this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025
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The only reason that “morals are deeply contextual” is that average people are dumb as shit in all the ways that matter. Moral reasoning is similar to mathematics, but whereas we have formalized math, which people study in school for 12+ years (and are still terrible at it), morality is a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants-and-do-your-best endeavor.
That’s why there’s such a discrepancy between the opinions of ethicists and those of average people. Why we had slavery for 10,000 years, why Trump was elected. Why billionaires, religions, and cruise ships exist. Because average people are dumb as shit in all the ways that matter, and no discipline in the world reminds us just how close the average human is to a mindless animal than ethics.
We had slavery for thousands of years because the enlightenment occurred only a few hundred years ago and it brought about the concept of liberalism (not like liberal/conservative but liber like short for liberty or liberate - meaning freedom). Up until that point there was only basic pathos that would allow people to feel bad for a slave's conditions but usually not to the extent that it would lead to a full abolition movement.
Yes. There were countless folks of every generation since time immemorial begging their fellow humans to use basic reasoning to see the evil of their actions. To no avail. It took thousands of years of social progress and education to convince (a plurality of) people of the most rudimentary and blatant moral facts. Because the average human is dumb as shit about everything that matters.
There have always been societies that didn't have slavery, they have happened on every continent (except that one) and in every sufficiently long era.
Are you a vegan by chance?
I feel like that's the next big moral shift. People lionize dogs and cats, and harming one makes you literally Hitler. But there's not a lick of difference between a dog and a cow.
I think that an objective ethicist would absolutely say veganism is the only moral choice, and that anyone who isn't a vegan is knowingly participating in unimaginable cruelty.
But in our current context, only a small fraction of people care. Including a lot of people who look down on people of the past for not being as amazingly moral as they are.
I mean, in the end an animal is an animal. I have had cats and dogs and don't really like to see them hurt because (in the West) there is no purpose for their existence besides being pets.
Cows and livestock, on the other hand, only exist for food and we keep breeding them for that.
At the same time, is don't really see a problem with the cultures that eat cats and dogs, in the end, it's all just animals and it doesn't matter if I think that some of them look cuter than others
dogs can be housebroken
Cows can be housebroken.
so I have learned