Great dialog, which I think can be summarized in Nietzsche’s aphorism: “Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual.”
Actually, I think the dialog could have been a lot shorter if it became clear earlier on that preference (as in morality-as-preference) referred not to individual preference but the “preference of the collective”. Which is to say, morality is determined by evolutionary psychology. There are however two assumptions built into the evolutionary psychological explanation of morality which ought to be made explicit.
The first is that one has to adopt the group-selection stance. As in, groups in which morals evolved had higher stability (its members were more likely to survive and procreate). If we focus only on the selfish individual, then it’s obvious that morals make no sense.
The second assumption is that evolution, in humans, bifurcated into both physical and cultural domains. This is because morality is almost certainly not determined by genetics. At best, genetics predisposes us psychologically to accept morality (whatever that means), but the content of morality is too well specified to be so determined. Thus we have to assume a selection process that selects groups on the basis of culture as well as genetics. This is actually a common sense notion, that for example groups that develop better weapons will dominate or eliminate other groups.
Great dialog, which I think can be summarized in Nietzsche’s aphorism: “Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual.”
Actually, I think the dialog could have been a lot shorter if it became clear earlier on that preference (as in morality-as-preference) referred not to individual preference but the “preference of the collective”. Which is to say, morality is determined by evolutionary psychology. There are however two assumptions built into the evolutionary psychological explanation of morality which ought to be made explicit.
The first is that one has to adopt the group-selection stance. As in, groups in which morals evolved had higher stability (its members were more likely to survive and procreate). If we focus only on the selfish individual, then it’s obvious that morals make no sense.
The second assumption is that evolution, in humans, bifurcated into both physical and cultural domains. This is because morality is almost certainly not determined by genetics. At best, genetics predisposes us psychologically to accept morality (whatever that means), but the content of morality is too well specified to be so determined. Thus we have to assume a selection process that selects groups on the basis of culture as well as genetics. This is actually a common sense notion, that for example groups that develop better weapons will dominate or eliminate other groups.