A brief note to the (surprisingly numerous) egoists/moral nihilists who commented so far. Can’t you folks see that virtually all the reasons to be skeptical about morality are also reasons to be skeptical about practical rationality? Don’t you folks realize that the argument that begins questioning whether one should care about others naturally leads to the question of whether one should care about oneself? Whenever I read commenters here proudly voicing that they are concerned with nothing but their own “persistence odds”, or that they would willingly torture others to avoid a minor discomfort to themselves, I am reminded of Kieran Healy’s remarks about Mensa, “the organization for highly intelligent people who are nevertheless not quite intelligent enough not to belong to it.” If you are so smart that you can see through the illusion that is morality, don’t be so stupid to take for granted the validity of practical rationality. Others may not matter, but if so you probably don’t either.
A brief note to the (surprisingly numerous) egoists/moral nihilists who commented so far. Can’t you folks see that virtually all the reasons to be skeptical about morality are also reasons to be skeptical about practical rationality? Don’t you folks realize that the argument that begins questioning whether one should care about others naturally leads to the question of whether one should care about oneself? Whenever I read commenters here proudly voicing that they are concerned with nothing but their own “persistence odds”, or that they would willingly torture others to avoid a minor discomfort to themselves, I am reminded of Kieran Healy’s remarks about Mensa, “the organization for highly intelligent people who are nevertheless not quite intelligent enough not to belong to it.” If you are so smart that you can see through the illusion that is morality, don’t be so stupid to take for granted the validity of practical rationality. Others may not matter, but if so you probably don’t either.