Smith’s argument is that human morality is a social system that arises—like languages, like ecosystems, and like markets—on the basis of countless individual decisions, actions, and interactions but without any overall plan and with no overall designer. Each of us begins life with no moral sentiments whatsoever, but with an instinctive desire for mutual sympathy of sentiments. Interactions with others—and, in particular, experiences in which others judge us—trigger our desire for mutual sympathy of sentiments and begin the lifelong process of finding ways to behave that stand a chance of achieving this sympathy, which Smith believes is, along with the desire to procreate, among the strongest social desires humans have. This trial-and-error process, which we conduct with others who similarly wish to achieve mutual sympathy, leads us to develop habits of behavior that reflect successful attempts. These habits eventually become, through suitable refinement, principles of behavior, and then come to inform our conscience. Because we develop these principles with others in our community, they can become a shared system of moral judgment
Otteson’s book and related media can be freely explored here.
We learn how to keep short peaceful queues when lining up for goodies.
“[H]uman morality is a social system that arises… on the basis of countless individual decisions, actions, and interactions but without any overall plan and with no overall designer.”
Morality based on identity politics appears to be an exception. The left is engineering the “woke morality” and being quite successful at it. On the other hand, one could argue that identity politics is the unintended consequence of allowing bureaucrats and politicians to benefit by dispensing special privileges – that is, by circumventing the rule of law, which requires that laws treat people equally. Intersectionality is little more than an attempt to justify the redistribution of goodies.
Human morality also arises from countless millions of years of human evolution. We lived in relatively small groups and those who had a “moral sense” that predisposed for co-operation within the group and wariness toward those outside it made their group–and their genes–more likely to survive.
Smith’s friend David Hume thought that our minds were blank slates, but he was very wrong. Our minds are predisposed to think in terms of “fair and unfair”, “right and wrong”. Experience then puts meat on those bones, but only within certain limits.
Schopenhauer says this lifelong process is a lifelong curse: “With the animal, present suffering, even if repeated countless times, remains what it was the first time: it cannot sum itself up. Hence the enviable composure and unconcern which characterizes the animal. With man, on the other hand, there evolves out of those elements of pleasure and suffering which he has in common with the animal an intensification of his sensations of happiness and misery which can lead to momentary transports which may sometimes even prove fatal, or to suicidal despair. More closely considered, what happens is this: he deliberately intensifies his needs, which are originally scarcely harder to satisfy than those of the animal, so as to intensify his pleasure: hence luxury, confectionery, tobacco, opium, alcoholic drinks, finery, and all that pertains to them. To these is then added, also as a result of reflection, a source of pleasure, and consequently of suffering, available to him alone and one which preoccupies him beyond all measure, indeed more than the rest put together: ambition and a sense of honour and shame—in plain words, what he thinks others think of him.”
“Interactions with others—and, in particular, experiences in which others judge us—trigger our desire for mutual sympathy of sentiments and begin the lifelong process of finding ways to behave that stand a chance of achieving this sympathy”
This judging begins in earnest in elementary school. In addition to being judged by their peers, early life authority figures will pronounce judgment on young children as to whether they are “advantaged” or “privileged” and no mutual sympathy for the guilty. All achievement by the guilty will be denigrated and any success deemed undeserved and an offense to some intersectional sensibility or another. And we wonder why the rate of child suicide continues to sky rocket and the large numbers of children in need of mental health treatment continues to grow. I don’t suspect much good to happen in societies that routinely deny mutual sympathy based upon identity group. One more reason home schooling produces better outcomes.
This is the range of phenomena that science cannot illuminate as it exists on a plane that is non-quantifiable. It is a logical range and it is beyond justification. It is simply the way we act. How am I able to follow a rule? This is simply what I do. The concepts formed at this level precede science and have their own logic that need not and cannot be justified by science or epistemology. Think of customs and what precedes them. We grasp pointing before/as we develop the concept “over there”, for instance.
We can think of prior moral codes in terms of optimality. People who live morally will optimize their chances of living in a good society — and those who live immorally will have sub-optimal chances. Let’s just replace “moral behavior” with “optimum behavior”, in a group average calculation of optimality. Discriminating against blacks in a restaurant is sub-optimal. Having sex outside of marriage is sub-optimal. Cursing and using vulgar words in public is sub-optimal.
The fine requirements of actually choosing what metrics to use, even over what time frame (tonight? this year? this decade?), which criteria, how much weight to your own happiness (pleasure?) vs others vs avg. in society. Such difficult issues of an actual optimization solution are avoided by cultural habits which become through suitable refinement, principles of behavior, and then come to inform our conscience.
The rise of Political Correctness as a new, dominant, neo-Religious culture was not any one person’s design, but instead has been part of a “spontaneous order” of many many individual decisions. The PC-Klan has its own “morality”. It is anti-Christian, and anti-capitalist; thus in many ways anti-American. Those who believe in PC think it is more optimal. I’m sure it is not, and Venezuela shows the literal bankruptcy of socialism on economics. Protests against Free Speech show the repression of PC thought Klansmen.
We who oppose the PC morality may need to understand how it developed, but certainly need better ideas about how to change it / guide it, going forward.
If only that was how it worked. That seems to be the exercise which moral philosophers engage in – attempting to devise a moral system which is capable of achieving “mutual sympathy” via the definition of a set of mutually compatible identical rights and obligations.
But that is far too rational a description of the moral reasoning most humans engage in.
In truth, most of us are driven by self-interested emotional reactions which are then rationalized post-facto into moral rules that unconsciously serve our own interests. Only over long time periods does society eventually converge on moral rules which “work” for everyone and those must be transmitted via teaching from one generation to the next. Plus those moral rules may be different depending on the society and the current state of it’s moral evolution. (i.e. the optimal moral rules at a given time may depend on what other pre-existing moral rules there are, so that societies must develop following particular pathways.)
It would be more accurate to say that each of us begins life as an amoral being with numerous amoral drives and must either overcome those or adjust them to a moral framework that is passed down to us by society, but that numerous individual actions and choices and learning *gradually* adjusts the moral framework at any given time to achieve a greater mutual sympathy. This process is not “lifelong” but multiple generations long – most of our morality is passed down, not learned. At best we can hope for a limited number of adjustments to it in our lifetime, not a wholesale recreation of it.