To quote from Paul Graham's essay Beating the Averages:
> "As long as our hypothetical Blub programmer is looking down the power continuum, he knows he's looking down. Languages less powerful than Blub are obviously less powerful, because they're missing some feature he's used to. But when our hypothetical Blub programmer looks in the other direction, up the power continuum, he doesn't realize he's looking up. What he sees are merely weird languages. He probably considers them about equivalent in power to Blub, but with all this other hairy stuff thrown in as well. Blub is good enough for him, because he thinks in Blub."
I have a theory that this applies to progressivism or moral frameworks or whatever you want to call it. Let's suppose we were to re-write the above quote to apply to morality.
> "As long as our hypothetical practitioner of the Blub moral framework is looking down the moral continuum, he knows he's looking down. Moral frameworks less advanced than Blub are obviously less just, because they're missing some assumptions about people's rights and obligations that he's used to. (Don't they know that slavery is wrong? And obviously lying and stealing are right out under most circumstances.) But when our hypothetical Blub practitioner looks in the other direction, up the moral continuum, he doesn't realize he's looking up. What he sees are merely weird rules. He probably considers them about morally equivalent to Blub, but with all this other hairy stuff thrown in as well. (Intersectionality? Critical race theory? And people keep adding extra letters at the end of LGBT? Is this all a bunch of made-up nonsense, posturing, and virtue signalling?) Blub is good enough for him, because he thinks in Blub and lives in a world where Blub applies to situations that correspond to his real-life personal experience."
This isn't to say that critics of complicated moral frameworks are always wrong. Sometimes people really do get caught up in virtue signalling and posturing. But I think these complicated moral frameworks are usually a reaction to real injustices, and sometimes it's worth standing up to oppose an injustice. Knowing when or how to do that can be complicated though. Moral crusades can themselves cause tribalistic behavior, exclusion, and intolerance of honestly held opinions, which can also be another kind of injustice.
> "As long as our hypothetical Blub programmer is looking down the power continuum, he knows he's looking down. Languages less powerful than Blub are obviously less powerful, because they're missing some feature he's used to. But when our hypothetical Blub programmer looks in the other direction, up the power continuum, he doesn't realize he's looking up. What he sees are merely weird languages. He probably considers them about equivalent in power to Blub, but with all this other hairy stuff thrown in as well. Blub is good enough for him, because he thinks in Blub."
http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html
I have a theory that this applies to progressivism or moral frameworks or whatever you want to call it. Let's suppose we were to re-write the above quote to apply to morality.
> "As long as our hypothetical practitioner of the Blub moral framework is looking down the moral continuum, he knows he's looking down. Moral frameworks less advanced than Blub are obviously less just, because they're missing some assumptions about people's rights and obligations that he's used to. (Don't they know that slavery is wrong? And obviously lying and stealing are right out under most circumstances.) But when our hypothetical Blub practitioner looks in the other direction, up the moral continuum, he doesn't realize he's looking up. What he sees are merely weird rules. He probably considers them about morally equivalent to Blub, but with all this other hairy stuff thrown in as well. (Intersectionality? Critical race theory? And people keep adding extra letters at the end of LGBT? Is this all a bunch of made-up nonsense, posturing, and virtue signalling?) Blub is good enough for him, because he thinks in Blub and lives in a world where Blub applies to situations that correspond to his real-life personal experience."
This isn't to say that critics of complicated moral frameworks are always wrong. Sometimes people really do get caught up in virtue signalling and posturing. But I think these complicated moral frameworks are usually a reaction to real injustices, and sometimes it's worth standing up to oppose an injustice. Knowing when or how to do that can be complicated though. Moral crusades can themselves cause tribalistic behavior, exclusion, and intolerance of honestly held opinions, which can also be another kind of injustice.