So knowing all of this, Tom lays down his life for his country and what he would think of as "the greater good".
Tom will sacrifice himself if his values lead him too, and not if they don't. He might desert or turn traitor. You would still call that all moral because it is an output of the neurological module you have labelled "moral".
I think the issue of what "morality" is for is entirely an empty word problem and should be ignored.
I think it isn't. If someone tries to persuade you that you are wrong about morality, it is useful to consider the "what is morality for" question.
and thinks that this all adds up to normality.
Do you think any of this adds up to any extent of a solution to the philosphical problems of morality/ethics?
Tom will sacrifice himself if his values lead him too, and not if they don't. He might desert or turn traitor. You would still call that all moral because it is an output of the neurological module you have labelled "moral".
Yes!
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Do you think any of this adds up to any extent of a solution to the philosphical problems of morality/ethics?
What specific philosophical problems? Because yes, it does help me clarify my thoughts and figure out better methods of arriving at solutions.
Does it directly ...
I think there’s a confusion in our discussions of deontology and consequentialism. I’m writing this post to try to clear up that confusion. First let me say that this post is not about any territorial facts. The issue here is how we use the philosophical terms of art ‘consequentialism’ and ‘deontology’.
The confusion is often stated thusly: “deontological theories are full of injunctions like ‘do not kill’, but they generally provide no (or no interesting) explanations for these injunctions.” There is of course an equivalently confused, though much less common, complaint about consequentialism.
This is confused because the term ‘deontology’ in philosophical jargon picks out a normative ethical theory, while the question ‘how do we know that it is wrong to kill?’ is not a normative but a meta-ethical question. Similarly, consequentialism contains in itself no explanation for why pleasure or utility are morally good, or why consequences should matter to morality at all. Nor does consequentialism/deontology make any claims about how we know moral facts (if there are any). That is also a meta-ethical question.
Some consequentialists and deontologists are also moral realists. Some are not. Some believe in divine commands, some are hedonists. Consequentialists and deontologists in practice always also subscribe to some meta-ethical theory which purports to explain the value of consequences or the source of injunctions. But consequentialism and deontology as such do not. In order to avoid strawmaning either the consequentialist or the deontologist, it’s important to either discuss the comprehensive views of particular ethicists, or to carefully leave aside meta-ethical issues.
This Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article provides a helpful overview of the issues in the consequentialist-deontologist debate, and is careful to distinguish between ethical and meta-ethical concerns.
SEP article on Deontology