Hacker News Reader

Comment by masswerk | Hacker News Reader

I think, a decisive factor in this may be whether you believe in ethics arising from human nature or in an external source of truth and morality.

In the latter case, loyalty, authority and sanctity become important factors for a community, which gathers around preserving and promoting this essential message, while, if you believe in the former, these very "virtues of aggregation" may become a threat of twisting and perverting the very truths that lie in all of us (as we may have seen it exploited in fascism). Even more so, as ethics arise from synthetic judgements a priori, proper thinking and the legitimacy of propositions become important in itself. While, if truth and morality are external, someone who is in the wrong is just someone not yet touched by truth, here, wrongness becomes a state of both intellectual and moral corruption that endangers the very principles of society.

View on HN

>... if you believe in the former, these very "virtues of aggregation" may become a threat of twisting and perverting the very truths that lie in all of us (as we may have seen it exploited in fascism).

This is a great point, and Haidt does acknowledge these "virtues of aggregation" can be and have been hijacked. Case in point, facism which labels as "hive psychology scaled up to grotesque heights." It's undeniable that dictators, cult leaders, etc. have exploited what he terms the "hive switch" but is that reason enough to completely do away with it, especially given its innateness as a groupish especies and its main function as a social adhesive?

Personally, I think this is the great hiatus in moral philosophy, which is hard to bridge, maybe even impossible to mend. It's pretty much what divides the factions of Platonists and Aristotelians: is there a hierarchy to principles and virtues, and, if there's any, what is it? Like the divide over credo ut intelligam ("I believe so that I can understand/reason") or intelligo ut credam ("I reason so that I can believe") in the middle ages. (Abaelard's generally accepted formula of credo et intelligam was more an appeasement than a solution to this.) – Are there higher principles to keep those, which are really ancillary, in check? E.g., if we stick to the "virtues of aggregation" and an external origin of truth, is there a too much of individualism, of intellectual reasoning, which will inevitably spoil the only truth, which has come upon us as that most precious message, in what must end in utter heresy? Or, conversely, have we to keep in check any messages of faith and any claims arising from this by a critique of judgement, as this is our only anchor?

(The current discussion about woke and anti-woke is really pretty much the same it had been in 1100 AD. It's just that we seem to have forgotten the virtues and necessity of what may be called "Abaelard's great appeasement".)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com