Form: Quote Commentary

ECONOMICS OF INTER-GROUP AND INTRA-GROUP MORALITY

by Micah Pezdirtz

(flawless, brilliant)

—“Morality describes good in-group behavior. The in-group defines the limit of moral utility. Outside of the in-group, “moral” actions cease congruence with moral actions within it (betraying outsiders does not carry the same cost as betraying your kin).

Westerners have a proclivity to universalize the in-group in part due to the particular pro-social behavior selected for by ice age survival conditions. Easterners have evolved differently, where in-group members demand morality towards each other and demand immorality towards outsiders.

Reciprocity completes the moral system. A Hegelian synthesis, if you will, of the universalist hypothesis and dualist antithesis. A problem we face switching over to Reciprocity comes from the counter selection factors from both groups: to the universalist, reciprocal behavior violates the silver rule (do not do unto others what you would not have done unto you); to the polymoralist, reciprocal behavior accepts costs to the in-group instead of transference to out-groups.

Monomoralists bear costs rightfully owed by out-groups and polymoralists impose costs rightfully due by in-group. So how does this relate to scale? Scale does not only present an explosively high quantity of group members, in and out, but an explosively high quantity of groups. Calculation costs of identifying groups individuals belong to as well as identifying a spectrum of group allegiance to hostility becomes completely heuristically impossible for any practical effectiveness. which may explain why Polymoralism has gained an upper hand (focus on in-group identity, plunder all others) but it destabilizes itself over time as all other out-groups eventually unify against them.” –

(via Brandon Cheshire )Updated Nov 20, 2019, 10:56 AM