To me, the main objection to morality being all-demanding is that there are too many groups who want to enlist you into their all-demanding moralities, and most such groups have been wrong. Basically having too much regard for morality received from others is a security flaw in human nature, and proselytizing faiths are the exploit of that flaw. For that reason I think everyone needs to have a little bit of selfish amorality, being able to tell anyone “don’t preach at me”.
The objection to this objection is “why stop there?” If we can ignore moral edicts because they’re too demanding (or because we can find competing moral demands from other groups), why can’t we just ignore all of them?
everyone needs to have a little bit of selfish amorality
Everyone SHOULD have, or everyone DOES have and we have to deal with it, even though it makes us less moral as a group? And since we’re talking about morality, HOW MUCH selfish amorality should each agent have?
If we can ignore moral edicts because they’re too demanding (or because we can find competing moral demands from other groups), why can’t we just ignore all of them?
Because if you ignore all of them, people won’t give you nice things. You’ve got to give something to get something. But if you tell me that I ought to give much more than I get, otherwise I’m evil, then I’m liable to say “don’t preach at me” and shut the door.
That sounds a lot more like trade than morality to me. I’m personally pretty far down the anti-realism road, but I think there are different heuristic modules at play.
To me, trade and morality overlap more than they differ. For example, if someone did me good, even if they didn’t put any conditions on it, I instinctively want to do them good in return, more than I want to good to other people (who might need it more).
Also, the more sensible objection to demandingness is that it alienates or exhausts people. This can lead not to moderation, but to a wholesale rejection of the ideology.
Ask for a 10%/year donation to effective charities, and a fair number of people can do it or strive for it. Ask for everyone to live at the level of refugees in order to maximize their donations, and few are going to listen to your ideas on what constitutes an effective charity.
To me, the main objection to morality being all-demanding is that there are too many groups who want to enlist you into their all-demanding moralities, and most such groups have been wrong. Basically having too much regard for morality received from others is a security flaw in human nature, and proselytizing faiths are the exploit of that flaw. For that reason I think everyone needs to have a little bit of selfish amorality, being able to tell anyone “don’t preach at me”.
The objection to this objection is “why stop there?” If we can ignore moral edicts because they’re too demanding (or because we can find competing moral demands from other groups), why can’t we just ignore all of them?
Everyone SHOULD have, or everyone DOES have and we have to deal with it, even though it makes us less moral as a group? And since we’re talking about morality, HOW MUCH selfish amorality should each agent have?
Because if you ignore all of them, people won’t give you nice things. You’ve got to give something to get something. But if you tell me that I ought to give much more than I get, otherwise I’m evil, then I’m liable to say “don’t preach at me” and shut the door.
That sounds a lot more like trade than morality to me. I’m personally pretty far down the anti-realism road, but I think there are different heuristic modules at play.
To me, trade and morality overlap more than they differ. For example, if someone did me good, even if they didn’t put any conditions on it, I instinctively want to do them good in return, more than I want to good to other people (who might need it more).
Also, the more sensible objection to demandingness is that it alienates or exhausts people. This can lead not to moderation, but to a wholesale rejection of the ideology.
Ask for a 10%/year donation to effective charities, and a fair number of people can do it or strive for it. Ask for everyone to live at the level of refugees in order to maximize their donations, and few are going to listen to your ideas on what constitutes an effective charity.