Qiaochu_Yuan comments on Questions for Moral Realists - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (110)
I don't think the analogy to languages holds water. Substituting a word for a different word doesn't have the kind of impact on what people do that substituting a moral rule for a different moral rule does. Put another way, there are selection pressures constraining what human moralities look like that don't constrain what human languages look like.
This sounds like a strawman argument to me. It doesn't refute the argument that part of morality is cultural but based on a shared morality-learning mechanism.
There are also selection pressures constraining what human languages look like, that don't constrain what human moralities look like. Or to give another example: there are selection pressures that constrain what dogs look like that don't constrain what catfish look like, and vice-versa. That doesn't mean that they also have similarities.