2023-07-12

Morality is custom

PXL_20230711_064239131 Since Law is custom, and morality is a sort of localised short-range-interaction law, it follows that morality ought to be custom too. Having thought and written that, it seems uncontroversial; people are used to the idea that morality is customary.

This is not the same as morality-is-arbitrary, which people sometimes assert. There is a not-clearly-defined ground of morality necessary for a society to be stable enough to last long enough to develope customs1, 2. If you decided to assert that "theft is morally acceptable" you wouldn't last long, even if your law prohibited theft.

Refs

* On morailty, 2008. Not really satisfactory, because I'm not distinguishing L from M, but the direction is correct.

Monty Python, RAF Banter.

The Case for Libertarian Friendliness.

Human Deaths from Hot and Cold Temperatures and Implications for Climate Change (Patrick Brown, Breakthrough Institute) via RP.

Natural Variability, Attribution and Climate Models #6 - Science of Doom.

The Foundations of Morality.

Notes

1. Hence the fairly common assertion that "without religion, you have no morality" is wrong.

2. See-also my Book Review: The Righteous Mind.

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