Finally, we have identified causal mechanisms underpinning many old values, and found them repugnant.
This does not mean that people from the old societies which had those values would also find them repugnant if they understood these causal mechanisms. Understanding isn’t the problem. Values are often top-level goals and to that extent arbitrary.
For instance, many people raised to believe in God #1 have values of worshipping him. They understand that the reason they feel that is because they were taught it as children. They understand that if they, counterfactually, were exchanged as newborns and grew up in a different society, they would worship God #2 instead. This does not cause them to hold God #1′s values any less strongly.
My reading of society is that such understanding does move values, at least if the person starts in a universalist religion, like Christianity. But such understanding is extremely rare.
I would rephrase that as “such understanding moves values extremely rarely”. I think it’s not very rare for the understanding to exist but be compartmentalized.
This does not mean that people from the old societies which had those values would also find them repugnant if they understood these causal mechanisms. Understanding isn’t the problem. Values are often top-level goals and to that extent arbitrary.
For instance, many people raised to believe in God #1 have values of worshipping him. They understand that the reason they feel that is because they were taught it as children. They understand that if they, counterfactually, were exchanged as newborns and grew up in a different society, they would worship God #2 instead. This does not cause them to hold God #1′s values any less strongly.
My reading of society is that such understanding does move values, at least if the person starts in a universalist religion, like Christianity. But such understanding is extremely rare.
I would rephrase that as “such understanding moves values extremely rarely”. I think it’s not very rare for the understanding to exist but be compartmentalized.