Morality is subjective preference, but it can be objectively wrong

People are often unwilling to think of ethics as their own preferences, rather than demands from something more transcendent. For instance it's normal to claim that one really wants to make one choice, but it's only ethical to make the other. My feelings agree, but my thoughts don't. If I follow something I call ethics, that demonstrates that I want to. It's not a physical law. So what's the difference?

Just that. Ethics is a preference for fulfilling preferences attributed to some other source. Popular external sources of values include Gods, nature, other people, transcendent moral truth, group norms, and leaders. If I prefer for your house not to burn down I will turn on the hose. If I think it's moral to stop your house burning down I will turn off the hose if I find out that you want to burn it down to collect insurance money. I care about your values, not the house.

One demonstration that having an external source is important for ethics is the fact that invented ethical systems (such as, 'playing video games is virtuous') seem illegitimate and cheaty. Crazy seeming practices can be ordained by religion and culture, but if you decide independently that it's only ethical to eat cereal on Thursdays and most will feel you are missing the point and some marbles.

While ethics is a matter of choice then, it implies the existence of your preferred outside source of values. This means it can be wrong. The outside source of values might not exist, or might not have values. This is why evidence about evolution can influence whether a person likes gays marrying, despite it being an apparent value judgement.

This means moral intuitions aren't as useful as they seem for information about how to be moral. Gut reactions are handy for working out what you like, but if you find that you like serving someone else's purposes there is factual information about whether they exist or care to take into account. We have better ways to deal with facts than our emotional responses in most realms, so why not use the same here?

The only things that exist and care that I know of are other people and animals. Gods and transcendent values don't exist, and society as a whole and the environment don't care, as far as I know. So if I want to be ethical, preference utilitarianism (caring about other people's preferences) is my only option. Of course I could prefer not to be ethical at all. And I could prefer to follow what pass for other moral rules; being honest, protesting interference in the environment, keeping my dress long. But if these things benefit only my feeling of righteousness, I must admit they are no different to normal personal preferences. If you want to be ethical, these are probably not what you are looking for any more than 'it's virtuous to play video games' is.

Be your conformist, approval seeking, self

People recommend that one another 'be themselves' rather than being influenced by outside expectations and norms. Nobody suggests others should try harder to follow the crowd. They needn't anyway; we seem fairly motivated by impressing others and fitting in. Few seem interested in 'being themselves' in the sense of behaving as they would if nobody was ever watching. The 'individuality' we celebrate usually seems designed for observers. What do people do when there's only themselves to care? Fart louder and leave their dirty cups around. This striving for unadulterated selfhood is not praised. Yes, it seems in most cases you can get more approval if you tailor your actions to getting approval. So why do we so commonly offer this same advice, that we don't follow, and don't approve of any real manifestation of?

Explain explanations for choosing by choice

A popular explanation of why it's worse to seem stupid than lazy is that lazy seems like more of a choice, so not permanent. Similarly it seems more admired and desired to have innate artistic talent than to try hard despite being less naturally good. Being unable to stand by and let a tragedy occur ('I had no choice!') is more virtuous than making a calm, reasoned decision to avoid a tragedy.

On the other hand, people usually claim to prefer being liked for their personality over their looks. When asked they also relate it to their choice in the matter; it means more to be liked for something you 'had a say in'. People are also proud of achievements they work hard on and decisions they make, and less proud of winning the lottery and forced moves.

The influence of apparent choice on our emotions is opposite in these cases, yet we often use it in the explanation for both. Is percieved level of choice really relevant to anything? If so, why does it explain effects in opposite directions? If not, why do we think of it so soon when questioned on these things?

A puzzle

What do these things have in common? Nerves, emotions, morality, prices.

Obvious identity fail

Paul Graham points out something important: religion and politics are generally unfruitful topics of discussion because people have identities tied to them.

An implication:

The most intriguing thing about this theory, if it's right, is that it explains not merely which kinds of discussions to avoid, but how to have better ideas. If people can't think clearly about anything that has become part of their identity, then all other things being equal, the best plan is to let as few things into your identity as possible.

This seems obvious. For one thing, if you are loyal to anything that incorporates a particular view of the world rather than to truth per se, you have to tend away from believing true things. 

Ramana Kumar says this is not obvious, and (after discussion of this and other topics) that I shouldn't care if things seem obvious, and should just point them out anyway, as they're often not, to him at least (so probably to most). This seems a good idea, except that a microsecond's introspection reveals that I really don't want to say obvious things. Why? Because my identity fondly includes a bit about saying not-obvious things. Bother. 

Is it dangerous here? A tiny bit, but I don't seem very compelled to change it. And nor, I doubt, would be many others with more important things. If you identify with being Left or Right more than being correct to begin with, what would make you want to give it up? 

Ramana suggests that if having an identity is inescapable but the specifics are flexible, then the best plan is perhaps to identify with some small set of things that impels you to kick a large set of other things out of your identity. 

What makes people identify with some things and use/believe/be associated with/consider probable/experience others without getting all funny about it anyway?

As a side note, I don't fully get the concept. I just notice it happens, including in my head sometimes, and that it seems pretty pertinent to people insisting on being wrong. If you can explain how it works or what it means, I'm curious.

Constrained talk on free speech

I went to a public lecture last night on the question 'How do we balance freedom of speech and religious sensitivity?'. It featured four distinguished academics 'exploring legal, philosophical and cultural perspectives'. I was interested to go because I couldn't think of any reason the 'balance' should be a jot away from free speech on this one, and I thought if smart people thought it worth discussing, there might be arguments I haven't heard.

The most interesting thing I discovered in the evening was that something pretty mysterious to me is going on. The speakers implicitly assumed there was some middle of the road 'balance', without addressing why there should be at all. So they talked about how to assign literary merit to The Satanic Verses, how globalization might mean that we could offend more people by accident, whether it is consistent with other rights to give rights to groups, what the law can do about it now, etc. That these are the pertinent issues in answering the question wasn't questioned. Jeremy Shearmur looked like he might at one point, but his argument was basically 'I think I'd find Piss Christ pretty offensive if I were a Christian - it's disgusting to me that anyone would make it anyway - and so ignorant of Christianity'. More interesting discussion of the question could be found in any bar (some of it was interesting, it just wasn't about the question).

What am I missing here? Is it seriously the consensus (in Australia?) that censorship is in order for items especially offensive to religious people? Is there some argument for this I'm missing? What makes the situation special compared to other free speech issues? The offense? Then why not ban other things offensive to some observers? Ugly houses, swearing, public displays of homosexual affection.. The religion? Is there some reason especially unlikely beliefs are to be protected, or just any beliefs that claim their own sacredness? Are these academics afraid of something I don't know about? Is it much more controversial than I thought to support free speech in general? Or is the question just a matter of balancing the political correctness of saying 'yay free speech' and of 'yay religious tolerance'?

Romance is magical

People seem to generally believe they have high romantic standards, and that they aren't strongly influenced by things like looks, status and money. Research says our standards aren't that high, that they drop if the standard available drops for a single evening, and that superficial factors make more of a difference than we think. Our beliefs about what we want are wrong. It's not an obscure topic though; the evidence should be in front of us. How do we avoid noticing? We're pretty good at not noticing things we don't want to - we can probably do it unaided. Here there is a consistent pattern though.

Consider the hypothesis that there is approximately one man in the world for me. I meet someone who appears to be him within a month of looking. This is not uncommon, though it has a one in many million chance of happening under my hypothesis, if I look insanely hard. This should make me doubt my hypothesis in favor of one where there are several, or many million men in the world for me. What do I really do? Feel that since something so unlikely (under the usual laws of chance) occurred it must be a sign that we were really meant for each other, that the universe is looking out for us, that fate found us deserving, or whatever. Magic is a nice addition to the theory, as it was what we wanted in the relationship anyway. Romantic magic and there being a Mr Right are complimentary beliefs, so meeting someone nice confirms the idea that there was exactly one perfect man in the world rather than suggesting it's absurd.

I can't tell how serious anyone is about this, but ubiquitously when people happen to meet the girl of their dreams on a bus where they were the only English speaking people they put it down to fate, rather than radically lowered expectations. When they marry someone from the same small town they say they were put there for each other. When their partner, chosen on grounds of intellectual qualities, happens to also be rich and handsome their friends remark at how fortune has smiled on them. When people hook up with anyone at all they tell everyone around how unlikely it was that they should both have been at that bus stop on that day, and how since somehow they did they think it's a sign.

We see huge evidence against our hypothesis, invoke magic/friendly-chance as an explanation, then see this as confirmation that the original magic-friendly hypothesis was right.

Does this occur in other forms of delusion? I think so. We often use the semi-supernatural to explain gaps caused by impaired affective forecasting. As far as I remember we overestimate strength of future emotional responses, tend to think whatever happens was the best outcome, and whatever we own is better than what we could have owned (e.g. you like the children you've got more than potential ones you could have had if you had done it another day). We explain these with 'every cloud has a silver lining', or 'everything happens for a reason', or 'it turns out it was meant to happen – now I've realised how wonderful it is to spend more time at home', 'I was guided to take that option - see how well it turned out!' or as happens often to Mother; 'the universe told me to go into that shop today, and uncannily enough, there was a sale there and I found this absolutely wonderful pair of pants!'.

Supernatural explanations aren't just for gaps in our understanding. They are also for gaps between what we want to believe and are forced by proximity to almost notice.