Morality/Ethics As A Social Prestige Engine

I am not saying the following account exhausts the topic of morality or ethics, I am only saying for a strict empiricist the following account would be (an oversimplified introduction to a rough outline of a subset of…) the actually observable social effects of morality and ethics.

Basically, it is about prestige. When we argue we have a moral obligation to do X we are saying we should deduct prestige points from people who don’t do X. It is fairly obvious from the emotionally laden modern language of morals: “Am I a bad person for eating meat?” “Should I feel bad about eating meat?”

OK, throughout history this kind of modern, liberal emotivist (see Alasdair MacIntyre) language was not used much (besides, it sounds like woman-talk for me, somehow it does not sound like high-T men’s “locker room talk”, I suppose in more patriarchical ages talking like this would have been a prestige loss in itself for a man), but I think this a motive that was always there.(Obviously, arguing that God will punish you if you do X is not a moral argument, it is an argument about practical consequences, an argument to self-interest.) Talking about moral obligations without an obvious allusion to such consequences is the kind that is practically about prestige.

What makes this a bit confusing and maybe difficult to see at first is that the West is a guilt culture, not a shame culture.

As shame is basically low social prestige, it is fairly obvious how shame cultures really work like this.

For a guilt culture, the simplest explanation is that guilt is internalized shame, and thus the idea of moral obligation is internalized shame, internalized prestige loss, you feel bad about yourself if you did something bad, thus basically reduce your own prestige points in your head even if nobody else did.

This is probably a good thing, at some level. Installing a prestige policeman in everybody’s head. Well, it depends on exactly what gets policed. But on the whole it sounds eucivic.

Arguments about the moral justification of political ideas? They are arguments whether such political ideas should carry high prestige or not. The moral justification of coercion, a big topic for libertarians? It is basically about whether we should assign high prestige to our rulers.

Note that it has a clever and stable solution, if an odious one. The rulers simply follow the ideas of those other people who have high prestige. Intellectuals etc. They coerce us to  do precisely those things that would result in a prestige loss anyway if not done. In a voluntary ancap community, do you want to be That Guy who does not give alms to the poor? The social prestige consequences would not worth it.

Thus when coercers punish, they punish low-prestige people and guess what everybody thinks about that: “They had it coming!”  This is why from a power point of view the left-wing Cathedral is a stable structure, a stable equilibrium. To rule and coerce according to the ideas that high prestige people approve of is to sit safely and securely on your throne.  This is the basic rule every wannabee Machiavelli ends up inventing sooner or later. This is why libertarians are pretty hopeless without a systemic collapse. The rulers wield their borrowed prestige as a shield and are able to constantly sabotage the prestige of the libertarian opposition.

The Divine Command theory of morals is another stable equilibrium. We propose that God made the universe, us, and everything we love, and thus deserves infinite prestige. Praise The Lord and all that, religious services largely reduce to channeling prestige up to God. (“Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to thy name give the glory” is a good example of the prestige channel. ) Thus, everybody who disobeys God’s commands automatically suffers a huge prestige loss.  Every violation of socially agreed morality is a prestige loss, but this is really clever subset of it to make an infinite-prestige concept of God and basically hit every heretic over the head with this Prestige Nuke.  It is just WMD level of prestige weaponry and tends to work.

I am proposing that when and if people are atheists, they tend to formulate such Prestige Nukes, Black Holes Of Infinite Prestige Density anyway. As they are useful weapons. “Progress” ? “History” ? “The opinion of the international community” ?

It looks like our grand 400-year civilizational change called Progress or “swimming to the Left” is largely about coming from ages where rulers listened to high-prestige priests who derived their prestige from borrowing from God’s infinite prestige to moving towards ages where the rulers listen to intellectuals who seem to just have a lot of prestige on their own, without such an external source, although they tend to invent such makeshift external sources as “history’s judgement”.

Nevertheless, if morality practically works as a prestige engine, if the basic rule of stable, secure rulership is to listen to high-prestige people and follow their ideas, it is likely that every system will sooner or later take up this  equilibrium. Even if Righties take over after a collapse or anything.

Thus the only potential for true change is to change how prestige is assigned. I mean, prestige is assigned by e.g. socially valued achievements, but also by moral arguments, such as “we have a moral obligation to do X”, thus doing X is high-prestige and not doing Y is low-prestige.

Part of the story is what achievements people value. Have you noticed that in Ancient Greek legends and similar old stuff a man “dreaming of doing great deeds” would basically mean he would be excellent at slaughtering foes on the battlefield?

But moral arguments also play a role, as people who do things deemed immoral are shamed and seen as low prestige, meaning that they will be kept away from power, and others will not be very sympathetic if they get coerced and punished.

The important thing is not simply what we find something moral and immoral, as that is only a result, an outcome, but _how_. How we argue, how we use moral arguments.

Change the techniques of moral argumentation and you changed what deeds people find moral and immoral. Change what deeds people find moral and immoral and you changed who will get high prestige and who will get low prestige. Change who will get high prestige and who will get low prestige and you changed which way playing field of the game of thrones tilts.  Rulers entangled with high-prestige ideas and people are secure and safe, rulers entangled with low-prestige ideas and people are prone to getting toppled.

Of course, what achievements people value also matters. It probably mattered a lot that Einstein praised Socialism.

I am not really sure which aspect is more important. It could be that moral argumentation is the most important aspect, and even that kind of prestige that is assigned to socially valued achievement derives from that because it determines what achievements are valued.  Colonial empire builders of the Sir Cecil Rhodes type were lionized at one point of history and absolutely loathed at another point.

But it could also be that that objective circumstances determine what kind of achievement gets socially valued, and then morality just flows from that: whatever arguments or even rhetorical forms the current Officially Cool Guys just happen to prefer, gets accepted as the obviously correct moral argument and thus everybody argues like that to have that prestige rub off on them. This version actually sounds stabler.

One thing we may notice is that the West does not really value the large-scale transformation of nature through technology anymore (see environmentalism, which is precisely about lowering the prestige of the formerly high-prestige captains-of-industry thing), nor is there much of a war psychosis going on. You can only hate on the 1% as long as there is not this kind let’s-all-stick-together-against-the-common-enemy thing going on. So  currently social achievements are most valued if they are… altruistic? The invent a better water filter for Africa kind. The modern hero is the doctor. Or the activist.

Suppose this changed? Suppose asteroid mining or generally the economic utilization of celestial bodies would bring so immense wealth that industrialists, discoverers and homesteaders would get high-prestige again in an Age of Sail way? And thus whatever kinds of moral arguments they like would be seen as obviously correct? E.g.  space exploration would be immensely lucrative but also a  dangerous adventure, thus it would attract brave people, we would value bravery because of the wealth it brings, and if the brave space prospectors are asked about a moral opinion, they would say “we should not do X, because that is  a cowardly thing to do” and this would again sound like a very convincing way to argue and everybody else would argue like that, too?

Suppose we had a huge interstellar with with some alien species? Thus heroism and the rather dominant alpha-male attitude of succesful military generals would become respected again? Imagine a long drawn-out war with so much human losses that motherhood is once again seen high-prestige because we really need another generation of soldiers, and antinatalist feminists are seen as traitors to the human species? And whatever kinds of moral arguments the New Cool Guys would be seen as obviously correct?

Scott, this is not about wealth. Civs don’t move their morals on their own, as if by a market or evolution process. It is small groups of highly powerful and highly prestigious people who decide to give those values a push.  But, you may be right that objective conditions like wealth or national security may determine which group of people, what kind of achievement, gets socially prestigious and it all may flow from that.

Another idea. What if the West is moving away from its guilt traditions, towards shame? What if this swimming-Left is about that? In guilt societies it is more often “you did bad” and in shame societies it is more often “you are bad”. See this. I certainly hear more “you are bad” these days. I mean, for example, how many people on the Left think e.g. racists are essentially normal people with wrong views, as opposed being completely rotten people? Not many. Of course we are not much better in these kinds of things either. The spirit of the age is just more shame and less guilt. The more prestige fights we have, the more it is about shame and less about internalized guilt.

Maybe the Restoration would / should be about restoring guilt? But what kinds of conditions could do that? True guilt is about literal compassion, as in, it causes you literal pain to see that you have hurt someone who really matters to you.   Complete strangers halfway across the planet usually don’t, that is usually just posturing. Thus this should be contrasted with how  compassion is understood in modern times, as “being a good person with basic human decency” which is just about outwardly presented compassionate behavior as a way to gather prestige. How could we return to feeling actual pain, not just shame, over our actions? By retiring into the Dunbar Number? Clannishness?

Finally, let me remind the reader that I have not even tried to exhaust morality here. There are forms of morality where prestige plays a small role, like contractual ethics.