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bgrah449 comments on Unspeakable Morality - Less Wrong
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All moral codes drill down to a rocky core of "ick," though. Suppose A says, "Well it's clearly wrong." And C says, "No, it's not. Make your case." The case is made when A says, "B inevitably leads to D. Does D make you feel icky?" and C says, "It does."
It's true that people in the past had a lot of icky feelings we don't have today. We also have a lot of icky feelings they didn't have. Given that, I would like to see a follow-up article written about, under this framework, how many more letters of the alphabet have to agree with A before A gets to punish C for making him feel icky, depending on the number of letters in agreement, how severe the ick, that kind of thing.
My reason for objecting to being punched in the face is not that it makes me feel icky, it is that it causes actual damage to me.
I guess he could say that you think damage or harm is icky.
I don't think the desire to avoid being punched in the face is a moral code. Maybe you have a strong conviction that you don't deserve to be punched in the face, but I can conceive of a situation where you feel guilty for doing something (such as previously punching a friend in the face in anger) and you actually do want to be punched in the face, to adhere to a moral code, even despite your still-extant avoidance-of-pain code.
Similarly, these two guidelines can be in parallel - a part of you just doesn't want to be punched in the face, and another part of you agrees with that part on account of the fact you totally haven't done anything to deserve being punched in the face.
Hey, I very much agree with your explanation. Jonathan Haidt has a very good theory on what makes humans feel this "ick". http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html Don't be turned off by his implication that liberals should be more conservative. Strictly as an empirical model, his theory is quite good.