A convoluted, covert and self-delusional way of expressing how you want other people to behave.
The uses of moral language we’re exposed to is a massivly biased sample that would tend to lead to that conclusion, whatever morality really was.
It’s almost always clear what’s right and what’s wrong (this is true whatever your view of the nature of morality). Go out onto the street and you won’t see people massacring other people right and left, because everyone knows how to behave. Importantly, nobody says anything. People don’t go on and on about morality. They just get on with their day.
On very rare occasions, it’s not clear what’s right and what’s wrong. There is a difference of opinion. And it’s precisely on these rare occasions that people start talking a lot about morality. Almost all of the moral language that we’re exposed to comes from these rare occasions where it’s not clear.
Moreover, on these rare occasions, everybody is of course going to try to convince everybody else that morality actually favors their case. The same thing happens in court. Every statement you hear in court from one side or the other is about why the law or the facts favor their side. So pretty much every statement that you ever hear about morality is going to be somebody drying to say why you should do what they want you to do.
Biased sampling is a major source of error. It’s something that needs to be taken into account when drawing conclusions.
The uses of moral language we’re exposed to is a massivly biased sample that would tend to lead to that conclusion, whatever morality really was.
It’s almost always clear what’s right and what’s wrong (this is true whatever your view of the nature of morality). Go out onto the street and you won’t see people massacring other people right and left, because everyone knows how to behave. Importantly, nobody says anything. People don’t go on and on about morality. They just get on with their day.
On very rare occasions, it’s not clear what’s right and what’s wrong. There is a difference of opinion. And it’s precisely on these rare occasions that people start talking a lot about morality. Almost all of the moral language that we’re exposed to comes from these rare occasions where it’s not clear.
Moreover, on these rare occasions, everybody is of course going to try to convince everybody else that morality actually favors their case. The same thing happens in court. Every statement you hear in court from one side or the other is about why the law or the facts favor their side. So pretty much every statement that you ever hear about morality is going to be somebody drying to say why you should do what they want you to do.
Biased sampling is a major source of error. It’s something that needs to be taken into account when drawing conclusions.