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Lumifer comments on Does utilitarianism "require" extreme self sacrifice? If not why do people commonly say it does? - Less Wrong Discussion
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People generally don't manage that. People learn what they can and can't do in Ranger School.
This is another case where it just seems there are multiple species of homo sapiens. Or maybe I'm just a Martian.
When other people say "X is moral", they mean "I will say that 'X is moral', and will occasionally do X"?
I can almost make sense of it, if they're all just egoists, like me. My moral preferences are some of my many preferences. Sometimes I indulge my moral preferences, and sometimes my gustatory preferences. Moral is much like "yummy". Just because something is "yummy", it doesn't I plan on eating it all day, or that I plan to eat all day.
But that is simply not my experience on how the term "moral" is generally used. Moral seems to mean "that's my criteria to judge what I should and shouldn't do". That's how everyone talks, although never quite how everyone does. Has there been an egoist revolution, and I just never realized it?
I think people have expressed before being "The Occasional Utilitarian" (my term), devoting some time slices to a particular moral theory. And other times, not. "I'm a utilitarian, when the mood strikes me".
It reminds me of a talk I had with some gal years ago about here upcoming marriage. "Oh, we'll never get divorced, no way, no how, but if we do..." What's going through a person's head when they say things like that? It's just bizarre to me.
Years later, I was on a date at a sex show and bumped into her. She was divorced.
Moral, or rather immoral, can also be used to mean "should be illegal". [*] Inasmuch as most people obey the law, there is quite a lot of morality going on. Your analysis basically states that there isn't much Individual, supererogatory moral action going on. That's true. People aren't good at putting morality into practice,, which is why morality needs to buttressed by things like legal systems. But there is a lot of unflashy morality going on...trading fairly, refraining from violence and so on. So the conclusion that people are rarely moral doesn't follow.
[*] This comment should not be taken to mean that in the opinion of the present author, everything which is illegal in every and any society is ipso facto immoral.
Can, but not necessarily should. Societies which move sufficiently far in that direction are called "totalitarian".
And there is another too far in the other direction, although no one wants to mention that.
Why not? The dimension that we are talking about is the sync -- or the disconnect -- between morality and legality. If this disconnect is huge, the terms used would be "unjust" and "arbitrary". Historically, such things happened when a society was conquered by someone with a significantly different culture.
What I was talking about was the larger but less noticeable part of the iceberg of morality.
If you, perhaps, could be more explicit..?
Moral, or rather immoral, can also be used to mean "should be illegal". [*] Inasmuch as most people obey the law, there is quite a lot of morality going on. Your analysis basically states that there isn't much Individual, supererogatory moral action going on. That's true. People aren't good at putting morality into practice,, which is why morality needs to buttressed by things like legal systems. But there is a lot of unflashy morality going on...trading fairly, refraining from violence and so on. So the conclusion that people are rarely moral doesn't follow.
[*] This comment should not be taken to mean that in the opinion of the present author, everything which is illegal in every and any society is ipso facto immoral.
Ah, I see.