I think we each have been misunderstanding each other's points a wee bit here.
When I said you were treating morality as a *meme*, I was referring specifically to the line I had just quoted,
"But riddle me this, have the Sawi people amounted to anything? Have their moral system spread? Have they dominated a continent as Christianity did Europe?"
The rest of my post 80 was concerned with refuting the idea that morality was merely a meme.
In other words, the line "Why should I accept your morality" was mimicing what a holder of one moral system would say to another, if he accepted the idea that morality were a meme. Obviously, the stronger meme will win out in the end, so why fight or persuade?
And implicit -- but not necessarily valid -- is the idea that the meme "whose star is in the ascendant", the one whose adherents are most forcefully pushing it, or most successful at the moment, must be "the *right* one" since it is winning out by natural selection.
I did read #69, and it did inform my opinion., But not quite as you just said; I realized what Joebuck said in #69 was sarcasm towards you, but since you didn't take pains to refute his charge, I thought you were tacitly confessing to holding a Darwinian view towards ethics themselves; hence my mention of "memes."
One other question -- you replied to the question "why should I accept *your* belief system" in earnest, so I'd like to follow up...
What do you mean "it works better": for whom? Nazism worked pretty good for the Nazis, if only Hitler hadn't been dumb-ass enough to invade Russiah whilst equipping his troops with only light summer gear, and insisting repeatedly on ignoring his generals' advice (see also Stalingrad and Kursk). And on the other foot, Communism did a pretty good job of holding sway in Russia. By what rule do you differentiate between ideologies which work well by stepping on others, and those that preach mercy and cooperation? It seems you can get different answers to "which one works better?" by varying the scope of the test, from an individual playgound to a country to a geopolitical bloc to the entire race. Lots of people in Africa are getting *screwed* by the rest of the world -- if only by neglect and unintended consequences: where do you weigh in with the victims of an ideaology, even (or especially) those who are not active practitioners?
"There are an infinite number of others which (as far as I know) are more likely to be true." Exactly so.
This makes little sense to me, as my remark was not in earnest -- unless by "differing morality" you are thinking of taking specific moral strictures ("do not kill EVER" vs. "do not MURDER" vs. "only if you catch the SOB in bed with your wife" vs. "kill all non-Aryans" vs. "Durka durka! Mohammed jihad!") for violence, ("celibacy forever" vs. "sex only for children, with your wife, and only in the missionary position" vs. pagan revelry vs. San Francisco vs. controlled breeding from any number of science fiction stories) for sex, etc. etc. through all the categories: and applying combinatorial methods to arrive at the best overall configuration.
Please explain...?
Cheers!
See #72. I didn't feel a need to refute his strawman.
Allow me to repeat myself - IMO moral systems are not merely a meme. That's not to say it isn't a meme, which I understand to mean a unit of culture. Obviously morality is that but it is more. Some units of culture like money are pure social inventions. Morality isn't pure social invention. I think morality is based on values of innate human nature.
What do you mean "it works better": for whom? Nazism worked pretty good for the Nazis,
In fact I don't think it did. For example, oppression of the Jews caused many German scientists to emigrate to the US. These scientists invented the atom bomb which would certainly have defeated Germany had the European war lasted a little longer.
But you're missing a key point. Moral systems should be weighed by the totality of their effects. Do you think Germans were happy under the Nazis or Russians et al under the Communists? I don't.
An in principle test of "works better" could go like this: if well-informed people can choose between two cultures where all else is equal except for the moral systems, which do they choose? That "all else equal" part keeps it from being a sure-fire practical test, but we can often get close enough. Was the function of the Berlin Wall to keep Westerners out or East Germans in?
[There are an infinite number of others which are more likely to be true] makes little sense to me...
Yes I had in mind the variations you mention and more. I can see how I confused you though. Where it says "more likely to be true" I had read "just as likely to be true."
I will try to be clearer. If your criterion is Truth, you are doomed to fail because Real Truth is unknowable. My suggestion is to settle for always trying to make things better but knowing someitmes you may mess up. People are fallible and irrational. Error is unavoidable. Your logic was wrong or there were unintended ill effects or criteria that worked so well in the past don't any more. But errors can be corrected and even good situations can be improved. I think that's what we should aim for.