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The societies that dominate others through violence need an even more advanced moral system around killing than those that don't. "Killing is wrong" is enough t
by Talanes 5y ago
The societies that dominate others through violence need an even more advanced moral system around killing than those that don't. "Killing is wrong" is enough to get some basic internal stability around, but to start pillaging your neighbors you need a moral code with loopholes.
- rramadass 5y agoThere is nothing called "Advanced" Moral System, just "Different" ones. "Morality" is entirely Subjective and evolves over Time. Thus it can be used to do and justify anything.
- Talanes 5y agoThere's not such thing as a society without a moral against killing, so we're far in the reaches of conjecture and theoretical here. I didn't mean "Advanced" in any sort of value judgement way, but just in terms of complexity. "Never kill people" is a much simpler axiom than "never kill people, except for in these specific circumstances where it's good to kill people instead."
- rramadass 5y agoThere is a very big difference between Morals which arise directly from a sense of self-preservation vs. those which are needed to build a stable/cooperative/just society. Eg: Thou shalt not Kill vs. Thou shalt have only one wife. They are two very different things. I am talking about the latter which is context-specific and malleable. The former i don't consider as a "Moral" but as a direct corollary of the instinct for self-preservation.
- Talanes 5y agoI'd honestly swap your examples around. "Thou shalt not Kill" provides for stability that enables for long-term societies to develop. "Thou shalt have only one wife" just sounds like a rule made up by someone who wouldn't have a wife if Jerry next door was allowed to have two.