I’m going to split the concept of morality into two pieces. One piece is called “de facto morality”. I claim that the definition I provided in the grandparent is a proper reductionist definition of de facto morality and captures many of (some) people’s intuitions about morality. The second piece is called “ideal morality”. This piece is essentially what de facto morality ought to be.
So, your conformist may well be automatically in the right with respect to de facto morality. But it is possible for a moral reformer to point out that he and all of his fellows are in the wrong with respect to ideal morality. That is, the reformer claims that the society would be better off if its de facto conventions were amended from their present unsatisfactory status to become more like the ideal. And, I claim, given the right definition of “society would be better off”, this “ideal morality” can be given an objective and naturalistic definition.
For more details, see Binmore—Game Theory and the Social Contract