There is strong value in the communication of moral claims
It seems to me the issues of trust and credibility are dominant here. People get moral claims thrown at them constantly from different directions, many of them are incompatible or sometimes even direct opposites of each other. One needs some system of sorting them out, of evaluating them and deciding whether to accept them or not. Popularity is, of course, one such system but it has its problems, especially when moral claims come from those with power. There are obvious incentives in spreading moral memes advantageous to you.
I guess I see the social communication of moral claims to be strongly manipulated by those who stand to gain from it (which basically means those with power—political, commercial, religious, etc.) and so suspect.
It seems to me the issues of trust and credibility are dominant here. People get moral claims thrown at them constantly from different directions, many of them are incompatible or sometimes even direct opposites of each other. One needs some system of sorting them out, of evaluating them and deciding whether to accept them or not. Popularity is, of course, one such system but it has its problems, especially when moral claims come from those with power. There are obvious incentives in spreading moral memes advantageous to you.
I guess I see the social communication of moral claims to be strongly manipulated by those who stand to gain from it (which basically means those with power—political, commercial, religious, etc.) and so suspect.