To go back to an earlier post.
It was because of the above response (that you don’t know why you think that it’s “morally unacceptable” to steal a car) that I brought up the purpose of morality. In the OP, you argued that our morality is “an expression of an aesthetic taste regarding the actions of humans”. Now, maybe you meant something different, but most people use the phrase “aesthetic taste” to refer to something that we couldn’t give a conscious explanation of or whatever. Why do I like this music? I don’t know; it’s just an aesthetic preference. But I contend that the purpose of morality is much deeper than that. It might come off as some sort of aesthetic taste or something, but it has a pretty important function.
To break through the semantic static, first it’s necessary to make a distinction between our moral thoughts and our moral feelings. I have moral thoughts. They’re usually from my understanding of Austrian economics or something similar. I think that we should have a certain law because of some reason or something. I think that it would be beneficial for everybody to interact in a certain way, but not in another way. To have a stable society, we must have secure property rights and stuff. I can’t think of any good examples, but hopefully you know what I’m talking about. But that’s not it. I also have moral feelings. I find it painful to watch somebody get hurt. If I see somebody get hit in the face, I feel literally feel their pain in my head. I find certain kinds of wounds absolutely disgusting. And so on. One process is conscious, and the other process is subconscious, but they’re about the same thing. In both cases, I come to a bunch of conclusions about how to interact with people.
Now, it’s not as sharp of a distinction as I’m making it sound. If somebody punched you in the face, I might feel your pain, but in itself that’s not a moral conclusion or something. So what would be a moral conclusion? Well, something like saying that I think that it would be bad to punch you in the face. But the point is that I might derive that conclusion perfectly from the fact that I would feel physical pain in my face if I actually did that. It would be a bad idea if only because I would feel your pain. So I might decide not to do it based solely on that idea. And I would call that a moral feelings. It runs directly from my idea that I would feel pain from doing it to my idea that I shouldn’t do it. But I could also come up with an elaborate economic argument for why we shouldn’t condone it. Property rights and whatever. And I could also consider that I would probably get in trouble if I did it, so that’s something. And so on. It’s always some sort of mixture of the two.
I mean, I suspect that you already understand this to some extent. For example, in your OP, you said that some recent research suggests that our moral sense (our moral feelings, I assume) was highly rational and stuff back in our primitive days, but that it’s a wreck in the modern world. And of course that would imply that there’s a standard to use to criticize our moral feelings. Maybe that standard is our moral thoughts? Of course. Our moral feelings could be more or less reliable or useful. At this point, they seem like a total wreck. Without a lot of conscious intervention (economics and so on), you would probably end up being another moron who helps prop of all of the bullshit. So it’s clear that you understand that there’s a standard to use to criticize your moral feelings. They can be more or less accurate. It could be a more or less reliable system. And because our cultural evolution has outpaced our biological evolution, it’s probable that it’s not very reliable.
But it’s as if you didn’t take that seriously at all. When you started talking about what morality actually is, you didn’t even show an inkling of that understanding. You just started talking about how it’s some sort of aesthetic taste, and how it’s like whether you like some sort of music or not. And that there are “pathological cases” for both. But doesn’t the word “pathological” include a negative value judgement? Yeah, and I’m pretty sure that you meant it that way too. So what’s so “pathological” about finding it pleasurable to go on a shooting spree or something? What if their ultimate goals really did suggest doing something like that? It wouldn’t be wrong from their point of view, so what’s the deal? Well, the deal is that you wouldn’t to be a part of it. You don’t want to die or anything, and you find having a safe environment and a bunch of people in your division of labor helpful. Or at least that’s probably the case. So it’s “pathological” in the sense that it would conflict with your interests. It would be different (one part of the definition of pathological), but it would also be undesirable (the other part of its definition). And of course it’s odd only because we wouldn’t even be here as a society if it weren’t. If more than a small percentage were violent pyschopaths, a stable society wouldn’t be feasible.
So why don’t you find it morally acceptable to steal a car? It’s probably because you simply feel as if it would be bad. You imagine yourself stealing one, but then feel a bunch of dissatisfaction at the prospect. Well, that’s fine. But it’s possible to question that, and wonder whether you’re being rational, right? Would it really be a bad idea? Well, that’s not really a fair question anyway. Of course it would be a bad idea, if only because you would probably get caught and stuff. Whatever. But we’re talking about something else anyway. Really it’s just that for a society to be stable, it has to have secure property rights and stuff. That’s why we call it a spontaneous order. All that you have is the choice between stealing it and maybe getting in trouble or something, and not stealing it and not getting in trouble or anything. You don’t really have any choices that have to do with anything ultimate or whatever. It’s the emergent order which controls those things, if you know what I mean. Nobody plans it (or could plan it); it just happens. The fact that you have these moral feelings and stuff is just a part of the system. If everybody has those feelings, the society will be more stable and stuff. And if there are certain laws (like against stealing cars), the same. It really has nothing to do with your choices alone. It’s a spontaneous order. All that you get to choose is how high or low your time preference is and other stuff. If it’s sufficiently low, you probably won’t try to steal anything.