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Peterdjones comments on 'Is' and 'Ought' and Rationality - Less Wrong
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No. The distinction between those viral behaviors that tend to contribute to the virus replicating and those viral behaviors that do not contribute does issue from science. It is not a metaphor to call actions that detract from reproduction "mistakes" on the part of the virus, any more than it is a metaphor to call certain kinds of chemical reactions "exothermic". There is no 'open question' issue here - "mistake", like "exothermic", does not have any prior metaphysical meaning. We are free to define it as we wish, naturalistically.
So much for the practical ought, the version of ought for which ought not is called a mistake because it generates consequences contrary to the agent's interests. What about the moral ought, the version of ought for which ought not is called wrong? Can we also define this kind of ought naturalistically? I think that we can, because once again I deny that "wrong" has any prior metaphysical meaning. The trick is to make the new (by definition) meaning not clash too harshly with the existing metaphysical connotations.
How is this for a first attempt at a naturalistic definition of the moral ought as a subset of the practical ought? An agent morally ought not to do something iff it tends to generate consequences contrary to the agent's interests, those negative consequences arising from the reactions of disapproval coming from other agents.
In general, it is not difficult at all to define either kind of ought naturalistically, so long as one is not already metaphysically committed to the notion that the word 'ought' has a prior metaphysical meaning.
That doesn't work. It would mean conformists are always in the right, irrespective of what they are conforming to.
As you may have noticed, that definition was labeled as a "first attempt". It captures some of our intuitions about morality, but not all. In particular, its biggest weakness is that it fails to satisfy moral realists for precisely the reason you point out.
I have a second quill in my quiver. But before using it, I'm going to split the concept of morality into two pieces. One piece is called "de facto morality". I claim that the definition I provided in the grandparent is a proper reductionist definition of de facto morality and captures many of (some) people's intuitions about morality. The second piece is called "ideal morality". This piece is essentially what de facto morality ought to be.
So, your conformist may well be automatically in the right with respect to de facto morality. But it is possible for a moral reformer to point out that he and all of his fellows are in the wrong with respect to ideal morality. That is, the reformer claims that the society would be better off if its de facto conventions were amended from their present unsatisfactory status to become more like the ideal. And, I claim, given the right definition of "society would be better off", this "ideal morality" can be given an objective and naturalistic definition.
For more details, see Binmore - Game Theory and the Social Contract
Not exactly. It means that conformists are never morally wrong, unless some group (probably one that they're not conforming with) punishes them for conforming. They can be morally neutral when conforming, and may be rationally wrong at the same time.