The answer to the clever meta-moral question, “But why should we care about morality?” is just “Because when we say morality, we refer to that-which-we-care-about—and, not to belabor the point, but we care about what we care about. Whatever you think you care about, which isn’t morality, I’m calling that morality also. Precisely which things are moral and which are not is a difficult question—but there is no non-trivial meta-question.”
There is a non-trivial point in this summary, which is the meaning of “we.” I could imagine a possible world in which the moral intuitions of humans diverge widely enough that there isn’t anything that could reasonably be called a coherent extrapolated volition of humanity (and I worry that I already live there).
Humans value some things more than others. Survival is the bedrock human value (yourself, your family, your children, your species). Followed by things like pleasure and the lives of others and the lives of animals. Every human weighs the things a little differently, and we’re all bad at the math. But on average most humans weigh the important things about the same. There is a reason Elizer is able to keep going back to the example of saving a child.
Is this a fair summary?
There is a non-trivial point in this summary, which is the meaning of “we.” I could imagine a possible world in which the moral intuitions of humans diverge widely enough that there isn’t anything that could reasonably be called a coherent extrapolated volition of humanity (and I worry that I already live there).
Humans value some things more than others. Survival is the bedrock human value (yourself, your family, your children, your species). Followed by things like pleasure and the lives of others and the lives of animals. Every human weighs the things a little differently, and we’re all bad at the math. But on average most humans weigh the important things about the same. There is a reason Elizer is able to keep going back to the example of saving a child.