I have a simple morality:
- I like feeling good.
- I don’t like feeling bad. (Suffering)
- I want other people to feel good.
- I don’t want other people to feel bad (to suffer.)
Most people have some of this as part of their morality.
How much is a matter of moral transitivity. How many people are part of three and four?
Let’s outline some variations:
The psychopath. Only my suffering and happiness matters.
The Patriarch/Matriarch. Only the suffering and happiness of me and my relatives matter.
The Back Slapper. The suffering and happeiness of me, my relatives, and my friends matters.
The Noble. The suffering and happiness of me, my relatives, my friends and my dependents matters. (Modern version is the good boss.)
The Aristocrat or Oligarch: Only the suffering or happiness of my class matters.
The Neoliberal Politician: Only the suffering of my family, friends and donors matters.
The Patriot. The suffering of my fellow citizens matters.
The Bigot. The suffering and happiness of people like me (my culture, skin color, religion or whatever) matters. I want people who are of inferior or enemy races to suffer and not be happy (reversal of 3 and 4.)
The Zionist: The suffering and happiness of Israeli Jews matters to me. I want Palestinians to be unhappy and suffer (and die.)
The Saint: the suffering and happiness of all humans matters to me.
The Boddhisattva: the suffering and happiness of all creatures capable of suffering or being happy matters to me.
It should be obvious that there are two variables here:
- How far your concern emanates.
- Who you reverse concern on. Who do you want to see suffer? (A lot of people who think they are good people want to see “criminals” suffer and feel virtuous for doing so.)
A third variable is degree. For most people concern vitiates with “distance.” They care most about themselves, then their family, then their friends, then people they know personally, then people like them (however they define that) and so on. For animals, mammals get a lot of concern, especially good looking ones, and non mammals get less with insects and so on falling into the exterminate them category.
What is your morality? Who does it apply to, and how much?